Auxiliary List
[3 of 4]
For this batch, I present a real documentary, and the hands-down, best vampire film I saw in the past year…
CROPSEY
(April 2009)
With all the excellent faux docs making the ¡Qué Horror! grade, I thought it only fair (and well-deserved) that Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio’s honest-to-goodness real documentary--which examines the line where urban legend crosses over into real life--be given a mention here.
STRIGOI
(August 2009)
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a vampire film as atypical as Strigoi.* Written, edited, and directed by Faye Jackson, it’s also hands down the best and most substantial vampire film I’ve seen in the past 12 months.
Strigoi is an insightful title that’s about tradition and history and folklore and family and corruption. It’s about the poor, the rich, and the opportunistic.
And yes, it’s about the different kinds of vampires, even the ones that don’t subsist on blood.
This is the sort of vampire film that will keep the form alive and vital and meaningful despite all that Twilight blather that’s currently cluttering up the mythos.
Big plus to Jackson for excellent usage of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” and Beirut’s “Postcards from Italy.”
* It’s been years and years since atypical titles like The Hunger or Vampire’s Kiss or Nadja or Shadow of the Vampire, so Faye Jackson’s moving and bittersweetly humorous take in Strigoi is most welcome.
(Cropsey OS courtesy of impawards.com; Strigoi DVD cover art courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)
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