Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey

I saw Jugular Wine back when it was relatively new in the 90s. It was always on the shelf at Blockbuster or my local video store, but only 1 copy, and it was always out.

When I did see it, it felt more like a documentary than a fiction. The weird mix of outdoor cinematography on 35mm and what felt like 70mm film, and then close and personal scenes shot on vhs that looked like the old soap operas that were like you were there, looking in a window.

The plot is someone that gets involved with a real vampire, and is drawn into their secret world. And it kind of puts you in the main characters seat.

It really dragged me in.

But it's not a good movie by modern standards.

It's almost a Vampire Art film.

It had no chance of being accepted or full appreciated when it came out.

This is probably as obscure and hard to come by as London After Midnight.

I tried to find a copy of it...and by luck, found a new sealed copy for $50 on ebay.

I think you can rent it on Amazon...not sure. But if you can find it, grab some friends, cook up some bloody rare steaks, and of course...pair it with a nice red wine...the Vampire wine label still exists...try the Romanian Red if you can find it.

The only aspects of this film which raise it from the unwatchable are the occasional scenes with unusual lighting, the half decent performances by most characters except the lead, and a few quite realistic bloody hearts. Switch to fast-forward, and forget the dialogue.

Confusing, badly plotted mishmash of vampire clichés, shot with a home video camera for about $1.99. Very gory in parts. Lot of bad acting. I only watched it because I felt like I ought to get my money's worth for renting it. Skip it, really.

I'll be as generous as possible by saying that I can at least tell what this movie is trying to do: show the disorientation and weirdness of a living man's slow descent into undeath. However, in my opinion, it doesn't even come close to working as designed. The artsy visual effects, constant flashbacks, bizarre peripheral characters and other efforts at a "dream logic" feel only result in an exasperating incoherence. Totally unappealing characters, gratuitous gore (why would vampires be so wasteful of blood?) and too many different locations (should have stayed in Philadelphia with only flashbacks to Alaska - California and Louisiana sequences are completely unnecessary) add to a general feeling of wasted energy. (--and that...outfit...on Legion nearly made me lose my pizza.) Badly wants to be "Carnival of Souls" or even "Jacob's Ladder" but accomplishes only "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies".

As has been said here, there's possibly a good movie under all this, but it's not what you get on the screen. Potentially interesting ideas are submerged by too many 'art film' delusions and cheap camera effects, not to mention editing that gives one the impression that at least one reel of out-takes was mistakenly substituted for footage that was essential to the plot. All in all, pass. It could have been intriguing and thoughtful, but it's just not.