THE THIRST

Review from Underland Online/Phantasmagoria

The Thirst is going to try to dupe you.  It is going to attempt to make you believe that it is a film with something to say.  It is going to attempt to convince you that the story is important and unique.  There is even a quote on the cover of this film that states The Thirst is “Requiem For A Dream meets Near Dark”...WOAH there folks.  If your going to be throwing around films like those...you had better have something to back up your claims!  But the thing is...The Thirst is none of those things...and doesn’t NEED TO BE.  If you’re looking for all that plot, acting, and great writing that this flick thinks it has going for it...look elsewhere.  But if you want to see large amounts of blood, guts and gore...well, what do you know!

It seems to me that the Hollywood pictures with the big budgets try so darn hard to satisfy us gore-hounds and consistently fail in spectacular fashion.  Meanwhile, the guys who invented the gore film, the independents, continue to put all their efforts into being “real filmmakers”.  This continued attempt by the amateur to “get noticed” or create the next big thing is all well and good, but who will continue the long standing tradition of over the top bloody mayhem if not the little guy?  Well, it turns out that all the misdirection surrounding The Thirst must have come from the producers, because it is quite obvious to me that director Jeremy Kasten was out to make a kick ass blood fest...and did just that.

Any further proof as to Kasten’s intentions in filmmaking can be answered by his next directing project which is scheduled for release this year...the H.G. Lewis gore bench stone The Wizard Of Gore.  While The Thirst’s script may have been written to be something much more than it could be, Kasten wisely identified this and chose to go over the top with the red stuff.  You’ll find it spewing, spurting, splashing and spraying through nearly every scene in this film!  But there is a story attached, and I suppose I should let you in on a little of that before carrying on with the bloody bravos.

Clare Kramer (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) plays Lisa...a recovered drug addict who has survived her long battle with substance abuse only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Rather than face a premature and uncomfortable death, Lisa takes an offer that she can’t refuse...a step into UNdeath.  Lured by a vampire “gang”, Lisa gives herself over to the curse and finds in a single bite the ability to “live” on forever without the fear of her body wasting away from disease.  Having recently found out about her infliction, her boyfriend believes her apparent “suicide” is just an escape from the torments that lay ahead, and doesn’t have any reason to believe anything other than that she has moved on to a better place.  Until he sees her dancing that is...

Facing his girlfriend in the local club soon after her death is an eye opening experience to say the least, but this guy has no idea what is in store for him when he begins to dig deeper.  A former addict himself and the weaker willed of the two, as we are led to believe, he is not the sort who can resist the pull of these creatures he has uncovered and deny himself the pleasures of their particularly deadly “addiction”.  Soon he is turned, and the vampire gang goes on a killing rampage; Lisa growing steadily uneasy with her choice while her former boyfriend gets carried away with a bloodlust that rivals any drug trip he has experienced. 

What follows is torn straight from the pages of Near Dark’s script...a rampage that leaves many a drained body behind in orgies of violence sparked in the usual places...bars, clubs, etc.  Things get even MORE Near Dark-ish at the end of this thing, but I don’t really care about the ripped off plot or the amateurish scripting...what I care about is tons and tons of blood.  I was not left wanting for more...

 Now, before you go running off thinking that there will be heads exploding and guts spilling out a la Dead Alive...I need you to think “samurai” blood.  You know what I am talking about...a neck gets chomped and blood sprays across the floor and walls in a geyser, a throat gets slashed and a torrent of red stuff streams out as if shot from the end of a garden hose, a hang-nail gets trimmed a little short and the finger blows off in an unending flow of...well, okay, maybe not this last one.  But you know what I am saying! 

I am not normally a huge fan of the MTV quick-cut, no-attention-span, make-boring-crap-look-interesting cuts that plague high and low budget movies alike; but this is because it is usually used to detract attention from the fact that nothing much of interest is actually going on.  But here, the super fast violence benefits well from the frantic nature of the editing and I am, surprisingly, fully supportive of this nasty trend as it is used here.  Just one more instance of proof that director Jeremy Kasten knew how to give this film just the spin it needed to float at the top of the tidal wave we know as “low budget horror”. 

It is humorous to me, that for the second review in a row I feel it necessary to say...”Hey.  SciFi Channel.  Get your head out of your butt and start putting together some stuff like this instead of the bottom of the barrel, insert-no-longer-working-television-personality, total wastes of time.”  These films don’t cost a bundle...they aren’t even that taxing to put together.  But what they are is FUN to watch.  Novel concept, I know...maybe it will catch on again after a long hiatus since the 80’s.

The Thirst is the closest thing to a possible future cult film as I have seen in quite a while, and for that I applaud it.  I only wish that those responsible for its release had seen that as the selling point that it is, as I am afraid many will stay away...fearful of the haughty claims and what they believe will be impending disappointment.

So toss out whatever you read on the box, forget about what IMDB’s black-or-white, love-it-or-hate-it reviewers are saying, and take my word for it.  The Thirst is an hour and a half of blood spewing fun, without any real story-based hang-ups.  While countless others are beating the dead horse that is vampire cinema (Dead & Deader anyone?), it seems only The Thirst is trying to breathe a little unlife back into it!

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