The Thirst (2006)

14th Jul 07





Plot
A guy's girlfriend becomes a vampire and turns him too, and they join up with some other vampires and cause havoc. But the newcomers don't get in to the whole vampire thing, and it all gets a bit messy.

Review
Maxx has got problems. Not only is he a recovering alcoholic, as we witness with the alcoholics anonymous scene that the film opens with, but he's convinced his stripper girlfriend Lisa is back on drugs. Sure enough, in the next scene, Lisa starts coughing up blood in the middle of one of her routines and is rushed to hospital. Maxx rushes to hospital too, intent on confronting her about her problem.

But when he gets there he discovers that it's not drugs but cancer which she's been keeping from him all these months. Furious at being shut out, Maxx storms off, which is when Lisa is visited by a mysterious midnight stranger who has the answer to all her problems.

The next day Maxx discovers that Lisa has checked herself out, gone home and slashed her wrists in the bath. After the funeral Maxx grows a beard and stays in his apartment all the time. His friends start to worry and drag him to a local nightclub to try and cheer him up, only it's there that he sees Lisa and all her blood sucking friends. Does he want to join the party and go on a Near Dark style rampage? Does he have much choice?

Yes, The Thirst is a quickly shot, very low budget effort that tries to emulate Near Darkmostly, but also has nods to Requiem for a Dream and Abel Ferrera's The Addiction. It's fun and easily watchable, but it does have that shot on digital video in Canada kind of feel to it, although that's not necessarily a bad thing as the location shots do have a grungy underground Canadian vampire club scene feel to them, so it fits together well if you know what I mean. And the pace zips along too – one minute Maxx is grieving, next his ripping peoples' throats out, then he and Lisa begin to question the whole killing people business and the whole group dynamic goes all to hell.

The vampire group itself isn't bad at all. Jeremy Sisto is ace as sleazy Eastern European vampire with a bad accent, hamming up every scene, and that Baldwin guy from Serenity is in it too playing exactly the same character only as a vampire. The skinny oriental twins don't say anything but do spend their whole screen time writhing around pulling vampire faces with their boobs out, so we can't really complain about them either. And Mariel, the vampire queen, is convincing too, sexy and conniving, while Maxx's girlfriend Lisa does alright aswell, helped by the fact that she too is very sexy. And Matt Keeslar just about pulls off the role of Maxx even if he is a bit wooden most of the time.

The action is cheaply done but effective, they went with the attitude that they don't have much budget so let's just pile on the blood to make up for it, and the throat biting, blood gorging scenes are some of the most blood soaked you'll ever see, so I suppose that in itself is enough to recommend it. And in general the movie isn't bad by any means as far as decadent vampire flicks go, and despite the fact that the film does feel a bit cheap and rushed at times, it wrattles along quite happily right up to it's sudden but predictable finale. And it is mild fun name checking all the actors for the cable TV shows that they're also appearing in at the moment, which I recommend imdb for.

Versions
Available readily on region 1 and 2.

Posted by
Jim



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