Radu Vladislas lives again in his origin story, for the first time on the big screen.
And we look back at the cult classic franchise.
It’s hard to know where to start for this review. As a long-time lover of the genre, as a decades long Subspecies fan, this was an emotionally charged viewing. I wasn’t moved to tears, though. There’s no way a Subspecies film could break hearts (okay maybe Subspecies III). No, there were no tears. It was smiles all the way to the theater, and all the way through the film, on the way home, all the way up until I laid down for bed.
This film was highly anticipated for a number of reasons. For one, it’s been 20 years since Full Moon, its owner Charles Band, and director Ted Nicolaou have gifted us with a Subspecies film. Second, this was the first time a Subspecies film has ever premiered in a theater. The Alamo Drafthouse offered a once-in-a-lifetime, limited viewing of the latest film in the franchise along with a QA featurette at the end. This Subspecies film represents Full Moon’s dedication to its fans, and may just be the next generation’s introduction to arguably one of the best, and worst, vampires of the last 30 years, Radu Vladislas.
If you’re just joining the fandom, Subspecies V: Bloodrise is your gateway drug, like Subspecies IV: Bloodstorm was for me. So today let’s talk about Subspecies V, why it’s important, it’s key talking points, and then let’s go back in time to 1991 where it all began and revisit this cult classic that has never gone out of style, and we’ll start with what we’ve all been waiting for: the review of Subspecies V: Bloodrise.
A Review of Subspecies V: Bloodrise
What I seek is forbidden.
–Radu Vladislas, Subspecis V: Blood Rise
Subspecies V tells the origin of Radu Vladislas, his rise through the ranks of The Order Of The Dragon, and his eventual fall to darkness. Though short (only 80 minutes), the plot is as ambitious as always. However, thanks to the pacing, isn’t nearly as rushed–at least, not at first–as it’s predecessors. Like all B horror films, the writers and editors have no problem futzing with the passage of time. Hove spends very little time in the traditional Radu makeup, allowing us to gaze at length into the depth of his character. Later in the film, the makeup is more pronounced, but still more subtle than any of the previous films, likely due to Hove’s age and general dislike of the makeup process on the previous films.
In addition to the changes in makeup, further improvements have been made, such as the transition of the physical form to shadow, and the practical effects. However, despite upgrades to the filming techniques, equipment, and the enhanced CGI, Subspecies V remains a true member of the franchise.
It was a bit disappointing that he didn’t say the line. If you know, you know.
The Cast
As always, Hove leans into the character, and since we start off with Radu as a human, we get to see the slow decent into decadence and madness that marks his character later in the timeline of the saga. The signature growl, the lisp around the double fangs, the bulging eye roll, the sallow flesh, the extended fingers, all are present! Age has added a gravely edge to the voice, and it was obvious throughout the earlier narration that it is Radu that speaks to us.
Denise Duff is in rare form, playing the role of Helena, Radu’s temptation, his curse, the root of his jealousy at Stefan later in the films. She is a powerful force on screen, no longer the helpless victim, but to quote Anthony Hopkins in Dracula, “A desperate follower, a wonton follower. I daresay, a devoted disciple.” Her lust for power and her decadence is a breath of fresh air for female actresses in the genre. So many female vampires are mindless sex slaves or brainless servants. This is even true of the Subspecies damsels, but Duff reverses the role with Helena, forcing Radu into a place he’s not used to being, and where he’ll never find himself again, I’ll be bound.
Kevin Spirtas has way too little screen time, like his predecessor, Angus Scrimm, before him. He had far more screen time in Subspecies II and Subspecies III as Mel.
Despite the film’s setting of Romania/Transylvania, the cast of the film, with the exception of Duff, Spirtas, and Hove, are all Serbian. More on that in a moment. The Serbian cast of Yulia Graut, Stasia Nikolic, and Marko Filipovic are delightful to watch. They are the newest faces on the horror scene and Stasia Nikolic deserves high honors among her peers. Hove said of Stasia that if she studies and works hard she could be one of the best, and I tend to agree. She is a perfect foil for Duff’s Helena. Where Ariel (Stasia Nikolic) is blood-crazed, Helena is composed and calculating. Young and inexperienced, Ariel is intended to be perhaps as old as Duff was when she was playing Michelle, but Duff, beautiful and timeless, brings immortal experience to Helena’s character.
If they could do something with Diana, that would be nice! I loved the actress they chose, Olivera Perunicic, but she had way too little screen time!
These are performances not to be missed in the B horror genre.
The Timeline
The first half of the film follow’s Radu’s humanity to its logical conclusion. With the division of the content, there also is the sense of a diversion of the first half of the film from the more familiar tone and subject. The cinematography is beautifully, masterfully done, achieving a much more high quality feel. However, the higher quality film means far less room for error in the practical effects. To be nit picky, you can see Yulia Graut’s real teeth under the rotten fake veneers.
