Director Anders Banke (John Howe: There and Back Again) tries to squeeze in too many things into this strange but delightful vampire flick: A historical legend in war-torn Sweden, a modern day Americanized teen flick with a tinge of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and awful CGI effects. But this, The Naked Gun of horror films, has enough dark humor to distract the audience from its haphazard filmmaking. It is corny, funny, dense and even a little frightening at times.
Annika (Petra Nielsen, TV’s Pentagon) has moved to the freezing north to work as a medical doctor in a small town hospital, with her reluctant 17-year-old daughter Saga (Grete Havenesköld) in tow. Annika’s inspiration is resident doctor and genetic expert Professor Gerhard Beckert (Carl-Åke Eriksson, TV’s Taurus) whom we are tricked into believing is a Dr. Van Helsing-like vampire slayer. But it is revealed later that Beckert is up to no good, crossing vampire and human genes to create a new breed of monsters, and creating pills that can do this.
In the same hospital, young punk doctor Sebastian (Jonas Karlström, Dödssyndaren), who at parties spikes cocktails with anesthetics, steals Beckert’s magic pills. These pills end up in the first party Saga is invited to. Soon enough the party is strewn with blood, chewed off arms and kids climbing the exterior of a massive house like lizards.
While Beckert represents a sort of mad scientist drawn from classic horror, director Anders Banke tackles every known vampire myth from protective garlics to high-collared priests and even inane talking animals that add to the film’s irreverence. This film has a little bit of everything and is about nothing really, but a smorgasbord of terror tactics. With a blonde child that hangs like a bat and bloody teenagers with fangs running amok, a pointless plot gives birth to a series of amusing scenarios lampooning the horror genre. This horror comedy is pure mindless fun, which is entertaining—if you’re into that sort of thing.
