Deleted Scenes + Eulogy For A Vampire (2010/Water Bearer DVDs)

 

Picture: C/C+     Sound: C     Extras: C     Features: C

 

 

Imitating another kind of film or genre style is not as simple as just trying to look like it, but many independent productions think that is sufficient and with digital video cheap, the result is a glut of forgettable works that in many cases should have never been made.  When Gay productions take this on, then you get the additional issue of if the production can tell a story and juggle the sexual content.  Todd Verlow’s Deleted Scenes and Patrick McGuinn’s Eulogy For A Vampire are two recent examples that did not work.

 

Scenes is about somewhat voyeuristic gay males having sex in openly gay spaces, though usually indoors, but taping the events on a low-def digital camcorder.  It wants to have a self-reflective documentary style and uses chapter cards to break up each scene as if it were cataloging the events, but the many sex scenes (which are more graphic and naturalistic, versus silly and stylized in the final cut) are repetitive and the narrative structure attempted totally fails.  There is also not enough character development and the result is a work too impressed with itself.

 

Vampire thinks it is being clever by have a few sly visual references to Hitchcock’s Psycho, but this gay-men-as-priests-in-monastery tale is never believable as that, then when one of them turns out to be a vampire and others become so (along with some who are already sexually perverted including sexual violence, but save any underage males getting molested), the production is heavy on blood and simple make-up effects, but has zero suspense and for all the ideas it presents, has little idea as what to do with them.  If the idea was to deal with vampirism and sexuality, gay or straight, that was botched here.  See Paul Morrissey’s Flesh For Frankenstein, Ganja & Hess (reviewed elsewhere on this site) or The Velvet Vampire (also reviewed elsewhere on this site) for better results and if you must see this, comparison.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image in both cases was shot in digital video and has various issues throughout.  Scenes actually wants to look and sound bad even noting its flaws and limits as if it were documentary footage, but other unintended flaws show up and that never works.  Vampire is also soft, but not as bad, though some fancy manipulation of the images is overdone.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is barely stereo and often monophonic, recorded on location with bad microphone recording and too many audio dropouts, though Scenes is worse and actually admits it.

 

Extras on both include trailers and Deleted (Vampire)/Extended (Scenes; more graphic) Scenes, with Scenes adding a Photo Shoot and Vampire adding a Music Video, Screen Tests and Behind The Scenes Footage.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo