SubSpecies (1991) — Triskaidekafiles

SUBSPECIES

WRITERS: Screenplay by Jackson Barr and David Pabian

DIRECTOR: Ted Nicolaou

STARRING: Michael Watson as Stefan

Laura Tate as Michelle

Anders Hove as Radu

Michelle McBride as Lillian

Irinia Movila as Mara

Ivan J. Rado as Karl

Angus Scrimm as The King

QUICK CUT: A trio of college students travel through the Transylvanian countryside to experience the culture and people of the land.

THE MORGUE

Stefan - A young man studying the lives of nocturnal creatures in his job as a zoologist…looool who am I kidding? He’s a fuckin’ vampire. Okay, he’s probably that first thing too. He’s a kind, gentle soul, who just wants to protect those who have stumbled into danger.

Radu - Stefan’s half brother, and he has zero interests outside of vamping. Has a bit of a drool problem, and will do whatever is necessary to get power and the bloodstone.

Michelle - One of three young women visiting the town of Prejma, and she’s the main of the three. She’s smart, has a gentle personality, and won’t leave a friend in need.

Lillian - One of the other two girls, and she has an adventurous spirit. She wants to get into places she shouldn’t, and is always looking to sate her curiosity.

Mara - The last of the three girls, and while I call them “The Americans” for brevity, she is decidedly not American. I believe she’s Romanian. I just wanted to be clear that I DID notice that. Anyways, she’s somewhere between Michelle and Lillian, as trios tend to be. She’s not as outgoing as Lillian, but she’s not as calm and centered as Michelle.

Karl - The caretaker of the fort the women have come to study, and friend of Stefan’s. He does his best to protect the girls, but their curious nature gets the better of them.

The prequel to that movie with Natasha Henstridge.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! To get June underway, we are starting a new franchise. I've kinda leaned away from franchises a bit, because I felt too locked in, or I'd forget them forever. And while I do want to get back to the ones I have rolling already, that's honestly not a big priority for me. But, this movie came up in discussion on a Discord server, and I remembered I've had this DVD, unwatched, for over a decade, and since it's Full Moon, it just felt like a good time to finally crack the seal on the Subspecies franchise.

The movie opens up on a hilariously enwiggened Angus Scrimm sipping from a blood nipple like he's a vampire guinea pig, when an even more hilariously made up vampire, his son Radu, enters. If nothing else, this movie is giving you memorable visuals. Which isn’t necessarily GOOD, but it is indeed memorable.

Radu speaks to his father, the King, about an upcoming festival, and how the King called his other son back to town for the festivities. You can tell there's a lotta bad blood here.

Dude looks like he’s about to be really upset about something Mozart did.

They chatter about the bloodnipple...er, bloodstone, and how it gives its user great power, too much for Radu, and this will be gotten into more later.

Radu gloats how he's the first born, this is his birthright, and dead old dad drops a giant cage over his son.

But, our villain is not to be deterred, as he severs off several of his RIDICULOUSLY long fingers, which spew out blood and grow into cute little demon creatures.

Despite all my rage I am still just Radu in a cage.

The cute little demon creatures free Radu, largely due to the King doing absolutely nothing to stop them, and seeming rather surprised by this ability in the first place

Radu takes out a knife and stabs his dad. He cleans off the knife and we bleed out into the credits, and into a trio of American college students who are traveling to this remote Romanian village to do research.

The girls have arranged to stay at the castle, which opens up its doors and lets visiting 'scholars' stay there. A bit plot convenient to get everyone in the same place, but I'll allow it.

Our trio drive along to some ACTION DRIVING MUSIC that would one day set the stage for Van Helsing, I'm sure.

They stop briefly to check out the scenery, and show it off to us, and one of the girls gets up on the ledge, overlooking the town, and another gives her a scare, as you do.

You know, I've joked a lot about Full Moon filming a lot in Eastern Europe because it's A) cheap and 2) Band owned a castle, but if nothing else, this movie at least utilises everything in that toolbox.

Oh, you just KNOW there was no sort of safety system there.

The women arrive at the fortress, and meet Karl the caretaker. He looks after the place while the master is away. We do the usual spending time to settle in, meet the characters, explore a bit, you know the drill.

We do get some local folklore about Vlad Dracul spreading his army across Transylvania, and this fort held up for awhile, but it was undermanned, and sure to fall. Until they were out of food, sure it was the end, but someone looked outside and saw the attacking forces were all dead or ran away. Townspeople believed it was because they were saved by vampires, and that's why they have the celebration the girls are here to see.

Back with Radish, he has his cute little demon creatures fetch the bloodstone so he can have a drink from the nipple.

