Nerdly » ‘Vampirus’ VOD Review

27th Apr2022

‘Vampirus’ VOD Review

by Phil Wheat

Stars: Ashleymarie Jones, Michael Holding, Chanda Davetas, Rikki Lee Travolta, Sam Yeow, Kelly Marshall, Scott Harris | Written by John Lerchen | Directed by Ryan Ohm

So, pandemic movies… we’re being inundated with them now it seems, at least when it comes to low-budget indie movies but pandemic vampire movies? That’s something new. Vampirus is the first pandemic vampire movie to hit streaming services, as far as I know, and it’s a very interesting take on the vampire genre let alone on the pandemic.

Vampirus follows our vampire protagonist, Eva (Ashleymarie Jones) as she tries to find food in a city during lockdown, only to get “caught” dragging a body home to munch on (like she’s been to the supermarket and bought groceries) by her upstairs neighbour Ace (Michael Holding). Only it turns out she finds Ace weirdly attractive and he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact she a) brought a dead body home and b) is a vampire. The duo make for a very unlikely pair, with Ace helping Eva hunt prey during the pandemic… Well, that’s not when they’re sleeping together or Eva’s bizarrely daydreaming about killing Ace!

But that’s not all. You see Eva sees us. She sees the audience. She talks to us in a fourth-wall breaking way that Deadpool would be proud of. In fact at first, and this may have made for a more interesting movie, it seems like WE (the audience) are going to be Eva’s sidekick – she shares secrets with the audience before she ever meets Ace and so it feels like he’s kind of a substitute for Eva constantly talking to the camera. A stand-in for us, the viewers, if you will. Though that doesn’t stop Eva from telling us her innermost thoughts, treating us like an old friend – even kindly telling us to look away when she’s about to chow down on human remains!

That aspect of Vampirus, the fourth-wall breaking, is entirely more interesting than the rest of the movie. A movie that, even though it deals with the pandemic, doesn’t seem to be ABOUT the pandemic. It’s almost an excuse as to why there’s no one other than Eva and Ace in most scenes, not a driving force for the film’s plot. In fact, there’s a myriad of montages of the duo walking through the empty seats of the city which pad out a lot of the film’s run time. Thankfully these segments are accompanied by some cracking tunes on the soundtrack by composer Jeremy Marsan and the band Grapetooth.

Eventually things go too far and Ace ends up killing for Eva, arousing her so much that she turns Ace, which is a line she didn’t want to cross. But it turns out Ace is actually a little tapped in the head. He WANTS to become a vampire because he’s living on borrowed time… Essentially using Eva for her immortality and then getting abusive when Eva realises he’s used her all along. Yes, even vampires can get into toxic relationships!

And that’s the real story of Vampirus. The toxic relationship between Ace and Eva. Not the pandemic, not the fourth-wall storytelling. It’s a simple but effective story of a man manipulating a woman and vice versa (to some extent). Only the woman in this case is a vampire and has no problem fighting back. Literally.