Subspecies.

Okay, back to Full Moon, I've done Trancers, I've done Robot Jox and its 'sequels' but these have all been Sci-Fi and Full Moon are much more famous for their horror movies and one of their most famous franchises was the Subspecies series, so much like Trancers, I'm now going to work my way through the entire franchise. Enjoy!

The franchise lasted from the year I was born until 1998. The director is Ted Nicolaou, if you're more familiar with the low budget scene, you've probably at least seen his name around - he directs every film in the series. This film was based on an original idea by Charles Band himself and one of the screenplay writers was Jackson Barr who would that same year write Trancers II and two years later would write Robot Wars - as you can probably tell, I'm not a huge fan of this guy, I don't think his ideas are always terrible, although Robot Wars was insanely stupid, I just don't think his ideas ever translate very well to film and that is a problem when writing screenplays is your job. The series was shot on-location in Romania and Nicolaou used a mixture of stop motion and rod puppets to get a specific look for the Subspecies creatures that he envisioned and this choice has been highly praised by critics. That being said, high praise was something the film never really got anywhere else, most people won't deny their entertainment value but you won't a lot see many critics actually saying these are any good. With that out of the way, let's dig in!

Just to get this out of the way, Subspecies references those little demon things on the poster. What do they have to do with anything? Nothing. I mean I know that as the Trancers series went along it got more and more contrived to eventually incredibly stupid to keep the trancers around but they were at least central in the first film. Not here though, Subspecies is literally just named after one of Radu's powers and one that is neither particularly useful or one he uses a whole lot, you could have called this film, 'long nails' and got the same effect.

Subspecies is once again for poor Jackson Barr an interesting story executed poorly. If they had kept it at the wide eyed uni students perspective as they wander around a superstitious Romanian town slowly realising more and more these stories of vampires are actually true and we as an audience learn this with them, it could have made for both a fascinating and quite a scary movie. I mean it's all there, the location, the actual Romanian's in the film etc it's got this whole backwater creepiness. However what we get treated too that our students don't, is scenes slotted between their quest for knowledge, these scenes are of the admittedly quite disgusting Radu with his strangely cute finger minions and it becomes apparent pretty quickly that the students place in the story is superficial at best and they could be swapped and changed with little impact. I know we're kinda used to vampires now anyway, but it makes it even less scary when we see our monster from the start of the film and is practically the main character. I mean I get the plot is wider than Radu with the whole bloodstone thing and vampire kings and what have you but I really think they went about all this the wrong way.

That isn't to say the story is perfect, however, Karl is a character who rants at Stefan about how he and his father should have killed Radu years ago. What we don't learn though until later in the film is that Karl has known Radu's location all along and since vampires sleep during the day in this film, his whole argument about not being able to get in close enough to stake him is bullshit. He should have killed Radu years ago while he slept, what a hypocritical bastard. And I know Radu ends up not being in his coffin but they never explain why he isn't there, if Karl had done it sooner this wouldn't have happened, everything bad that happens at Radu's hands is ultimately Karl's fault.

All jokes aside, I think the biggest problem with the story is that there is no sense of pace at all, nothing really gets much build up, it just kind of happens. I mean it's nice when a film just bloody gets on with it, but there is no pay off if they film doesn't at least tease us a little first.

Radu himself is easily the highlight of the movie. He has that horror icon feel like any of the other greats. Although to warn you, he really isn't like the vampires we have grown used too, he is revolting and really quite frightening. For all the bullshit people say about Edward Cullen, lots of other famous vampires are culprits of exactly the same things he is criticised for, Angel, Jerry Dandrige, Selene - I could write this list forever because this shit has been going on forever. So I found it truly refreshing that Radu was 100% monster. Luckily to balance it out for the ladies though Radu has a brother, Stefan, who with his haircut, looks closer to the Angel/Edward/Jerry vampire. You know what else Stefan has in common with Edward? A forced romance that really makes no Goddamn sense, yay!

