Blood On The Highway

R1 DVD

Web: http://www.bloodonthehighway.com/

I have seen enough conventional vampire movies to make the genre seem a bit tired but this one soon got my interest. Everything is turned upside down in directors’ Blair Owens’ and Barak Epstein’s crude and tasteless indie vampire story. There is the compulsory trio of twentyish kids off on a road trip to a rock concert - the whiney Sam, who has the money, Carrie who is nominally Sam’s boyfriend but uses him for money and an outlet for her constant PMT-ish tantrums, and Bone, Sam’s not-really friend who is the tough guy but seems a bit lacking in humanity.

They take the wrong turn (naturally) and end up in the little town of Fate. The population here is mostly vampires. They were infected somehow when a new local superstore opened. The townsfolk have got used to their new condition and exist quite happily, only becoming violent when fresh blood comes into town. Such as Sam, Carrie and Bone, who arrive conveniently after nightfall when the town is at its busiest. Sam manages to get repeatedly bitten and will, therefore, turn into a vampire after a lot of whining.

They are saved by Byron, a trigger-happy deranged survivalist, and accept the hospitality of his house just outside town where he has set up an “independent nation” called House-achussetts. Its population consists of Byron, his sex-mad trailer trash wife, and an annoying boastful cowardly young guy called Roy. Roy apparently has an inverted penis and becomes aggressive when his deformity is mentioned. It is hard to imagine a less sympathetic bunch of characters and I was starting by now to swing over to the vampires’ side.

The vampires decide to attack the house since they are sick of Byron reducing the town’s population. I liked the scene where a small group of younger vampires is standing on the front lawn sharing a joint and discussing rationally the best way to get in. Sam is still turning into a vampire and is starting to pose a danger to all of them. Byron is in favour of beheading him – slowly. Things look grim for the little group.

“We’re fucked like an autistic eight-year-old at a NAMBLA meeting”.

The film takes almost every cliché in the vampire genre and lampoons it. Intelligent, sensitive vampires? Antisocial rednecks who kill them? That’s my type of vampire movie.

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