For starters, the film's director is credited as Sergio Lapel in the credits. However, the director's real name is Onur Tukel. For some reason, I felt like starting this review out with that antecdote. Drawing Blood is a vampire film about an vampire artist. To help out with the premise, the film also features a very nice artistic visual style, while not taking too much away from the plot.
Edmond is a would-be artist. When he met up with an artist named Diana at her art gallery, he fell in love with her. However, the problem is that Diana is a vampire. She wanted to bite Edmond and make him forever hers, but he wasn't too fond of that, so she just made him be an apprentice to her art. Unfortunately, that means he's forced to find Diana homeless prostitutes that she can kill and use their blood to paint their portraits and then he has to dispose of the bodies. But after he falls in love with Dee, one of Diana's would be victims, he's had enough. With the help of his father, Edmond sets out to stop Diana and get the girl.
Drawing Blood is a great Troma release. Vampire purists may not be fond of the changes to the usual vampire myth, but who cares? The film uses a creative artistic style, featuring several cool dissolves and optical effects. The cast is great, talented, and likeable. The actor playing Edmond's father is hysterical and I honestly can't remember one performance that wasn't very good. The effects mostly sticks to fake blood, which looks fine. The only real downfall in the effects I can think of is a ridiculous looking computer generated fire effect that's used. Everytime I've ever seen CG fire, it's looked horribly stupid. Please filmmakers, invest in some matches and a fire extinguisher before risking your film to ridculous CG effects. Okay, I'm going off a bit too much on the CG fire effect. It doesn't really matter, considering how great the rest of the film is.
Drawing Blood is recommended to anyone who's in the mood for a different kind of vampire film. As mentioned in the Sucker: The Vampire review, these two films would make a wonderful double feature and I do believe Drawing Blood is in the $10 range, making the recommendation even stronger.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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