THE THIRST
© Anchor Bay/Starz
Mania Grade: B-
Rated: Unrated
Cast: Clare Kramer, Adam Baldwin, Ellie Cornell
Writer: Ben Lustig & Liz Maccie
Director: Jeremy Kasten
Distributor: Anchor Bay/Starz
Original Year of Release: 2006
Extras: Director's commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, making of documentary, Favorite Vampire featurette
Buy it now!
Rated: Unrated
Cast: Clare Kramer, Adam Baldwin, Ellie Cornell
Writer: Ben Lustig & Liz Maccie
Director: Jeremy Kasten
Distributor: Anchor Bay/Starz
Original Year of Release: 2006
Extras: Director's commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, making of documentary, Favorite Vampire featurette
Buy it now!
THE THIRST
By: Tim JansonReview Date: Friday, July 06, 2007
I have a bit of a hard time classifying The Thirst. It’s a vampire movie and it’s exceptionally gore-filled, but I have a hard time calling it a horror film because it’s not scary. I know…a lot of horror films are not scary, or some are scary for the wrong reasons (House of the Dead, anyone?). But it’s really more that it doesn’t try to be scary. What it does try is to be a very stylish vampire film (even with the buckets of blood) and succeeds to a degree but is guilty of trying too hard.
Clare Kramer is an interesting actress. I’ve seen her in three different roles, first as the God, Glory, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then in Gravedancers, one of the After Dark Horrorfest films, and now in this film. I didn’t recognize her in either of these two films initially until I had to check to see which part she was playing. To me that’s a real tribute to her as an actress and her ability to blend in to any role. She simply did not look like “Glory” in either of these two films.
In The Thirst she is Lisa, a drug-addicted stripper who is dying of cancer, a fact she has carefully hidden from her boyfriend, Maxx (Matt Keesler). While dying in the hospital Lisa is visited by a woman who poses as a therapist but in reality is a vampire. Lisa commits suicide but she’s already been bitten Sasha and returns to life and is welcomed into Sasha’s clan of vamps that includes the leader Darius, a Brit named the Duke of Earl, Lenny, and two rather bizarre women who chatter in an unknown language known just as the sisters.
When Maxx discovers that Lisa is still alive he tries to rescue her from the clan but is captured and given the choice of being killed or joining the family. He chooses the latter and soon is joining them on their depraved blood fests as they descend upon various Goth and strip clubs, slaughtering everyone in a literal deluge of blood. Before long, Maxx and Lisa have second thoughts about their new family and know they need to escape. But Darius and Sasha are not going to let them walk away…
The Thirst is one gory film! The victims of the vampires don’t just get a couple of fang marks in their necks, they get their throats ripped out, sending blood gushing out like a ruptured water pump. Entrails are torn out and snacked and on unfortunate stripper has the back of her head torn like a Christmas present. This leaves our vampires covered in red from head-to-toe.
The Thirst goes for a stylish look which detracts from the horror. When the vampires are attacking, the film speeds up to a frenetic, strobe-like pace, and jumps from character to character. Combine that with a techno industrial soundtrack, and it’s all a bit disorienting. One of the best scenes is when Maxx and Lisa try to eat a couple of cats and end up with what amounts to a bad acid trip. Kramer and Keesler are able to just go wildly over the top and it’s quite amusing.
While the actors may not be household names they are all screen veterans. Adam Baldwin plays Lenny, a backwoods, hillbilly vampire, in a rather wide departure from his usual prim and proper roles as a military officer or government agent. Another Buffy alum making an appearance in The Thirst is Tom Lenk who plays Kronos, an androgynous regular at a Goth club. Also look for Ellie Cornell as Nurse Linda. Cornell is best remembered for her roles in Halloween 4 & 5.
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