Customer Reviews

The Last Sect

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There have been some complaints about this film: Not enough gore. Not enough eroticism. Slow-moving.

But for me, it was a tantalizing diversion for a lazy Sunday morning. While the writers lose points for making Carradine a descendant of Van Helsing--a bit overdone, in my opinion--I have to hand it to them for knowing their mythology. Warning: Spoilers follow.

Though there are both male and female creatures of the night in this film, only the women are credited as vampires. The victims they feast upon later rise to become ghouls, fitting the original myths of the medieval revenant who dwells in tombs, attracts plague, and feeds on corpses. The vampires are portrayed in the spirit of the Keats's poem "Lamia," in which a temptress lures innocents to their doom. The matriarchal structure of the film's vampire clan is pitted against what some might see as traditional, patriarchal Church forces.

As a practicing Christian, I do understand the impulse to interpret the film as a mere allegory for the struggle of women to overthrow the patriarchy. But, the director does not stop there. After all, all that lives must die. Do the vampires fulfill nature? Or corrupt it? Are they eco-friendly survivors whose customs seem strange by our patriarchal standards? Or are they monsters, with no place in the Grand Design?

With these questions raised, I was satisfied intellectually. I had no need for blood and gore. There was plenty of eroticism, for my tastes. No need for explicit sex. We can see the seduction is there. It's a subtle work, and I would buy it on DVD.

Oh. And the fight scenes are wicked awesome!

This film has very good production values, and a reasonably good story-line; a female journalist decides to investigate a web-cam site called Artemis where it appears women act out vampiristic rituals on some poor man - of course she believes it's all trickery.

She goes to interview the head vampire-lady and even upon shaking hands her mind is flooded with erotic lesbian imagery. Unfortunately that's about as far as it goes.

She is met with the vampire lady a few more times, and feels this growing desire, but in the end it comes to nothing really.

I was expecting, as the cover shows, that the head vampire lady would at least bite her in the neck.

In other words this film is full of tantalising images that don't really go anywhere. And for that I was very annoyed. The closest she gets is a bit of blood on her lips but we're not really sure if this is real, or another of her fantastic erotic day-dreams

A much better erotic-vampire film (although no fangs) is Eternal