Review: Thicker Than Water (The Vampire Diaries, Part I)
Director: Phillip Messerer
Year: 2009
Country: USA
I’ve been toying with a suitable way to review this film. While a straightforward, conventional review dissecting its positive and negative aspects would be the appropriate thing to do, I am anything but conventional. Instead, since most people will never view this film, I will present the review in a scene-by-scene format, punctuated by a series of pictures and pithy commentary that I hope has come to be expected of me. As such, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a giant SPOILER ALERT, lest this review result in another pissy director *coughGEORGESNOWcough* getting his panties all in a wad and complain until he gets a positive review.
The film opens with scenes of a Mayan pyramid punctuated by a silly narrative discussing human sacrifices to the Sun God, a deity with a ferocious appetite….for BLOOD! Seriously, it actually says that. From this point I knew I – and the filmmaker – were screwed. While narrative introductions used to explain motives or allude to an eventual explanation are all well and good, it’s good to use a voice that doesn’t sound like a nervous virgin about to have sex for the first time.
Cut to the bedroom of Lara Baxter, our gothy fifteen year-old protagonist with a fetish for Anne Rice, black clothing, and the esoteric. We see her lighting a candle to the vampire novelist-cum-born-again Christian when her twin sister, the bubbly and relatively unassuming Helen, bursts into the room and complains about not being able to find her dumbbells. Here we see stereotypes and stock characters in action. It’s like 10 Things I Hate About You, only less (intentionally) funny and without the hilarious David Krumholtz, everyone’s favorite super Jew. After a brief altercation and shouting match, Helen leaves and we cut to the title sequence.
I have to laud Phil Messerer for his choice in music here, as retarded hard rock on par with Staind and a variety of nu-metal abortions is the best way to convey the angst associated with being a teenage goth in an unassuming town. Having her wander through a cemetery only makes her angst all the more appropriate and not at all cliche.
Angst!
It is now dinner time, and here we get to meet the family. First up is Ray, a twenty-something oddball who practices medicine out of the second-floor bedroom of his parents’ house. Ray is apparently gay and has magic hair. Yes, magic hair. While I understand Messerer was working within the constraints of a very small budget and no doubt shot scenes out of order like most filmmakers, it truly is a testament to his horrific attention to detail when every scene involving Ray features him with different hair style or hair length. I mean every scene.
This is Ray when we first meet him:
Shortly after dinner he apparently gets a haircut.
As the film progresses his hair undergoes more transformations than the genre of the film. This one is by far the most grievous of the bunch. But I digress.
Next up is Helen, the twin sister of Lara, whom we have already briefly met. She’s a vegetarian, blond, and popular, and no doubt jealous of her sister’s ability to wear all black with style! The nameless father is introduced next. He is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, as his only appearance is relegated to this scene. Finally there’s mom, who is perhaps the most developed and interesting of the characters. A former figure skater of Bulgarian descent, an accident left her with a limp and now she spends all her time “making brownies and singing in a local church choir.” While I clearly have misgivings about the cast, the make-up work on her is phenomenal, as actress Jo Jo Hristova is only thirty-two years old, a year younger than the thirty-three year old who portrays her twenty-something son. Despite the low-budget, the effects in the film are impressive. I mean, look at this:
So mom and dad reveal they’re getting separated, and no one really seems to care. Mom copes by cleaning and having neighbors over for tea, while Lara prefers to visit the local occult store, the Freakatorium. The frequency of her visits have allowed her to maintian a friendship with the proprietor, a creepy older dude named Max who sports a long white goatee and a snake around his necl. He tells Lara of the vampiress Oya (sp?), the history of which is detailed in a rare book he recently acquired.
More teenage angst follows in the form of a joint birthday party, wherein Lara relates her hatred of her sister to her mother, followed by a breakdown of the ingredients involved in a curse designed to give her sister “anal acne.” Unfortunately, the curse seemingly backfires and she suffers from a horrendous nosebleed. After a doctor examines her in her bed and advises that she eat a cheeseburger for some reason, everyone leaves. Helen calls back Lara and apologizes for never being her friend. Then she dies. That doctor is fucking terrible. Thanks to the medical inquisitiveness of Ray, he runs a sample of her blood and concludes that not only did she have a rare blood disorder but she has an unexplained virus affected only by ultraviolet light.
