Vamp or Not? Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl

Having upgraded to Blu-Ray, I was giving classic horror Let’s Scare Jessica to Death a re-watch and on the disc was a brief interview with Kim Newman. He mentioned a couple of more modern films that he said owed something (in style) to the aforementioned movie. One was the 2016, A.D. Calvo directed Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl, a film I had not seen but was available on Shudder.

Now Kim Newman had not suggested a vampire connection and I didn’t watch the film expecting one, but what I got was a great, almost psychosexual, drama with airs of Let’s Kill Jessica but, also, I think a touch a Mario Bava – specifically the section A Drop of Water in Black Sabbath. When I thought about the film, as it reached its conclusion, I realised there might be something vampiric about it. Truthfully, I had already thought about Carmilla during the running time (more in a relationship way than anything else) but to explain why, well I’m going to have to spoil the ending entirely. You’ve been warned.

Erin Wilhelmi as Adele

The film follows Adele (Erin Wilhelmi) and the opening shots follow her during the day in the countryside where she lives and, truthfully, it does paint her as lonely. She lives with her pregnant mom (Lainie Ventura) and her stepfather. Her Aunt Dora (Susan Kellermann) requires a live-in carer and her mom wants her to go. Her reluctance is overcome as we see her in the bathroom and her step-father leering, peeking through a crack. The film hints at abuse. So she moves into town, in to her Aunt's house.

picture of Dora

Aunt Dora does not leave her room, has given her the instructions (written) of always shut the door and no house guests, and has left money for her to buy the groceries she wants. The film does a grand job of generating a feeling of unheimlich, the house itself seems like a snapshot of memory (the film is set in a pre-digital year, Adele has her tape Walkman, telephones are house implements and wired but the house has an older feel still). There is a distinct wind sound when the door is open, that is blocked when closed again. We later discover that Dora is her mom’s step sister and substantially older, that she is agoraphobic (and has a heart condition) she never leaves her room when Adele is near and passes notes under the door. We see a photo of her when young with another girl blurred in the background.

seeing Beth

Shopping Adele spots a woman, with whom she seems immediately fascinated (probably due to her sense of style as much as anything). This is Beth (Quinn Shephard). Later Adele goes to a coffee shop with people but seems out of place and leaves before being served. She goes to a virtually empty diner and orders a soda and a slice, before realising she can’t afford the food and amends her order. Beth is in a booth and pays for the snack, asking Adele to sit with her. She noticed her looking at her in the supermarket. They then meet again whilst Beth is running past the house and invites herself in, despite the no guests rule, breezing past Adele's weak protestations.

Beth and Adele

As the two become closer Adele’s behaviours change. She starts buying cheaper brands for her Aunt, allowing herself the difference in change and, persuaded by Beth, buys off the shelf heart medicine rather than filling her more expensive prescription – this will eventually lead to Dora’s death, which jumps us to the climax of the film. Whilst a relationship is growing, and they do kiss, Adele’s feelings become apparently greater than Beth's, and discovering that she has slept with a (strange to Adele) man, she allows herself to be picked up by a random guy for some absolutely dispassionate sex. The pick up is observed by Beth, though she seems to vanish like a ghost (and Adele has been seeing Aunt Dora, perhaps due to guilt, so there is the chance her appearance was a figment of imagination). Beth then visits her at home entering through the door, which was left open by the man after the hook up.

like an apparition

When Adele saw Beth for the first time at the Supermarket, Beth had a pomegranate and Adele bought one, tried it but gave up trying to extract the seeds. That pomegranate seems to have sat on the table and Beth, as Adele investigates a noise, now eats it voraciously. There is, of course, the association of the pomegranate with death and tricking Persephone into returning to the underworld. Adele ends up hiding in the basement, Beth follows and seems to become a floating apparition. The film cuts forward in time and Adele's sister Dory (Frances Eve), with whom her mother was pregnant, arrives at the house, now a young woman, to look after Adele – who seems to be a prematurely old woman.

