Dampyr

Dampyr impresses with its low-budget charm, featuring commendable acting and well-coordinated direction. The script and dialogue strike a pleasing balance, complemented by seamless scene cuts. The actors deliver smooth, natural performances, creating a comfortable and engaging viewing experience. The set design, enhanced by green screen and special effects, adds an equally satisfying dimension to the film. Dampyr exudes a Marvel Comics Blade vibe, placing its superhero in a thrilling war zone. The film's narrative and atmosphere evoke the intense, action-packed essence reminiscent of the iconic Blade series, offering a captivating experience for fans of the genre.

Well, "Dampyr" works in the best way because its male leading character is a protagonist and its female leading character is a villainess who changed her mind and joined good guys. They rest is really really really bad in the movie. No logic, no reality, no history, no reasons, no mercy, no point in any of plans (for example: killing vampires just because you know where they live? Seriously? What if they are not bloodthirsty monsters, what if they are vegetarians or at least use clone blood? Oh, right, there's s book which says they are bad *facepalm*). No common sense. Why does vampire lady join the good guys first of all? They had captured her and some of them saved her from the rest of the troops later. How did they capture her? She was ordered to stay and spy. Why didn't she play hide and seek to spy but let them to capture her? That is the million dollar question.

It's the 21th century and you want to make a high concept, low budget movie. In other words, you aim to play in the same league of Spider-Man and Jurassic World, but spending one tenth of the money. It may look like a mission impossible - yeah, pun intended - but you still can do it, if you balance your lack of means with fine writing and a cascade of explosive ideas. Dampyr, well, doesn't. I'm not a SFX fanatic and I don't care about the visual effects looking cheap, as long as the script is surprising and the characters are well crafted and the dialogues are brilliant. Unfortunately, in Dampyr there's none of this. In fact there's nothing at all: think of one of those action-horror flicks which were a trend a couple of decades ago - Blade, Hellboy, Underworld - then strip it of anything that makes it interesting and you'll have Dampyr. Dishonorable mention for the villain: we end up knowing nothing about his plans or his background or his personality, he's a funhouse prop which pops up now and then just to show how much he's scary. I'm giving two stars instead of one just for the Balkanic setup, which at least is quite unusual for this kind of film.

This movie is yet another tedious cover of all the vpure movies of the past, the most obvious being John Csrpenter's Vampires. This movie follows that plot almost scene for scene. That would be fine if there was some meat to chew on, so to speak, but this movie is all bare bones. The acting is - as do many of these entries into the vampire world - dead. The action is just plain dumb. For example, the protagonist charges towards the villain (a vampire) 3 or 4 times, only to be hurled back 50 feet. And what does he do when he gets on his feet again? Yup. He charges at the vampire AGAIN. No matter it didn't work the previous 4 times. And you have the usual humans-encountering-vampires fight. Humans fire their machine guns, the vampires laugh. Well, you can figure out what happens next. And one can easily predict the dialogue, or the following scene. It drones on and on. The trajectory resembles the recently launched rocket that flew 500 feet towards space - and promptly exploded. If it was an ekg, it would be a flatline. My husband watched, while I just listened. I asked four times how it was, and his response was "bad." There is no genuine tension or climax in the movie. How anyone could get this at 10 is beyond me. I can understand being entertained (and even that is questionable), but objectively? A poorly done film with little plot, bad acting, endlessly derivative. This is a 5 at best. A 3 is a fair rating. Keep in mind, I'm not the demographic for this, whom I would imagine to be 18 year olds who like to watch things explode, or guns firing endlessly. For the rest, this will not cut the mustard.

The movie starts with a child being born to a vampire. It later turns out that it could be the main villain, Gorka, or his rival, Draka (sounds like Dracula when they say it). The three witches that help bring the child to birth tell the vampire (who is kept at bay thanks to magic shields around the property), that they are going to raise the child. The childhood is skipped, and we get dropped about 30+ years into the future where a drunken slob (Harlan) and his pal Yuri are going from town to town to clear cemeteries of ghosts and vampires. No explanation is given, and the witches are never seen again until nearly the final scene. Nearby in a war-torn town (around 1990s Serbian War), Kurjak (Stuart Martin) is a platoon leader of some Serbian or Croatian military group. He drives into a town, and there are dozens of dead bodies laying around. That night, several of his soldiers get killed off by vampires. Somebody that knows Harlan tells Kurjak about the dampyr. Kurjak tracks him down, and after a few more soldiers get killed off, Harlan agrees to try to help. Tesla the vampire hottie is confronted, and Harlan realizes that he can kill her vampire cronies. Soon all of the other soldiers mutiny on Kurjak, and they take off to avoid vampires. Kurjak, Harlan, and Tesla decide to work together to find Gorka, the top vampire. Tesla claims if Harlan can kill him, that she will revert back to human form. The rest of the movie is pretty boring, as they eventually find Gorka and he is really hamming it up with boring speeches about how great he is. It is kind of lame. At the finale, it is clear that the characters are set up for sequels. I thought that there was a great opportunity for Harlan and Tesla to become lovers, but that never happened. I would have liked the movie more if Gorka had killed off Kurjak. Gorka basically never did much in terms of killing and bloodshed. Kurjak was the only human character, the weakest link, and it did not make sense that he survives a war against a vampire clan.