The second half seems to wrap up loose ends opened in Subspecies IV: Bloodstorm. Here the structure of the film more closely matches the previous films. As the film transitions into the slow passage of years, you can sense a change in the pacing, the acting, and the nuance. All these fade into the raw, visceral, lusty, bleakness of classic Subspecies. There is demon-hunting, bloodlust, the struggle to retain lost identity, the thrill of power, and eventually succumbing to the curse and diving into the mysteries. Though much improved over its predecessors, there is nothing lacking in the film, except for everything. There is nothing that compares to a bloody good B horror film. And Subspecies V delivers in the final moments of the film. If you’re watching Subspecies, and characters don’t appear out of thin air, or break into sword fights you can’t explain, are you really watching a Subspecies film? You should ask yourself, “What just happened?” at least once.
The Setting
As I mentioned, the film is set in Romania, the birth place of the Vladislas, the realm of Circe (we’ll just overlook the idea that she’s a figure in Greek myth), a land of monsters. However, the crew couldn’t get back to Romania, for reasons neither Ted Nicolaou or Charles Band disclosed in the QA featurette at the end of the film, so the film was shot entirely in Serbia. This is a pretty solid departure from the rest of the saga. However, the series was originally shot in Romania to save money. Did setting the film in Serbia impact the production?
While not exactly on a limitless budget in Romania, Nicolaou did comment in the featurette that the production designer in Serbia did great work on their limited budget. And it shows. The film is rich with decadence and antiquity, set at a time when such antiquity was new and fresh. The City Beneath The City, below blossoming Bucharest, is a warren of misery and plush cushions upon which to experience it. Red and golden light suffuses the scenes. The European Renaissance is in full swing as Radu stalks the world in his loneliness. The Serbian location, in addition to the historical setting, cleans up the edges of this Subspecies installment. There’s no dust on everything just yet.
Subspecies V: Bloodrise, in my opinion, was the next great installment in the series. It was an unparalleled treat to see Hove on the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse viewing. Of all the Subspecies, this is the film to see on a big screen with surround sound. The advancement in cinematography that can add value and dynamism to such lowly B horrors as Subspecies can be done very cheaply these days, giving us a higher quality film without sacrificing the Subspecies substance. Fans of the series will enjoy the classic experience and modern feel. The Serbian setting does not detract at all, different though it may be from the Romanian backdrop.
I had the pleasure of sharing a row at the Drafthouse with friends and family of the director, Ted Nicolaou. Though I didn’t presume to impose upon them, I did get to share a few words with them. Nicolaou is much beloved in Austin, and I’m proud to call him neighbor, albeit a couple zip codes removed, as it were. It rained like the dickens all night and during the show. I can’t imagine a more perfect night to experience the latest Subspecies.
If you got to see it in the theater, hit me up @SquealingNerd on Twitter and tell me what you thought.
The Birth Of Full Moon Pictures’ Subspecies
It seemed to me like the chance of a lifetime really to shoot at a place where you just had total access to these ancient places.
Ted Nicolaou, Subspecies writer and director, on location in Romania in 1991, VideoZone Behind the Scenes: Subspecies
Shall I set the stage?
In 1991, Charles Band (Empire, Full Moon Entertainment) was approached by David Pabian with a screenplay. Intrigued, Band decided to pick up the idea. Around that time, Ion Ionescu, a Romanian ex-pat fleeing the shrunken husk of Romania after the fall of Ceaușescu, came to Band with an offer the studio owner, producer, and director couldn’t refuse: the Romanian government would pay all of the production costs of the proposed film, leaving Band with just the post-production, above line, and film stock expenses. Band was sold. First choice for director Stuart Gordon declined the trip to Romania. Ted Nicolaou, a part-time director and full-time editor and writer for Full Moon and Empire, was offered the chance in Gordon’s place. It was a choice Nicolaou was happy to make, and one that would shape the future of the Subspecies franchise (videofuege.com interview with Ted Nicolaou, 2017). During the cast and crew’s stay in Romania, they experienced the dying vestiges of pro-communist sentiment and witnessed first hand the impact of the violent overthrow of the Ceaușescu. It is said that as he fled, Ceaușescu prayed that Vlad Drakulya would fulfill his promise and return to the Romanian people when they needed him most. Little did Ceaușescu know that the spirit of Vlad III rode at the head of the armed protests, the bloody spirit of freedom for the Romanian people. It was against this backdrop that Subspecies was born.
The hotel we were staying at in the heart of Bucharest was along the thoroughfare where the original revolution took place and everywhere you looked there were bullet holes in the buildings. That sort of gave you a sense of how violent the revolution really was and how many people died in the revolution, and we were in the hotel one day and we heard this incredible commotion; and we looked out our windows and there was a river of people coming down the street in protest of the price rises and the government.