prematurely aged

So why do I think this is vampiric. Adele seems much older than she should be, her eyes milky and seems to be in Dora’s place (she sits in her Aunt’s rocking chair). However, as Dory goes through the house, we see the picture of a young Dora (framed, unlike earlier) and the girl in the picture is not blurred and it is clearly Beth. The implication for me is that Beth stole Adele’s youth and vitality (as she did Dora's before her) and is clearly much older than we knew. The fact that she devoured the pomegranate, and descended into the underworld to turn into a corpselike floating apparition that menaced Adele (we only see Adele scream and not the subsequent interaction), is clearly symbolic and all of this would indicate to me that she was an energy vampire – at least that is one reading. And I think it a fair reading for a fascinating, really worthwhile film.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon US

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon UK

Dumplings – review

Director: Fruit Chan

Release date: 2004

Contains spoilers

A little while ago we looked at the anthology film Three Extremes and specifically I looked at the segment Dumplings under ‘Vamp or Not?’

I decided that the segment was a variant of the vampire genre; specifically I likened it to a variant of the Báthory story – a human’s search for eternal youth leading them to extremes. I mentioned at the end of the article that a feature length version of the story had been produced and this is said film. It is essentially the same story expanded – with one substantial change that, whilst it was a major change for one of the characters, took the story in the same place essentially. As such, much of this write up will be similar to the ‘Vamp or Not?’ as I look to the story.

The story begins with what look likes border control from mainland China into Hong Kong. Mei (Ling Bai) hand her papers over and then puts a lunch pail in a scanner. She returns home and opens the pail. There are fried egg, ham and rice in one layer but, below that, there is another layer with a box. She opens it. To those entirely new to the film it might not be clear what these are – they are foetuses. She eats one raw.

In a poor looking estate an expensive car pulls up and Mrs Li (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah) gets out. She looks for the home of Mai, asking for directions. Eventually she reaches the flat – Mai clearly has been expecting her and remembers her from her previous career as a TV star. Li has come for Mai’s dumplings, reputedly the most expensive. After a discussion about age – Li guesses that Mai is in her thirties at most, but she says she is much older – Mai makes dumplings for the woman.

It is clear that Li was looking for a way to look younger but it is also clear that she knows what she is eating – though Mai keeps her out of the kitchen. Her hesitance leads her to spit up the first dumpling (Mai places it in the soil of a plotted plant – it will bloom much better). The look of disgust on her face is palpable but she eats them anyway – Mai telling her that she mustn’t think of what it was.

A man swims, it is Mr Li (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and one difference between this and the short is we see much more of him. He and his wife are living in a hotel as their home is renovated. After the swim a masseuse (Pauline Lau) is working on him and he is coming on to her. During this section he eats a balut – an Asian delicacy, the balut is a fertilized duck or chicken egg with a nearly developed embryo inside, which is boiled and is said to offer energy and sexual potency. The juxtaposition of this with the subject of the film offers an obvious simile. From their room Mrs Li watches her husband’s antics.

We see Mei in a hospital – the place where she buys her ingredients. The nurse tells Mei that security has been increased and there will be no more for two weeks. As they talk we discover that Mei had been a doctor on the mainland, one who specialised in abortion and, due to the Chinese one child policy, she had performed upwards of 30,000 abortions in ten years. She split up with her husband but they never had kids – he believed that after performing so many abortions her child would be cursed.

Mrs Li wants a faster treatment and is told that the most potent are 5 to 6 months old – third trimester foetus are too tough. We see her in multiple shots, eating the dumplings and at first she is disgusted by what she eats – Mei brings her a raw foetus and she can’t look at it – but eventually she becomes more and more nonchalant about her diet. We also see that Mr Li has an affair with the masseuse and goes ‘away’ (actually to another room in the hotel) with her rather than spend his 15th anniversary with his wife.