Because it’s not a Charles Band movie until the puppeted creatures show up.

The girls do a bit of sightseeing, stopping at Castle Vladislas as the sun is going down, and Radu is waking up. They desperately want to break inside and check it out, but can't quite pull it off.

Lillian at least manages to get her arm in the door, but catches it on something, possibly Radu, and gets a nasty scratch for her troubles.

They decide that is their cue to call it a night, and head back to town so the wound can be tended to. As they leave, Radoof opens the door and is supposed to be watching them, but instead he just looks hella confused.

Hello? Yes?? I thought I heard the doorbell!

Back at the fort, the girls are trying to do research on the castle, but are finding precious little info on it. Ah, the days before Google, am I right??

That's when another 'scholar' shows up, Stefan, and he's able to fill in some of the blanks in their research. Oh, and he's also the king's other son, so just gonna get that out of the way now.

Later, the girls go to the village and get more info from Old Lady Exposition, and she tells how after the massacre, the townsfolk and vampires lived together, but y'know, vampires are gonna vampire, and kept feeding on people.

So a local Romani who knew of a stone that the Pope had, which bleeds with the blood of the saints, went to Rome and stole it, giving it to the friendly vampires, so they could live without eating the town dry.

The girls get a warning to stay away from the castle, for fear of upsetting the way things are, as tourists are great at doing.

Lillian dozes off on the grass while they rest outside the castle, and Michelle blurts out, "Oh gosh, she must be coming down with something." Yeah, gee, it's almost like she got scratched by a nail filled with transylvanian tetanus.

All three of the girls take a break, waking up as the sun is going down, and they decide to take a shortcut through the woods. Said no survivor of a horror movie ever.

NosferRadu sees them wandering around and follows, since he is curious, and vampires are always interested in fresh meat. The girls catch him lurking in the forest and run the rest of the way, bumping into Stefan as they go.

So we’re just gonna lean all the way into the Nosferatu of it all, huh

Once the girls are safe at the fort, Stefan heads back to the castle to say hey to dear old dad, and finds his corpse, still chilling on the stone floor where Radu left it three, four days ago at the point.

Radu is also there, and says hello to his brother by grabbing him by the neck so they can have a little chat. Like most sibling do.

You know, I haven't said much about Radu, but you can tell he looks goofy as fuck, but on top of that he has a ridiculously silly raspy voice AND for some reason he's drooling blood in 90% of his shots. All of this combines into an absolutely ridiculous looking villain.

Hello, brother. I see someone put on their hero hair today.

Once he's done with his dear brother, Radude lurks around the fort like a good vampire, finding the girls and Lillian's open wound.

He comes down into their room and feeds off of it, drooling all over himself as he does, while Stefan tells Karl about the fate of the king.

Stefan chases his brother off, and the Nosferaturd leads him on a merry chase. But the sun is coming up, and they are getting increasingly weak. Especially Stefan since he doesn't have the blood nipple, and he can't get back to the fort and his coffin in time.

Fortunately, Karl shows up with the prince of dorkness's coffin, and brings him back to the fort, where we get a stake sharpening montage.

Meanwhile, the girls who are well enough to get out of bed head to the village's Vampire Days celebration.

We spend some time talking about local customs, Stefan shows up and tries to warn them off, and eventually Michelle heads back to the castle to check on Lillian.

This leaves Mara alone, vulnerable, and easy prey for Radu lurking around the proceedings. And he is more than happy to claim Mara as his arguably second victim.

Somehow, by the time Michelle gets back to the fort, Radu has already returned, and she finds him feeding some more on Lillian.

This pretty much cracks open the jar of secrets, and Michelle now knows she's in a vampire movie. Stefan sits down with her to fill in the much needed backstory. The only thing of note is that Radu was the result of a union with the King and a sorceress who wanted a unique child, hence why he's so weird.

Meanwhile, Lillian's not getting any better, and Stefan urges Michelle to leave with her by morning if she's not better. Mara has yet to return though, and he promises Karl which search the village for her if she's not returned by morning.

We see Radu Roddy Piper has Mara chained up, and he took the time to perfectly rip her shirt so only her boobs are exposed. Classy.

By the time we cut back to the fort, Lillian has died. So, she fell into bed sick at the end of the first act, and she's dead by the end of the second, having never left your bed. Talk about a shitty way to go.

“I know what you are.” “Say it out loud.”

The villagers show up with a decapitated body of Radu's other victim from last night, and the doctor tells them the Americans have left, otherwise they would want Lillian's body to do the same. Karl offers to bury her in the church nearby, to protect her from the townspeople.