DUN DUN DUN!
Later that night mom and Lara embrace and cry, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door. Conveniently enough, it’s Helen, covered in blood and crying. Instead of being absolutely fucking terrified that her daughter just came back from the dead and is bleeding out her eyes, mom embraces her. Following this sentimental and totally fucked up reunion, Helen begins to blame Lara for this but is interrupted by the arrival of the police and a more voice-overs about Mayans.
The background of Oya is described thusly: For generations the Mayans had been sacrificing to the vampiress, interrupted only by the Mayan genocide at the hands of the invading Spanish army. As a result, she essentially cursed the Spanish army, killing most of them. Those who survived spoke of a demon unleashed by the native Mayans.
It is concluded relatively quickly that she’s a vampire, as the notion of her being a zombie is just ridiculous. Plus, Lara’s affinity for Anne Rice makes it all the more appropriate. Ray concludes through a blood test that she has been consuming blood and thus slowing the process of red blood cell death, but warns that the only way to keep her from dying (again) is to feed her more and more blood. Much like the completely unnecessary revelation that Dumbledore is gay, Ray reveals he’s a homosexual, which everyone – even mom – knew.
Here we learn of the vampire mythos created by Messerer. By staving off hunger through the mass consumption of blood, Helen will be able to act rationally. If she gets hungry, she acts all vampire-y, and honestly, that’s just bad news for everyone. The suggestion of feeding her animals is shot down, as not only would it take way too many to actually satisfy her blood lust, but the genetic make-up of an animal is “hardly suitable for a human.” This stands out as one of the few interesting and creative aspects of the film, yet still hindered by convention and stereotypes. The underwhelming theme of familial love is worn on the film’s sleeve here, as Lara and Ray are all content with killing people to feed Helen’s new sanguinary addiction, while mom takes about three minutes to come around.This is the average time for a woman to go from God fearing disciple of the Lord to reluctant murderer.
Enter the Mormons. Clearly the most ironic of choices for first victims given mom’s love of the Lord, all this does is prove even the fervently religious hate proselytizing fundies. I found this scene to be among the most hilarious, if not for the poisoned Mormon drooling all over himself then for the fat Mormon saying “My associate is unwell!” in response to him falling face first into a piece of cake. He in turn is poisoned and tumbles down, only to be strangled by Ray.
Remember the whole “not being able to eat animals” thing? It’s explained through yet another voice-over. Oya began heading north to the “new world,” and while she was able to subsist on animals, they made her too weak and really pissed off. When she finally does see a human, she was too weak and overpowered, her “undead body defiled.”
I’m only going to say this once: voice-overs are a copout and evidence of bad writing and bad storytelling. If everything can’t be explained through actions or dialogue, then you’re doing something wrong. While one voice-over could work, having three just over halfway into the movie is ridiculous. Moving on.
Lara, Ray, and mom, who clearly believe they’re doing the right thing, present the skinny Mormon to Helen, who refuses to eat. Lara insists that all they have to do is leave him alone with her, and once the virus raging inside of her takes over she will drink his blood. What follows is a montage of Helen going insane and eventually sucking some Mormon blood. This scene could have been pretty good, as it possessed one of the creepier shots in the film, as well as featured the elasticity of Devon Dionne, who manages to twist and contort herself into some pretty astounding positions. Sadly, it was burderned by ridiculous “blood-sucking” noises and the worst possible choice in music – screamo.
By this point the movie starts to descend into what can loosely be considered black comedy. Helen can’t understand why this is happening to her, while the soft, subtle acoustic twangs of a country song accompany a montage wherein Ray kills people and experiments with their body parts, at one point attempts to reanimate a disembodied head; meanwhile mom kills the neighbors and Lara reads to Helen while she sleeps in a coffin. The gore is prevalent here, and one of the few aspects of the film that actually shows Messerer’s wayward dedication to the film. Simple elements like continuity, script, and anything that comprises good filmmaking pale in comparison to the impressive use of blood and guts to act as a gruesome mediator to the comedic nature of the film.
The house is now covered in blood, with all attempts to clean having proven to be fruitless. More of Messerer’s vampire mythos is now explained, serving as a blatant attempt at setting up the third act. Not only does Helen’s memory begin to fade (vampires apparently only remember “what they need to”), but she won’t age, can never get sick, and her only real worry is other vampires coming for her. How fucking convenient.