Mei is approached by a mother (So-Fun Wong) whose 15 year old daughter, Kate (Miki Yeung), is pregnant. She asks for Mei’s help, who suggests going to a certain hospital where the abortion would be legal but they can’t afford to (presumably it was on the Chinese mainland). Mei actually seems reluctant to help, unlike the short where it goes straight to the abortion, even when she hears that the child was fathered by Kate’s father. Eventually, however, she does help. Before then we see Mei and Mrs Li go to Mrs Li’s home and Mrs Li finding some eggs – presumably for balut. Angry at her husband she smashes them and a live chick emerges from one of the eggs. She squashes it with her foot.

Following Kate’s abortion, Mei prepares more dumplings. However Mrs Li peeks in the kitchen, sees the foetus that is rather well developed and runs in horror. She gets onto the streets, heaves and then, with shaky legs, returns to the flat. Once there she gathers her courage, examines the foetus and eats the resultant dumplings. To me this indicated the final step across the morality border – she had tried to ignore what she was eating but now she had actively seen and it was at a stage where it was recognisably a human baby. There was no more pretence in Mrs Li’s habits.

The film then follows her reconciliation with her husband, her negative reaction to the diet (put down as nerves by her doctor), which led to a rash on her neck and hands that smelt like fish, and Kate’s death as she suffered complications from her procedure. I said this differs from the short and it is in two main ways hereon in - one being a change from the original and one being a thread unseen in the original. For the unseen thread, Mr Li finds out about the dumplings, wants them himself and embarks on an affair with Mei and, for the changed aspect, Mrs Li does not become pregnant – though the masseuse does.

There is a shot towards the end, when Mei has done a runner, that people have suggested indicates she has become older. It is likely that she is not on her diet any more but I couldn’t for certain tell you if that was the aim of the shot or if it just showed her living on the streets – the shot was too distant. We do discover – during her affair with Mr Li – that she is actually 64 years old. She also, at one point, mentions staying young forever.

The film is gorgeously shot (even if the subject matter of the photography is somewhat gruesome) and, for the most part, runs well as a feature. There is one moment when Mrs Li is in Mei’s flat that is very badly edited and her seated position changes in frame but that was a one off event. Later it might appear that Mr Li is switching seats in shot but it seemed more that we were in a sequence of intercut scenes set at different times and the cuts were deliberate. The soundtrack fits rather well and hits a quite industrial level at times, becoming almost whimsical at others.

All in all a fascinating, beautiful film. Some might complain that there is no real conclusion but it fit with the tone of the film. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Three… Extremes

Three… Extremes was a 2004 anthology collection of three short films from different parts of Asia and I want to look at the content of two of them. The third, just to mention it, was the Japanese film Box directed by Takashi Miike.

As for the other two, the segment from Hong Kong was Dumplings. This was directed by Fruit Chan and I intend to look at this under ‘Vamp or Not?’

There was a Korean film also, called Cut, by Chan-wook Park. This one will be looked at under ‘Honourable Mentions’.

Honourable Mentions: Three… Extremes: Cut

Cut starts off with a man (Gyu-sik Kim) embraced by a woman (Jung-ah Yum), her head is at his neck and the sucking noises reveal to us that she is a vampire and she feeds. It is a marvellous scene as the feed seems to go on and on and on… This is no minor bite and fall, this is a major feed. She lets him go and he remains in position and she removes metallic fangs when her mobile phone rings. She was just having dinner and he is still frozen, she says.

The caller wants her to play piano and she attempts to do so. However she begins to get pains in her stomach. Was the food past its expiration date? She crawls on all fours and the camera pans backwards and we realise we are in a film studio and this is a film in production. As for what happens to the vampire woman character, we see her on a monitor copiously vomiting blood. Interestingly the film is entitled – it would appear – Live Evil, though the ‘evil’ is not only a palindrome but represented on logo as a mirror image of the ‘live’. You will recall that there is now a vampire movie called Live Evil.

The rest of the film follows a terror visited on the director (Byung-hun Lee) and his wife (Hye-jeong Kang).

