Sean Nichols Lynch (director)
(studio)
18 (certificate)
80 (length)
26 August 2021 (released)
27 August 2021
Vampires at Christmas has a certain appeal in they are thoroughly evil, demonic and counter to the ostensive purity of the Christian holiday. Though they do both manage to get the worst out of people; vampires can’t help it they are just running on their instinct while Christmas can bring to the fore latent self-interest and unbounded selfishness out of humans.
There’s a touch of both in this intriguing vampire story of Olivia (Dennice Cisenos) writing unsellable vampire books based on what her notion of a vampire is. That is until one stumbles into her home in Lake Tahoe having been shot by a vampire hunter.
Hiding the vamp in the garage, Luke (Nico Bellamy) temporarily sees off the suspicious hunter. Then acquainting herself with the vampire feeding him on animal blood she starts to get more comfortable with him and vampire lore.
The hunter attacks but is seen off with Olivia witnessing the true horror of a vampire feeding on a human. She does however get over her disgust enough to persuade Luke to read her new manuscript that he tears apart from the vampire’s point of view.
Vampires are cool and would never be called Vladimir or come from Romania. A sort of uneasy trust builds between them only for matters to become bloody and complicated when Luk’s two friends arrive and aren’t in the mood for storytelling.
Set pretty much in one location Red Snow is a welcome variation on the vampire riff with an engaging story and solid characters. There’s a whiff of Supernatural too at times though not overpowering. Cisenos is excellent as the wide-eyed vampire aficionado while Bellamy is more grounded as he goes through the nonsense of eastern European vampire lore, all the while looking for a way out.
What it works well with is the intrinsic instinct of a vampire and what they are. That’s been twisted about many times but in Red Snow writer and director Sean Nichols Lynch somewhat goes back to basics. They are by and large intelligent but extremely manipulative with a super lust to survive, that has to be matched to combat.
