Blood & Donuts
Director: Holly Dale
Writer: Andrew Rai Berzins
Cast: Gordon Currie, Louis Ferreira, Helene Clarkson, Fiona Reid, Frank Moore, Hadley Kay, David Cronenberg
Seen on: 24.10.2021

Plot:
When a wayward golf ball hits Boya’s (Gordon Currie) sleeping place, the vampire awakes from his 25 year slumber and decides to see what humanity has been up to. He hails a cab, driven by Earl (Louis Ferreira) who has a habit of getting into trouble. As Boya gets settled into the present day, Rita (Fiona Reid) who he used to see 25 years ago, feels their connection re-awakening. Meanwhile, Boya saves Earl from local thugs, and as a thank you, Earl brings him to the donut shop he frequents. There, Boya meets Molly (Helene Clarkson) and sparks fly. But fitting into this world as a vampire is not that easily done.

Blood & Donuts is not great, but it does have a kind of low budget and a little dusty charm that makes it rather endearing, even if not everything about it works.

Blood & Donuts is very 90s, with a vampire look that may as well be from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (since the series was released a couple of years later, maybe it took its inspiration from this film), but also with the kind of melancholic and slightly self-loathing vampire that seems ripped right out of Interview with the Vampire. In short, there is a zeitgeist here that will very familiar to people like me who grew up with that kind of stuff and that has a certain nostalgic charm. For others, it might feel pretty outdated.

Contrary to Boya’s melancholy, the film is actually a comedy that seems to self-awarely make fun of this trope. A lot of the comedy weighs on Earl, though. With Ferreira bringing the necessary warmth to the role, he keeps Earl firmly in the likeable camp, and not in the annoying one. Sometimes the humor does fall flat, though, with some jokes feeling a little tired, others simply not that well-paced.

Personally I have to admit that I struggled a little with Boya. I never was all that fond of the sad vampires, and I so desperately wanted to give Boya a haircut that I couldn’t see why Molly would feel so drawn to him. Also, he treated Rita pretty crappily, I thought, making decisions for her in the name of his morals that she is perfectly capable of making herself. But if you’re more into broody dudes, he might be for you.

Overall, I’d say that Blood & Donuts is charming and sweet, albeit a little dated. If you like vampires, you should definitely give it a go, but even if you don’t, you’ll probably get a chuckle or two out of it.

Summarizing: sweet enough.