I rarely watch Subtitled movies, as I tend to multi task and miss bits. But this was a bit special, and had my attention all the way through. For me it had echoes of John Carpenters Vampires, 30 Days of Night and another Russian movie, Night Watch. The acting is top notch, and I liked the way the story developed. A few people have commented it is a bit slow, and lacks bite. But for me, the character and story development helps build the atmosphere. I have watched a lot of Vampire movies, and this is definitely up there. The cinematography was superb, with lots of atmospheric scenes, dark woods and swirling fog. All in all a very enjoyable watch.

Directed by Riccardo Chemello. A runtime of one hour and forty-nine minutes. Streaming on Netflix with an R rating. "Harlan" played by Wade Briggs is posing as a vampire hunter/ evil spirit banisher with his manager "Yuri" played by Sebastian Croft. In 1992 they are going around different towns in a wrecked Europe from the current war going on. They will soon realize their act has some truth to it. As "Harlan" is a "Dampyr". A person who is half vampire and half human. Not knowing none of this until a commander in the war "Emil" played by Stuart Martin. Summons "Harlan" to a nearby town after an encounter with a vampire named "Tesla" played by Frida Gustavsson. Once faced with actual evil "Harlan" will be thrust into a world he only dreamed about. To make matters worse his dad "Gorka" played by David Morrissey who's been trying to kill him since birth has finally learned his location. Watch this vampire fantasy and see how "Harlan" deals with all these mystical adversities. "Dampyr" actually started interesting. The first twenty minutes were intriguing. Then the film continues and the appeal gets less and less. Soon you'll start to realize a lot is going on and none of it makes sense. Even worse the beginning scene which was a whole thing didn't have any involvement with the film to the very end. It even left setting up for another film. Which I hardly see that happening. This originated from a comic book by Mauro Boselli and Maurizio Colombo but they did a poor job replicating it. There are so many flawed points I couldn't begin to start to name them. Just know this was a pointless film. I will say it had some actors I liked. David Morrissey who played "Harlan" dad is from "The Walking Dead". He played "The Governor" crazy ass. This film also had Frida Gustavsson who plays my girl "Freydis" in "Vikings: Valhalla". Unfortunately, this material wasn't good like the previous things they acted in. The middle and end but mostly the end ruined the overall film. I give this film two mor fires 🔥🔥. #CosmoandtheMovieWithin #CosmoMovieBlog #CosmoLanier #Dampyr.

I wanted to like this, I really did. The movies starts off interesting, giving the viewer a nice backdrop of the story.....then it happened....the other 80 minutes of the movie. First thing noticed is the action scenes where you cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys. There are people shooting and other people falling down and you do not know who is who...or care. Secondly, the dialogue is on the level of a high school play...junior high. Third, not many good decisions, actually there was only one good decision(actually great) and everything else is a bed decision to push the story forward. Last...when you see your enemy that you have ben trying to kill all movie...just kill them. Do not do some STUPID monologue that does little to propel the story and only makes it easier for your enemy to get you. This happened multiple times on both sides, the good and the bad. Just stupid.

It's evidently based on an Italian comic of the same name (I'd never heard of it.) Fans of the comic will probably get more out of it than casual viewers. Dampyr is essentially a superhero origin story: developing the protagonist and defining his powers, introducing his allies; and giving him a dopey mid-tier villain as an initial test while more formidable antagonists wait in the wings. The movie makes good use of an apparently small budget. The 1992 Yugoslav war is a perfect setting for a modern vampire movie. The two main supporting performances are quite good. Everything else about the production is hit-or-miss. The dialogue goes from snappy to banal and back in a single conversation; the character development and world-building are sometimes sharply economical and other times either bloated or non-existent; and the main actor's performance is wobbly - he has some snarky charisma but he doesn't have the gravitas to carry big moments. Overall it's an enjoyable mid-tier popcorn flick. Turn your brain off and have fun with it.

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