I understand that much like with werewolves or really any other monster, vampire lore is vast and dramatically changes from culture to culture but most monsters have a set of central accepted rules and powers, Subspecies vampires clearly aim to reach wider than those as Radu is closer to a blood drinking Tall Man (no not that 2012 film, the Phantasm one and no I'm not going to link to that review, I honestly don't know why I posted that, it is horrible - although Angus Scrimm is in this movie! [for like three minutes but still...]) than really any modern vampire. Hell he even sleeps in a coffin, when was the last time they did that?! They also mix together the whole hallowed ground, invite me in thing. In Subspecies vampires can walk in anywhere but a Church, in a house of God they must be invited or they can't enter, that weakness would be practically obsolete these days, I guess you could always go hide in a mosque... Hell even the hunters get a new weapon in the form of rosary bead bullets, can't say I've heard that one before, not that it matters because Karl wastes them all, fucking Karl, I hate you Karl. Also despite all the stakes and holy bullets, it would seem that every vampire needs to have their head cut off to seal the deal.

 Although despite my love for Radu, I think his brother Stefan wins points for being the worst vampire ever, for getting trapped in a completely normal net. Can't he just tear through it? Or transform to get out of it? Or something? I mean you go through the process of setting up that vampires are a bitch to take down, then treat us to a scene of a vampire rolling around in a net. And it honestly says a lot about Radu, I suppose, that he ends up losing to this guy.

The whole hand puppet stop motion special effects thing...has aged horribly. I mean sometimes it doesn't look that bad but for the most part it's pretty awful. It isn't even the effect itself, well not always, sometimes it's just how goddamn cute the subspecies look which completely pulls you out of an otherwise pretty solid horror film. Sad really because that was where most of the praise went, well between that and the location. And about that location, oh God it's the Band family castle for Trancers 4 & 5 get away, get away!

Outside of the special effects Subspecies is a very interesting film visually. Nicolaou directs this film excellently, it isn't just the setting, there is just so much great imagery. Although the film is never truly scary as such, Nicolaou just knows how to create some truly great atmosphere thanks to some extremely clever staging. I love the way Radu moves, the scenes with Radu in the festival, the use of shadows, it's just an awesome looking movie and it really proves that if you know what you are doing, huge budget or not, you can make a beautiful looking movie - yeah I bet you never expected me to call one of these films beautiful, huh?! And of course I won't forgive myself if I don't at least credit Vlad Paunescu the cinematographer for this film. Great job guys, you put in more effort than you needed too and it pays off.

If you came for a silly little cheapo vampire flick, you'll be disappointed - Subspecies is both very dark and deathly serious. I know I've said in the past that Z-Grade cinema needs to laugh at itself to work well...Subspecies does work but it doesn't laugh at itself overtly. I mean there is goofiness in this movie and from what I've been reading, this is largely deliberate but for the most part this is a straight horror film and it plays in the films favour. It's the exception that proves the rule.

There isn't a whole lot of action in this movie, since this is pretty specific about being a horror film but I must say that I'm glad about that, because when the action starts... I mean the last fifteen minutes of action or so is okay, it isn't bad, but nothing spectacular either.

Before we close this, can we take a minute to talk about boobs? Look, I'm a man, I love boobs and I'm not going to be one of those reviewers who tries to look cool by having an extremely feminist bent for no adequately explained reason but in all seriousness the boob shots in this movie feel more exploitative than anything else. And made me really uncomfortable. Especially Mara, I like how the tears in her shirt ripped perfectly so both of her breasts were hanging out, I mean she has no injuries, it seemed all Radu wanted was to see her tits...

So do I recommend it? Look, generally I only really talk about what could have been, when the film itself is bad and Subspecies is great. It's true, I would have done the story differently but whatever, Subspecies is a great film that I think every horror fan should check out. Why isn't Radu a horror icon up with the other greats? Definitely not a vampire movie for Twilight fans, though! Although I like both so what do I know... Also, a vampire is defeated by a net, soak that up folks, soak it up...

Think About It!

-Locke