Dead & Beautiful

I'm not sure what I expected in a 'Shudder' movie. But this wasn't it! I love the Asian ladies and downloaded it just because of the cover shot and the Vampire mention. What I got was just utterly ridiculous and insulting. There was no plot. Just spoiled rich kids and randomness.

Vampirism has always been a moral parable about the wealthy, and sometimes the old (i.e. Eternal life) feeding on the poor and the young.

So, to recap, this is a painfully obvious, lame "social experiment" about a bunch of bored narcissists and sociopaths with more money than sense to see how far they'll degrade into violence and cruelty if they imagine they're vampires.

What is new about this? Aside from the global cast (three Asian people and two Europeans) and the 21st century backdrop this is the same old story rehashed for a new generation. In fact, it's worse than that, because it's just so obvious unless you're a kid or slow on the uptake.

This film essentially involves five young adults who happen to be exceeding rich and extremely bored discussing ways to change their situation. With that in mind, one particular woman by the name of "Anastasia" (Anna Marchenko) comes up with an idea and they all head out into a remote part of the country to commune with nature. At least, that is what she initially planned as later that night they are met by a shaman who performs some type of ritual and then after inhaling some smokey substance they all drift into a deep sleep and start having vivid dreams. When they wake up they notice that the shaman is dead from apparent bite marks on his neck and that they all have suddenly grown sharp fangs. Needless to say, this terrifies them and they quickly head back to the city to discuss this sudden turn of affairs with one in particular named "Alexander" (Yen Tsao) wanting to fully embrace his vampiric self-with all that that entails. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I just happened to stumble upon a review of this film by a prolific writer on IMDb and even though his critique was less than enthusiastic I thought I would check it out for myself. After all, the poster and the overall story looked quite interesting and I wanted to see if there was something he might have missed. Well, it turns out his overall assessment was correct for the most part as this film happened to be both long and incredibly boring. It did have some good points, however, as the camera work was exceedingly good and Aviss Zhong (as "Lulu") was not only remarkably attractive but fit the part quite well too. Even so, the film itself never seemed to really go anywhere. Likewise, the ending was totally botched and I was left with more questions than answers. Having said that, while I don't consider this movie to be terribly bad, it clearly didn't realize its potential and I have rated it accordingly.

I guess now we know why its in the Horror genre for all the people wondering. Its cheap at $9.99 but i don't think is worth the effort or money.

The cinematography looks great but thats it. Just watch the Trailer and you will see they didn't even bother on explaining what the he11 this movie was about.

This is one of those movies where you read the synopsis and feel, oh it should be a good one. But , I was really disappointed in it after watching this yesterday on Shudder. It's got everything, good looking actors, a decent budget, a story which could've been better on screen but all falls flat. No action, No thrill, No horror,bland screenplay ruins it and makes it almost unwatchable.

Nothing more to say about this , different take on the Vampire genre whichever never feels different.