Midnight Son: Is it Bloody Gross?

I don’t know why it is exactly, but when I think of vampires drinking blood, I think of it as natural, sexy, mysterious; whatever. But when I think of people consuming blood, all I can think of is the effect air has on large puddles of blood: it turns into dark red jelly. Naturally, this makes me vurp a little in my mouth. Drinking blood from the source, or a cut, also, sexy. If a little daring. But to just chug blood from a cup? Eh…. I can think of better things to squelch around in my mouth than salty thick jello… think, really salty, really strong cold gravy. See? That’s just not hot. Which is why I’m just not able to get into the right mood or mind-frame to properly enjoy ‘Midnight Son’.

The synopsis:

“Jacob (Zak Kilberg) works the night shift as a high-rise security guard and sleeps during the day. He has an unusual skin disorder that causes sunlight to burn his flesh at a highly accelerated rate, and his arm bears the bubbled scars to prove it. Oh, and he also enjoys the taste of fresh blood. He tries to satiate the raging hunger within by eating case-loads of microwave pizzas, but blood is the only thing that satisfies. To that end he’s content with slurping the liquid protein from packaged meat containers and gives no thought to the idea of human blood. Well, not immediately anyway.

He meets a cigarette bar girl named Mary (Maya Parish) and the two hit it off. She comes over to his place, snorts some coke, and the two of them start making out until blood drips from her nose onto his face and mouth. Jacob gives it a tentative lick, and an odd sensation comes over him. Odd, but not bad. Soon he’s looking for human blood in all the wrong places including other peoples faces and hospital dumpsters which is where he meets the morally bankrupt Marcus (Jo D. Jonz) and things take a turn for the violent.”

I love the premise for the film, –but something in it irks me, –for the sake of real vampires everywhere, I think this really casts a negative light on the vampire community. Drinking and consuming blood, or having the urge, doesn’t mean you need to start going around, killing people and -barf- drinking it out of bio-hazard bags. That’s horrid. Many people, people you might know, are involved in the vampire subculture. The film portrayal of the lifestyle is ridiculous, always. The vampire community at large do not dig through hospital refuse, attack people, and most of them are just as morally inclined as the rest of us. But that doesn’t really make for good films, now does it?

On the subject of the movie itself, rather than its philosophical reception, I have to say, I’m interested, now that it’s out on the circuit, appearing at film festivals; the most recent review, from Cinequest (which is where I got my synopsis too, since, in my opinion, it is a bit more explanatory) had a lot of great things to say about the film:

Midnight Son is a refreshing and subtly entertaining break from the uninspired and artificial examples of the vampire genre clogging up the cineplex. It deftly blends drama, romance, and a wet, crimson splash of horror into a story about the line between who we are and who we want to be. It’s an easy line to find and a difficult one to cross, but all you need is luck, passion, and purpose. And maybe an empty Trenta cup from Starbucks.

I have to say, I’m ready for a little horror, and less romance from my vampires. Whether I’m ready to see vampires, or people who believe they are vampires, drinking blood via a nosebleed, is another thing. Nosebleeds = bloody snot. Eating that, is just a tiny notch above eating period blood clots. Hey, don’t look at me, –if he wants blood, why wouldn’t he go there? If you’re going to lick up nose blood, then surely menstruation is just as easy, right? How do you guys feel about the whole ‘guy thinks he’s a vampire’ thing? Gross? Sexy? Insane?

By annimi

Ashley writes for Vampires.com, Werewolves.com, and other sites in the Darksites Network. She's involved in several seedy and disreputable activities, smokes too much, and spends her late nights procrastinating for work on her first novel.

4 comments

  1. This looks like an example of what I think of as a human sanguinarian (HS), not a superhuman vampire (SV). SVs have superhuman traits and are usually undead, but if not undead they are mutated, alien, possessed, symbiotic, or hybrid. Not a HS, which is an otherwise ordinary human who drinks blood for religious, cultural, delusional, fetishistic, or medical reasons.

    I just hope that the movie doesn’t explain that he has porphyria even though the porphyria-vampirism myth has been completely discredited. I suppose it’s possible that the protagonist could be revealed to be a SV. And sometimes in these films the character’s status is left ambiguous.

    (Note: some SVs are also ‘vampires but in name’ – VBN. Examples: Jennifer’s Body, Forest of the Damned…)

    Of course, movies and books about HS are well within vampire genre interest. Personally, I much prefer SV literature and movies.

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  3. Reading the outline of the story and seeing the trailer. I get the feeling he is not a vampire wantabe. I know there are people that belong in the vampire culture but the sun isn’t going to hurt them nor they are into going to starve without blood. I get the feeling something strange is going on with the guy. I don’t know what the movie’s explanation is going to be though.

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