Kicking Blood – Thoughtful Vampire Flick
Director: Blaine Thurier
Writer: Blaine Thurier, Leonard Farlinger (Screenplay)
Starring: Alanna Bale, Luke Bilyk, Benjamin Sutherland, Ella Jonas Farlinger, Rosemary Dunsmore, Vinessa Antoine
Plot: When Anna, a centuries old vampire, watches Robbie, a charming but reckless young man, recover from his alcoholism, she decides to quit blood and restore her humanity.
Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Kicking Blood starts as we meet quiet librarian Anna (Bale) who is harbouring a dark secret, she is a vampire, who carefully selects her victims from society, people that have wronged people or the ones she sees as wasting their lives.
After selecting her next victim Robbie (Bilyk) a reckless alcoholic who wants to die, she starts to see a new vision for what she wants in life, even if that means turning her back on her fellow vampires Nina (Farlinger) and Boris (Sutherland).
Thoughts on Kicking Blood
Characters & Performances – Anna is a quiet vampire living in society as a librarian where she can fade into the background, as she looks to select her next victims in life, the worst members of society, she does have connections to more aggressive vampires that don’t care who they take. She decides to help an addict, which will see her look to make the ultimate decision to give up blood once and for all, in hopes of gaining her humanity again. Robbie is the addict who has been seeing him life fade away, willing to let Anna take away his suffering in life, until he is given a second chance to try and clean himself up and start again, something nobody else has given him before. Boris and Nina are fellow vampires who enjoy the hunt, they don’t seem to mind who they take as victims, keeping Anna around as part of their group of hunters, they see humans as nothing more than cattle. Alanna Bale does a fantastic job given us the withdrawn figure with any vicious side to the vampire in her, Luke Bilyk does great in the supporting role showing us a man trying to fix things, as well as accepting he has made mistakes. The supporting cast as strong too, with the performances giving us an interesting set of characters for Anna to interactive through the film.
Story – The story here follows a quiet vampire that goes about her business with little damage that decides she wants to give up blood, after meeting a human that wants to give up his life, showing how the two meeting will give both, a reason to live. When it comes to vampire related stories, we often get the violent bloodbaths, but when we get into a story that will see the pain of immortality, like ‘Let the Right One In’ we get to see a much more interesting side to a figure in horror that is often considered pure evil. Kicking Blood will give us this more complex and intriguing side to a vampire story, showing that this heartless monsters to some, will have hearts and want to love like the human they once were.
Themes – Kicking Blood is a fantasy horror that will focus more the concept that vampires can live normal lives around humans, with their own conflicts about surviving and facing immortality, than any of the horror side around being a vampire. This will use a big city for the location, showing how vampires could hide in society along side humans instead of hidden from them.
Final Thoughts – Kicking Blood is an interesting, well-paced look at the complex nature of a modern vampire.
