Vampire Journals

1997

Action / Fantasy / Horror

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 45% · 3 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 45% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 5.3/10 10 2027 2K

sword vampire impalement severed severed head vampire human love

Plot summary

A 19th century vampire stalks a more powerful vampire lord in his quest to gain revenge over the death of his mistress. In his search for the vampire lord in Eastern Europe he kills many of his servants and fellow vampires while cursing another to vampirism as well.

Director

Ted Nicolaou Photo
Ted Nicolaou

Top cast

Mihai Dinvale Photo
Mihai Dinvale as Dimitri
Constantin Draganescu Photo
Constantin Draganescu as Croupier
Constantin Barbulescu Photo
Constantin Barbulescu as Vampire
Jonathon Morris Photo
Jonathon Morris as Ash
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
752.41 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 21 min
Seeds 1
1.36 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 21 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by barnthebarn 6 / 10

Like Angel to Buffy...

Odd fourth entry in the Subspecies series of films. This time there is little mention of Radu, instead focusing on a new character Zachery. Zachery wants to seek revenge on the vampire that killed his beloved Rebecca. Thus he befriends a concert musician, Sofia and uses her to find Ash, performing as much graphic vampire violence as he can on his crusade. In itself this is a superbly well acted and filmed addition to the series, though the lack of Radu is noted and at times problematic for the tension. A grand fable though and David Gunn and Kirsten Cerre, as Zachery and Sofia make a grand 'couple'. Incidentally Cerre attended acting school with Gunn and admits that everyone found him very scary as he is so serious and intense - though actually he is a lovely guy apparently. Jonathan Morris plays Ash again to maximum effect and one can only wish that all three leads were in either every film made or at least hundreds more vampire legacies. Grand.
Reviewed by poolandrews 5 / 10

"Run from me child, I have no wish to violate your flesh." More nonsense from Full Moon.

Vampire Journals is set in some unnamed Eastern European country where a Vampire named Zachary (David Gunn) decides to take in some culture & spend a night at a classical concert, there he notices master Vampire Ash (Jonathon Morris) who seems to be taking an unhealthy shine to pianist Sofia Christopher (Kristen Cerre). The next day & Sofia is contacted by a woman named Iris (Starr Andreef) who works for Ash & owns a nightclub called 'Club Muse' & says that Ash wants her to play for him in a private concert which Sofia agrees to. Ash wants to turn Sofia into his Vampire bride while bitter Vampire hunter Zachary wants to kill him & all of his kind...This American Romanian co-production was written & directed by Ted Nicolaou was produced by Charles Band & his Full Moon companies responsible for all manner of low budgeted horror film crap over the years. The script takes itself very seriously & there's lots of brooding silly sounding dialogue that I presume is meant to be Gothic & compliment the look of the film. It's also quite noticeable how much Vampire Journals reminded me of Interview with the Vampire (1994) in terms of the way it looks & feels. The character's are poor clichés, the main villainous Vampire who falls in love with a beautiful woman, the Vampire who hates his kind & has set out to destroy them all along with the human followers who do the Vampires bidding during the daytime. It's all rather predictable, it's all rather slow & pedestrian & there's too much silly talk in it. The story itself is threadbare to say the least, it's mostly just people walking around & talking about things which don't matter a whole lot. If your a die hard Vampire flick fan then you'll probably lap this up as, well it's got Vampires in it but anyone looking for an effective horror flick will surely be disappointed at the dull bland nature of this film & a lack of a decent engaging story.I'll give Vampire Journals credit where it deserves it because it looks fabulous, the lighting, the Gothic sets, costumes & production design are very impressive & atmospheric. The only problem is the entire film is set in the same building so there's not much variety. The opening credit's play over very atmospheric & evocative shots of a snow covered graveyard with large stone statues, crypt's & headstones & the film continues with a nice rich, Gothic look running throughout it. There's not much gore here, there are some bitten necks, some splashed around blood & a couple of good looking decapitations. There's some female nudity as well if that sort of thing interests you.Technically the film looks very nice with good visuals & it's well shot. Filmed on location in Bucharest in Romania to keep the cost down even further & as such there are also lots of unpronounceable names both in front & behind the camera. Those living outside the UK probably won't know him but for those living here yes that is the same Jonathon Morris who appeared in the comedy series Bread (1986 - 1991) as Adrian Boswell & he is terrible in this. He will forever be remembered in the UK as 'that guy who was in Bread' & for little else. The rest of the cast are alright but nothing outstanding.Vampire Journals is much better than the usual Full Moon horror flick & looks surprisingly good but the story isn't great & there's not a lot going on. Better than expected but still nothing more than average when all said & done.
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