Michelle is not about to leave without her friend, or without hurting Radu, and dear god, they are actually going to find him where he sleeps during the day. I cannot tell you how refreshing that is.

Karl mentions he knows where Radu sleeps and YOU COULDN'T HAVE MENTIONED THIS A HALF HOUR AGO?? Like, seriously, this is some really hamfisted "oh we know this now" plotting.

They find the coffin, open it up and find...NOTHING! Because there's still 20 minutes left.

If you’re just joining us, we’re about to open Vlad Capone’s vault…

Radu is busy wandering around outside, because despite coming here in daylight, it's suddenly night, because reasons.

He finds Lillian's grave and waits as she claws her way out of it. Seriously, why did they, especially Karl, not see this coming??

Stefan takes them to the nearby church where they will be safe, because Subspecies vampires can't enter houses of god without an invitation. And so they plan to wait out the night, and go finish Ragu off in the morning.

But Stefan has other plans, and while his human friends are safe, he goes to take care of his brother on his own. Unfortunately, the cute little demon creatures toss a net at him and capture Stefan.

Aaahh! A net! The only weakness of the vampire!

While the humans wait for sunrise, they hear a voice; Lillian calling to her friend, from outside. And like the fool she is, Michelle goes running, forgetting that THIS IS A VAMPIRE MOVIE. She makes it out the door for two seconds before she's taken to Radu's castle.

But hey, she found Mara at least!

Michelle wakes up chained to the wall, but she is able to get the wooden spear Stefan dropped when the cute little demon creatures captured him. She works it with her feet, gets it up into place, and uses it to leverage the ancient manacles out of the castle walls.

Once she is free, she tries to escape with Mara but, Oops! All Vampires!

So that is two girls turned, the last one captured, their best weapon chained to the wall...yep, this plan is going GREAT.

Radu goes to drool all over Michelle, and just as he's biting her, Karl shows up wit his shotgun filled with wooden rosary bead buckshot, and many stakes.

He frees Stefan, and we get a pretty decent fight with everyone, for this level of film. It's not great, but it's about what you'd expect. It makes some great use of fire, I'll give it that.

It ends with Stefan impaling his brother on a wooden spear, making him spit up blood, but really...how can you even tell?

Seriously, Radude, see an orthodontist, he can probably help you with that drooling.

While Radu's body smokes, Stefan grabs an axe to behead his brother, but the dying vamp says as his final words, that he can't be destroyed. And with another four movies following this one, I guess he has a point.

So Stefan claims the bloodnipple, probably claims his rightful place as kind, and turns Michelle into a vampire himself, so she can choose to be good like him, and not evil like Radu. Although that was never established as lore.

And in the least shocking final moment, we see Radu's head, still where Stefan left it, because NO ONE likes to pick up after themselves in this movie!! and gasp lack of shock, his eyes open.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: I’m honestly surprised at how poor this looks. My images look fine, but there’s some weird jagginess to it, like it was upscaled poorly. 2011 releases shouldn’t look like this, especially ones hailing themselves as 20th anniversary editions.

Audio: The audio is decent enough.

Sound Bite: “In Transylvania, the best wine is red! Blood red!" Yeah not suspicious at all.

Body Count: Not much, but you get double thanks to vampires.

1 - Radu's dad bites it 4 and a half minutes in

2 - The old crone gets fed on by Radu.

3 - Lillian ends up dying from her blood loss.

4 - Mara dies at some point as well.

5 - Vampire Mara gets shotgunned

6 - Radu gets his head chopped off

7 - And then Karl chops off Vampire Lillian's head

8 - Michelle gets bitten by Stefan and dies

Best Corpse: Lillian has a better death as a vampire.

Blood Type - B-: There’s a bit of blood, most of it dripping out of Radu’s mouth, but nothing too notable.

Sex Appeal: Mara’s torn blouse does the heavy lifting…or not, as the case may be.

Drink Up!: Every time someone sits down for some exposition

Movie Review: While yes, this is a low budget Full Moon movie, and it has it’s share of campy moments, there’s a not bad movie here. The plot is good, the acting isn’t bad…well, Radu is drooling up the scenery, but otherwise. Decent effects, some interesting ideas…it is very much of its time though, making up for a low budget by a lot of scenery and talking. But it’s well made, and well shot, so it’s all right. Three out of five cute little demon creatures

Entertainment Value: Obviously, the star of the show is Radu. He’s a fascinating character, and he’s an interesting take on vampires, plus…everything else make for something interesting and entertaining to watch. It’s refreshing to see something that’s doing its own thing, and I give it points for that. Three out of four severed heads.