2024 Drained

• Directed by Peter Stylianou, Sean Cronin
• Written by Peter Stylianou
• Stars Ruaridh Aldington, Madalina Bellariu Ion, Craig Conway
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6xTd6rBvIA

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This was a pretty novel take on vampires and love, dependency and addiction. The casting is perfect, the script is well written, and all the technical aspects are top notch. Horrorguy Brian liked it some, Horrorguy Kevin liked it a lot.

Spoilery Synopsis

We see a man lying in a hospital bed with a vampire sucking on his arm. “Love is forever,” she says. Credits roll. 

Thomas is a struggling artist who lives with his mother. He’s dating John, a pest control man. Thomas is depressed, so he goes to a dance club. There, he spots a woman who looks like the one he’s been drawing repeatedly. He’s enthralled, and so is she. She’s Rhea. Two weeks later, Thomas is still thinking about Rhea. She doesn’t have social media. 

John announces at dinner that he’s moving in with Thomas and his mum. They’re kicking Thomas out. “I’m an artist, Mum!” “No, you’re lazy!” Even before he gets moved in, there are bills to pay, but Thomas doesn’t have a job. 

Thomas gets a call from Dana, his bartender friend; Rhea has returned. When he arrives, he finds her with another man. She catches up with him a bit later, alone. They go to his place, and he invites her in. 

She gets right down to business for sexy time, which surprises Thomas, who hasn’t done this much. By the time he gets to bed, she just wants to sleep. Thomas wakes up later to find Rhea biting his arm and sucking on the blood. She has fangs– vampire! “You taste amazing!” He hides in the bathroom, but she leaves him her home phone number. The bite marks on his arm heal very quickly. 

In the morning, Thomas is wary of sunlight, but he’s fine; it doesn’t hurt him. That night, she comes back, and he lets her in again. This time, he lets her suck his blood, and he likes it too, now. In the morning, she gets exposed to sunlight and screams; he freaks out, but she was just playing with him. Sunlight doesn’t bother her much. 

He asks her how she became a vampire, and she says, “You have to eat one’s heart. It was a long time ago.” 

Thomas starts having pretty serious money problems. His phone has no credits and the power is off. Rhea comes back again, “When the full moon comes, I won’t be able to control it.” They have more good times together. 

Every day, Rhea has to go home to tend to her boyfriend, who is not well. He invites her to live with him, and she agrees. They go see Andreas, the man we saw her feeding from in the opening scene; he’s dying. He has no regrets. He’s dying of old age… at 32. 

Thomas and Rhea visit Mum and John. They comment on how much weight Thomas has lost. Rhea doesn’t eat. Thomas gets a nosebleed, and Rhea licks the blood off his fingers, which Thomas’s parents think is… odd. 

One night, Thomas sees Rhea having some kind of seizure; she knows Andreas has died. She was visiting him and his heart stopped halfway through feeding her. 

Thomas is exhausted, but Rhea is hungry. He realizes that she’s slowly sucking the life out of him. She goes out for dinner. At the bar, he sees her with another guy, which results in a fight. 

Thomas passes out and goes to the hospital. His mother says there’s something not right about Rhea, and then they take him home. 

It’s the night of the full moon, and as Rhea screams in pain, so does Thomas, across town. John gets tired of having Thomas in the house, and they argue. John decides to go back to his apartment, which is where Rhea’s been staying. When John goes inside, Rhea eats him.  

Thomas goes over to the flat, as he’s worried about John. Rhea apologizes for killing John, but she’s still hungry. She grabs Thomas and flies away, but she ends up dropping him on a rooftop. 

He runs home and tells his mother that Rhea’s a vampire, but she thinks he’s on drugs. Rhea has mind control powers over Thomas, so he cannot help when Rhea kills his mother. 

Thomas is arrested for killing John and his mother. He swears Rhea the vampire girl did it, and they think he’s going for an insanity defense. 

Thomas is sent to an asylum where he meets a patient who also has bites. “They’re everywhere,” the man laughs. Thomas continues to have dreams and nightmares about her.  

The police tell Thomas that there’s no evidence that he killed anyone, so he’s free to go. One of the detectives warns Thomas to quit talking about vampires, and then he flashes his fangs. Thomas is released and goes home.

Thomas goes to John’s flat, where Rhea is chewing on Dana now. He points a knife at her, and she tells him to go ahead and kill her. “I don’t want this anymore,” she begs. 

The police saw Thomas with the knife, and the SWAT team arrives at the apartment.  They find Dana, unharmed, and Rhea, with her heart cut out. Thomas is eating it. He has fangs now and flies away… 

Brian’s Commentary

I don’t understand how Brits pay for electricity. They put a little money on a USB drive and plug it into the breaker box? Thomas was paying a few pounds here and there to keep the power on. 

Thomas is useless and pretty unlikable, and Rhea isn’t much better. The situation is interesting, and we were mostly following along just to figure out what the rules of these vampires are. 

It was a bit slow at times, but overall, I liked it more than disliked it. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I liked this one a lot. I thought the relationship was cool, how Rhea would keep a special donor to keep from killing as much for blood. And it explores the idea of how much was really love and how much was entrall from vampire powers.