Vamp or Not? Three… Extremes: Dumplings

This film by Fruit Chan is powerful because it dares to go to extremes and to trip through a myriad taboos with a casual air around it that belies said taboos. It begins with a woman, clearly affluent, called Li (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah) walking through a run down estate and knocking on the door of a flat. She has come to see Mei (Ling Bai, who we last saw in the Breed) whose dumplings are said to be the most expensive but the best. Li was an actress years before but retired from the limelight.

They sit and talk. Mei asks how old Li thinks she is and Li suggests that she is in her thirties, at the most. Mei confides that she is much older and that folks call her Aunt Mei. She cooks up some dumplings, explaining how she does the dough but keeping the other woman out of her kitchen. Eventually Li is given a dumpling soup; the dumplings are almost translucent revealing their pink innards. Mei tells her that for women to rejuvenate they must start from the inside and she must not think of what the dumpling was. Mei sings a song from her youth and Li sweats as she eats.

We see a man (Tony Leung Ka Fai) having sex with a younger woman. In the next scene we realise that he is Li’s husband as he explains that he is off on a trip. It is clear that his affairs are not unknown to Li, though not spoken of. We also see Aunt Mei in a hospital talking to a nurse. She tells Mei that security has been tightened, it is the last the nurse can get and that she should not return for a couple of weeks. They have airport like scanners in the hospital and check her lunch pail. At their next meeting Li asks Mei for faster results and Mei claims that the ingredients are best at 5 or 6 months. She claims the crunchiness of the current dumplings are down to hands and feet. It is clear to the viewer that they are talking about foetuses.

As Li leaves a woman (So-Fun Wong) turns up with her daughter Kate (Miki Yeung). Kate is a pregnant schoolgirl and Mei performs a backroom abortion. When Li returns she sneaks into the kitchen as Mei starts cooking and sees the foetus – she runs from the flat and heaves. Eventually, however, she returns. It is clear that Li knew what she was eating – it was being faced with the reality that affected her so. Mei tells her it is a rarity, a boy foetus (boys would not tend to be aborted in China) from a healthy schoolgirl. She eats the next batch of dumplings and then gets a call from her husband – he has broken his leg. Despite the traction he is in he seems to find her more attractive and they get it on – note that through the film Li doesn’t look any younger, though perhaps a little more radiant, to the viewer.

Kate is on a bus when she starts to bleed, she collapses in the street bleeding profusely. Li meanwhile is throwing a dinner party. The guests, impressed by her appearance, start to notice a strange fishy smell and she develops a rash on her neck and hands. She leaves her guests and runs a fragrant bath (clearly she is the source of the smell) and phones Mei. Mei says that the foetus was rare because its father was also its grandfather and Li exclaims that it was cursed. Mei mentions that they are re-running her show on TV, reminding her of what she seeks to attain. However she does go to a doctor and discovers that, despite previously being infertile, she is now 2 months pregnant.

The police raid Kate’s erstwhile home as her mother has murdered her father. From the shrine, which we can see in the home, it is clear that Kate died. They also raid Mei’s home, something Li observes – though Mei has already scarpered. At home Li sits in a bath, with an implement and self aborts. She bleeds from the mouth as she does this but licks the blood away with, what seems, an unnaturally long tongue. If we were going anywhere with that it is not explained as we see her eating dumplings again and the film ends.

Given the nature of the food she attempts to regenerate with, this is clearly a controversial film. For our purposes, however, I can see two areas that lead this towards vampire. Firstly it is the nature of the youth treatment. Clearly it is a version of the Báthory legend – though instead of bathing in blood they are eating unborn children. Yes it is cannibalism but it seems to have the desired result – in the case of Mei at least and in the perceptions of those around Li. It is also clear that those involved know what they are doing; they take the conscious decision to eat the unborn. Secondly I can’t help but think that the tongue, which we see at the end, was an oblique reference. This might be a film of Chinese origin but folklore from many Asian countries have vampires that devour unborn or young babies – both the Penanggalan and Aswang spring to mind and both creatures have long probing tongues they use to feed.

Ultimately I would say that dumplings should be classed as a variant vampire flick. The short was expanded later into a feature and I hope to bring that to you at some point in the future.

The imdb page for Three… Extremes is here.