For residents in a remote, rural location desperate times are afoot as an unseen evil has recently descended; everyone is looking over their shoulders, radiating fear and paranoia, and not going out after dark. A Taste of Blood, based on Aleksey Tolstoy’s 1839 short story “The Family Of The Vourdalak,” is Santiago Fernandez Calvete’s new horror fresh from a recent filmfest run.

Local youngsters Alexis (Tomás Carullo Lizzio) and Natalia (Alfonsina Carrocio) are suffering under these tensions despite their youth. Natalia however, bristling with cabin fever and typical teen defiance, breaks the rules and ends up in a sinister encounter with a dark and unpleasant stranger, who surprises and horrifies her with his claims of being a relative. This experience almost becomes her last as he attacks her, and her dad (having earlier had a mysterious brain-fog moment outside) is compelled to verify the stranger’s tale.

This comes with the added revelation that creatures like this only seek out members of their own family in order to add to the general merriment that is the spread of the population of similar dark, unpleasant strangers. The unfortunate dad then proceeds to drape himself in chains and padlocks at home for the greater good, lest he suddenly becomes uncontrollably nasty. This leaves the youngsters in a quandary of sorts; do they trust in the mutual love between themselves and dad, or will the old adage of blood being thicker than water lead them to a sticky end?

It’s set in the modern day, though exactly when is unclear; there’s modern cars, pool is seen being played, and there’s even evidence of rudimentary cellphones (a personal indicator to me of a movie’s intended era on more than one occasion), but like many things concerning this film (relationships between characters, why they make some of the choices they do, what the actual aim is), we’re left to wonder.

The choice of music is consistently strange to the point of distracting; a mysteriously baffling mix of sentimentally sticky, plinky-plonky faux classical, death metal/thrash, and 80’s pop taking itself too seriously. From what I could glean from the limited info available, A Taste of Blood is an Argentinian production, dubbed in English and with some Spanish subtitles, so being the kind and generous soul I am (not to mention modest), I’m prepared to explain that small weirdness as a combination of a loss in translation and a limited budget.

That said, the special effects/ monster makeup are very impressive, as is some of the cinematography, with one or two scenes showing stunning use of golden sunlight contrasting with the general dark and shadowy theme to great effect. What we see of the filming location is equally visually pleasing, but the story itself lacks originality, and the dad overexplaining the basics of (#spoilernotspoiler) vampire lore (of which even the most unseasoned audience is undoubtedly aware) left me rolling my eyes and feeling vaguely insulted.

In the end, I mainly found A Taste of Blood tedious and hard to follow, lacking anything other than one or two pleasing yet fleeting visual moments and skilled makeup efforts. The only real surprise was the soundtrack, which if you’re a music buff may be worth tuning into just for the experience; in a way it’s a form of horror…

2 out of 10 Multiple Sources Of Befuddlement