After an amusing Christmas dinner, we’re given another musical montage, beginning with Ray trying on a variety of outfits while Lara watches, shirt unbottoned to reveal her bra and cleavage while she smokes a joint. We’ve eclipsed what can be considered normal behavior, so this is just par for the course. After more murderin’ and experimentin’ on heads, we get to meet the greatest worst character in the history of cinema.
Meet Patrice Duchamp the Third, portrayed by classically-trained Shakespearean actor Peter Morr. Where he was trained I do not know, but I sincerely hope they lose their accredidation. Patrice shows up at the Baxter home to request an audience with Helen and attempt to bring her to his castle and live among other vampires or some other stupid shit like that. His plans, however, are foiled when Ray returns home and cuts off his head and peels his face off. I guess that kills vampires. Who knew?
Mother of God, this is just beyond fucking hysterical now. By now I’m laughing my ass off over the complete devolution of the film into absolute asburdity. After Lara says that more will follow, Ray finally asks her how the fuck she knows everything. Turns out Max, the curator of the Freakatorium, left Helen in a basket at mom’s doorstep. She has always been a vampire, only recently transforming due to a dormant vampire gene in her body given to her by both her parents. Roughly the same age as Lara, she was passed off as her twin, resulting in one of the most ironic sibling rivalries in the history of ever.
Another voice-over about that dumb ho Oya. Other vampires found her and she was inducted into Patrice Duchamp the Third’s “Bordello of Blood,” where she gave birth to a human male that possessed the dormant vampire gene. Sadly, Oya and other vampires were rounded up in the “most famous vampire raid in New Orleans history.” There was more than one?
Instead of ending there and saving everyone from more of the same shit, Helen is shown going crazy, flipping over chairs and throwing shit against the wall while mom, Lara, and Ray discuss what to do. One of the victims escapes, punches Ray in the mouth, and runs outside. Instead of saving the sacrifice, mom plunges a knife into her own throat as a final act of repentance, allowing Helen to drink the blood squirting from the hole in her neck.
Fin.
The title Thicker Than Water is appropriate for this film, as the theme of family and the lengths one will go to preserve that bond is worn on its sleeve. Unfortunately, a theme fit for drama is found in a movie that has no discernible genre, vacillating between horror and comedy with no idea as to which one it wants to be. A secret source informed me that Messerer attempted to toy with the idea of convention, as vampires and indeed horror itself holds no clear genre boundaries. Messerer clearly has no idea what he’s doing.
This extends into his direction, which shows every attempt at being unique and edgy, employing a variety of filters and camera techniques. There was simply no need for any of them. The notion of framing a scene is foreign to him, and the bulk of the film is shot using odd angles, exposing the roofless set and the sweat-laden faces of the characters baking under the lights. As I stated throughout the review, the choices in music were ridiculous, the only scene-appropriate song coming at the end when mom plunged a butcher knife into her throat. Stock classical music and assorted piano plague the film, with no scene containing a song that genuinely fits the action or the depth of emotion the actors are attempting to convey.
This is a film-school film that takes everything one might have learned and throws it in the trash. Uninspired, sloppy in its direction, and indeed an affront to mankind, the only saving grace of this film were a few minor moments of humor and some decent gore that managed to punctuate the listless acting and God awful dialogue. Thicker Than Water has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, proving everyone else who has seen this movie is fucking insane and is simply afraid to criticize an up-and-coming director. My criticism may not be constructive, but at least its honest. After all, what are we without our principles?
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Your review is the third I have read about this film, two negative, one gushingly positive… What gives? I am more inclined to trust yourself and BJ-C… However the premise of the film sounded good on the surface it just seems it may have been poorly executed.
http://www.musingcontinuum.com
This is such a fabulous review. It completely WHOMPS mine. I however am glad you joined my team of not sucking the tit of getting my blog on a dvd cover
I’m nothing but honest in my reviews, whether I get sent the flick for free from the director or not, and I enjoyed Thicker Than Water. Not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I thought it was fun if not taken too seriously.
Is it me or is your math a little fuzzy.
FANGORIA article:
http://www.fangoria.com/home/indie-frights/3222-blood-is-thicker-than-water-in-vampire-diaries-feature.html