BOGIEVILLE (2025)

3 stars

Reel 2 Reel. Digital. 9th June

The film has an effective opener– a gas station (well more likely a petrol station in reality… more on that later). A woman pulls up in her car and realises she has started her period. She goes to the station toilet, to do the necessary – and a raging vampire has ‘smelt’ her blood and attacks.

Cue the titles and some scene setting stock footage.

Ham (Arifin Putra) is working as a mechanic when he is let go. He goes to the local bar where his girlfriend Jody (Eloise Lovell Anderson) works and, when he gets involved in an altercation, she ends up losing her job too.

With prospects low, they decide they need to leave their rented accommodation and set out on the road. Meanwhile back at the garage where he worked, his ex-boss ends up dead when a couple of multiple toothed vampires pay a visit. The Sheriff (Daniel P. Lewis) is investigating alongside Doctor Carol Mills (Angela Dixon) – who is perplexed by the fact there is no blood at the scene.

Driving through the night, they find themselves stranded when Ham’s pick-up truck hits something. They find a sign for Madison Farm Mobile Home Park and through the trees they can see what appear to be abandoned, rusting trailers and decide to look around. Well, I say trailers – remember the ‘gas’ station from the beginning; it’s actually a bunch of caravans you are more likely to see on the M1 motorway than speeding along Route 66! The filmmakers need to try a bit harder to convince this is set in America, especially when you add in the various dodgy accents on show.

That aside, they meet Crawford – who initially points a shotgun at them, but then he offers them some maintenance work in exchange for meals and a roof over their heads. There are certain rules however, which include not leaving the house at night and never letting anyone in either…

As he explains the history of the place – it’s called Bogieville because his brother in law Madison (director Sean Cronin) was a big fan of Humphrey Bogart – he also eventually admits that they now can’t leave, and that vampires live there, including his blind daughter Lily (Poppie Jae Hughes). It’s a place with secrets. Locked doors. Living by the rules.

Whilst it is nicely shot by Daniel Patrick Vaughan, with good use of light and shadow, there is far too much set up and back story before the actual action sets in. It is nearly an hour in before we meet the leader of the pack Madison with his gutturally growl of a voice, making his dialogue sometimes unintelligible. The mouthful of sharp teeth, rather than the normal fangs, may look cool, but they certainly don’t help when delivering your lines. The film is overlong and the aforementioned poor accents tend to pull you out of the proceedings.

Steve Kirkham