- Directed by Chris Baugh
- Written by Chris Baugh, Brendan Mullin
- Stars Jack Rowan, Nigel O’Neill, Louisa Harland
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vssvkhvq6O0
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This has an Irish vampire, that supposedly Bram Stoker (who was Irish), based his famous story on. The problem is Dracula is fiction, and this one is real with all the different rules that it follows. There was a lot of dark comedy in this one, likeable characters, and gore. We’d call it a winner.
Spoilery Synopsis
An old couple whines about the boring TV. The old woman gets a bad nosebleed, and suddenly, his eyes start bleeding. They are both leaking badly. The door opens, and both of them start screaming…
Two months earlier, at the pub, Claire cuts off Eugene and his friend for non-payment. A couple of Canadian tourists come in, and they offer to lead them to the famous cairn safely for a price. The local legend talks about a real vampire who influenced Bram Stoker. That vampire was killed and buried in this very field. The tales say that whenever he came close to people, they would spontaneously bleed. Abhartach the vampire is supposed to be buried under this cairn.
They pull a prank and scare the Canadians away. The third friend, SP, points out that this whole field is scheduled for demolition and new bypass construction.
Eugene’s father Francie, gets a job working construction on the bypass, and Eugene points out that the locals are going to get really upset, and William’s parents are going to be evicted to make way for the project.
Eugene, William, and Claire drive to town and talk to George, William’s father and local mortician. They show George a skull that they found in a basement on their property.
William confides to Eugene that he plans to move to Australia soon. They get a little drunk at the pub and walk home through the field, fight, and William gets gored by a bull, right on top of the cairn. He bleeds heavily into the stones….
After the funeral, Thomas the bartender refuses to serve SP and Eugene, both because of William and because of ruining the cairn, the only reason tourists come to this little town.
Some time later, construction begins, and George comes to talk to Eugene. George warns him not to tear up the cairn, but Eugene has little choice and knocks the cairn down personally.
That night, Charlie the watchman hears something outside and investigates. Something we don’t see kills him. In the morning, everyone shows up on the site, Charlie is missing, and the cairn has been rebuilt.
That evening, Charlie returns, and he’s not healthy. No one actually sees it because it happens too fast, but they assume Charlie kills Gabriel. Claire kills Charlie, but he doesn’t die easily. Charlie’s got no heart at all, but he’s still not dying, at least until Claire buries him. Nope, he’s still moaning down there. They bury him with stones. That’ll do it, right? They all argue over whether it could be a real vampire.
Meanwhile, Gabriel’s blood runs across the field and into the cairn. The vampire rises from the Earth, so everyone runs to George’s house. Eugene snoops in George’s mortuary and George lets Eugene in on a secret. Turns out, George has a cell in his house, and it’s holding undead William. Yeah, George knows all about the vampires. Meanwhile, in town, people start seeing a strange tall man, and then they start to bleed.
George explains what happened as he was getting William ready for burial. He believes the stones over Abhartach’s grave is what turned William. George admits he infected Charlie with a stone and rebuilt the cairn, leaving Charlie to attack thinking they would have to cancel the construction project. How do they kill a vampire? This isn’t “Dracula,” this is real. The group sets a trap to kill William, but William’s mother gets in the middle of things, and he kills her– and George.
In town, we see the local policeman start peeing blood for no particular reason that he can tell, but we know why.
Back at the mortuary, the gang seals up William in one of the coffins. SP, however, gets disembowled and dies.
Eugene, Claire, and Francie deal with the problem. They bury William, coffin and all under a load of rocks.
In town, we cut to the old people we saw in the pre-credit sequence. They die badly. And others in town are being drained.
Eugene figures out that Abhartach is heading toward his dead mother’s farm, where he found that skull; that must have been his lair. He and Francie head over there and figure out that she had been related to the man who buried Abhartach way back in the day. That means Eugene is the last survivor of that family and Abhartach is going to be coming for him.
Francie knocks out Eugene and beheads Abhartach quite easily. When he goes to wake up Eugene, we see the head sliding across the ground to reconnect with the body. The vampire then comes after both of them all the way out to the barn.
The sun comes up, but Abhartach doesn’t even slow down. Sunlight doesn’t work either. Eugene pulls off Francie’s wounded leg and impales the vampire with it before burying him again.
In the morning, everyone in town wakes up with bloody noses.
Three months later, Eugene admits that he’s finally read “Dracula” and learned that killing vampires with sunlight was a more recent invention. Claire is leaving town for a long while and says goodbye. Francie’s hobbling around with a cane, but he’s doing much better now with a peg leg. Eugene goes to the barn’s basement and puts some more stones on the new cairn.
Brian’s Commentary
This is a unique vampire. Abhartach doesn’t bite people; the blood leaks out and finds its way to him. It’s a whole new vampire story where the regular rules don’t work. The story about Abhartach being the inspiration for Bram Stoker to write “Dracula” is said to actually be true.
It’s a new take on vampires, and there’s a lot of humor here. Overall, I liked it.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was cool how all the rules were different and it kept throwing off their plans. I also liked the humans in it and some over the top grossness. It’s a really good one.