Vampir

Vampir is a erie and hunting drama played out in a sinister and suffocating rural village in Serbia. The drama places the audience in the shoes of Arnaut, played beautifully and sensitively by the director, keeping his head down in the aforesaid village where a group of gangsters in London don't have a hope of tracking him down. Arnaut struggles to find some peace and isolation in an environment where the people are outwardly friendly, but gloomy and ominously uncanny. I had a very strong feeling of 'The Twilight Zone'.

The film is grim and macabre with excellent performances, whilst managing to show the beauty, style and distinct vibe of the rural villages of Yugoslavia. Excellent, and very enjoyable horror !!!

This film was part of the Screamdance section at Raindance Film Festival and I had a beautiful evening discovering this unique film there. The presentation was followed by a Q&A with writer/director Branko Tomovic and producer Jean-Louis Alexandre where they gave the audience insight information on how and why this film was shot.

It was interesting to hear that Vampir is deeply connected to Tomovic's upbringing and that haunting village really exists in real life. The film is about so much more than just a silly horror film with lots of scares. For those who understand what being an immigrant child means this film raises interesting topics about your heritage and being confronted by traditions and superstitions of the locals. All this is cleverly masked by the filmmaker with great local characters and suspenseful metaphors.

Tomovic did a great job in making you feel for the character, the entire story is told subjectively through Arnaut's eyes. The film makes you feel the isolation of that place, the loneliness and paranoia. The claustrophobia kicks in as there is no way out. It's beautifully shot and acted. A sensitive authentic subtle performance. The film's strength is the atmosphere and doom that slowly creeps in. Once you realise there is no escape it is too late.

A very promising film with great locations, and a decent story.

However the camerawork is shaky at best, and except for one or two acceptable locations it never shines or manages to pull off anything remotely scary.

Most of the scenes are shot in the daylight which does confuse the overall nature and intent of the film.

There are a plethora of vampire films out there to choose from, but this fails in almost every department which is a real shame.

The main characters performance is so wooden he could've staked the entire village in one sentence.

A shame really as this could've been something special.

This film has some really interesting and promising aspects to it but unfortunately fell just below average for me.

This one was a slow one guys... and I mean slow. Nothing super interesting happens until about 40 minutes in and nothing particularly exciting happens for another 20 minutes after that.

Aesthetically, this was super enjoyable and intriguing and this is what primarily carried the film for me. It had beautiful and atmospheric settings and shots throughout.

There wasn't a ton of dialogue in this, and when there was, it was clunky most of the time. So, I preferred when it was silent or in a foreign language the most.

All in all it just didn't give me enough of a story, and what it did give me was a bit confusing with a lot of unanswered questions. The positives were there, but unfortunately the negatives outweighed. Wouldn't recommend to most unless you're looking for something aesthetically pleasing.

Brooding folk horror from Serbia (with an English script) as a familiar tale is given a downbeat (not sparkly not glamorous) vampire in a small rural village.

The central character arrives to look after a cemetery, but its not long before rumours of the undead begin to affect his dreams.

Beautiful simplicity without many of the sfx or hammy performances we've cone to expect from vampires. Dark and delightful soundtrack too.

The main story is told by a handful of characters, but the villagers (living and dead) create an otherworldly environment to scare our hero. But is he a Harker, a Van Helsing or a Renfield?