Friday, April 13, 2018

Honourable mention: Domain of the Damned

Directed by Stacy Davidson and released in 2007 this seems to have appeared and then disappeared and it is a shame as it is flawed, it has bitten off more than it can chew but it was actually a really interesting little effort. Ostensibly about a haunt, it threw in serial killers, zombies, eternal life, a strange little background that hinted at the possibility of making a film with a wider vista and vision.

Of course, what we care about is vampires and we have two fleeting visitations.

However, some background… the film starts with a PI at a crime scene, which seems to be the hideout of the serial killer known as the Angel of Death. We then drop back in time to El Paso in 1983 – an estranged father argues with a mother as the child sleeps in a car and dreams of a dark realm, a purgatory, where personifications of the seven deadly sins reside and try to resurrect a warrior known as the Shadow’s Hand.

Jude Hickey as Jerod
In the here and now a drifter, Jerod (Jude Hickey), sees a sign advertising a haunt and looking for help. He goes there and is let into the building by a gargantuan man who vanishes off. He is stopped as a trespasser but mentions the man (a freak who has got out) and the fact that he is a qualified electrician – something the haunt desperately needs. Despite being somewhat nervous of the haunt, he starts working for them. His dream that night shows us that he is the child from El Paso.

Vampirita poster
Before he settles down for the night he finds bill posters for the freaks – including one called Vampirita. Later when we get owner B D Griffin (Leon Blum) in attendance (on opening night) we discover that there are two haunts. The main one which has opened and a second one called Necrophobia – which isn’t open yet. In the first haunt is a girl acting as a vampire and she is our first fleeting visitation.

Vampirita attacks
B D has a secret, however, he has recreated an amulet that wards off the God of Death and therefore brings eternal life to those there. He uses the blood/fluids of the dead to make a serum that keeps him compos mentis and collects serial killers and freaks and houses them in Necrophobia. Those who die are removed from the area or they will zombify and one of the imprisoned freaks is vampirita (Krystal Freeman) – who would appear to be a vampire (she is immortal in the amulet’s influence, does not look zombified and has fangs, we see her briefly attack and bite someone when the freaks escape and also see her for a moment when trapped in her cage).

acting as a vampire
So, two fleeting visitations – one a person acting as a vampire and the other a vampire.

The imdb page is here.

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