Ted Nicolaou, VideoZone interview 1991, Subspecies
Without being too spoilery, the Subspecies franchise is the saga of the horrific Radu Vladislas, offspring of the witch Circe and Vladislas, the Vampire King. Three young, beautiful, vulnerable PhD students arrive in the little town of Prejmer in Romania. In the foothills of the mountains they slumber, and study the local folklore in the shadow of the old Castle Vladislas. For reasons that are not fully clear, the Old King, played by Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) is abdicating his protection of the area and secretly summons his human-bred son, Stefan, home from the New World. Out of some smoking crevice creeps the Old King’s first born, his offspring of Circe, Radu. Stefan’s mother was human (apparently her name was Helena). Taking after his mother in appearance, Stefan is a stark contrast to Radu, son of his own mother: demonic, inhuman, all monster. Stefan and Radu battle it out for the love–and lust–of Michelle Morgan, one of the PhD candidates in Prejmer. All four of the original films–Subspecies, Subspecies II: Bloodstone, Subspecies III: Bloodlust, Subspecies IV: Bloodstorm–encompass Radu’s pursuit of Michelle. Despite taking nearly 10 years to tell, the story takes place over little more than four or five days.
The Subspecies franchise is characterized by high drama, practical effects, ambitious plots, caricatures of the genre, and steamy lust. But the franchise, like most Full Moon and Empire films, are also campy without meaning to be and overly serious without the suspense to maintain it. The plots are ambitious, but the story is rushed. The productions are low budget. It takes mere weeks to film (Subspecies V only took three weeks to film). You may not ever find yourself moved to tears or frightened out of your mind. Charles Band is pushing the envelope, but not like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where director Ted Nicolaou got his start as a boom operator out of film school. Sword fights for no reason, great dialogue on a scale that hardly seems to deserve it, nudity because why not, and nights that only feel 15 minutes long characterise the films.
Then of course there are the actual creatures, the subspecies. These were originally shot in Romania on the first film, but due to issues with the presentation, Nicolaou decided to have them done entirely in CG. They play such a small role in all four original films that they were only just hinted at in the fifth.
There is blood, sex, magic, and drama, and there’s no reason for there not to be. The Subspecies franchise features a high profile line-up of the finest soap opera stars of the 1990s, including Anders Hove (General Hospital), Denise Duff (The Young And The Restless), and Michael Watson (General Hospital, Sleepwalkers, The Bold And The Beautiful). Denise Duff would replace Laura Mae Tate, the original Michelle Morgan, who parted ways after the first film due to the working conditions in Romania, which were not great for the first film. Duff rose to the challenge and remained with the franchise. Joining the team for Subspecies V was Subspecies II and III alum Kevin Spirtas (Days Of Our Lives, One Life To Live) as Radu’s father.
The Importance And Endurance Of Subspecies
Someday, the sadness that you feel will be nothing more than a sweet memory.
Radu Vladislas, Subspecies III: Bloodlust
The Subspecies films were incredibly important to the genre and fans for many reasons, but in terms of cinematic history, Charles Band and Full Moon made history in 1991. When Charles Band sent Ted Nicolaou to film, Full Moon was the first American studio allowed to film in post-communist Romania. The filming of the first Subspecies in the town in which Prejmer was set revealed swaths of Romania that had been largely untouched by modernity. There was little electricity, almost no running water. The crew and cast were forced to stop for farmers herding sheep through their sets. It was so authentic that some cast members chose not to stay on with the franchise.
The first Subspecies film captured the beauty and simplicity of Romanian life and offered the world the first glimpses of the rural sections that had been untainted by Ceaușescu’s regime. Subspecies attempts to remain true to the Romanian people. Nicolaou and costume desinger Oana Tolan based the festival of staking freshly buried corpses on a real winter mask festival and found a mask maker to make each mask featured in the scene. If the scene feels like a documentary, it is for good reason. These are real Romanians dancing to their own instruments. Indeed there are many scenes in the film that would have been the envy of every American documentarist at the time. Of course, the vampire myths of Vladislas and the deal the Vampire King struck with the people of Transylvania is all hog wash, and Detective Marin in Subspecies II: Bloodstorm is quick to point out that the vampire legend is not in fact native to Romania. The VideoZone documentary for Subspecies showed just how comical the people of Romania view the vampire myth, with some saying only Americans think there are vampires in Romania.
Subspecies is a departure from the vampire films that set the ground work for the franchise. Most of the traces of the pop culture vampire are erased or diffused. In the nature of all independent film creators, Band and Nicolaou went their own way with Subspecies in a way that is rarely seen. No Dracula, no wolves, no bats, no heavy metal (lookin’ at you, Lestat). The high gothic of Subspecies’ contemporaries (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview With A Vampire) is eschewed for a grittier, filthier monster. No handsome prince is Radu, but an ugly lecher. Michelle does not discover the love of her life in her maker. She hates him, and fights him to the bitter end, even in moments when she can’t be rid of him.
Subspecies is not what everyone thinks of when they mention the finest horror films of all time, but it is up there with some of the best B horror flicks ever created. It isn’t Bela Lugosi out of Universal. It isn’t Gary Oldman out of Columbia Pictures. The leading man is a daytime TV star, not someone who went on to win the Academy Award for best actor. The leading lady doesn’t have a Tim Burton resume a mile long. He isn’t sexy like Bela Lugosi, or Gary Oldman, or Frank Langela, or Christopher Lee. He’s a Brian Lumley vampire: weird, gritty, dirty, childish. Anders Hove brings the vampire down to his most basic level. He’s a fiend, a monster, but he lacks the high production value shape changing abilities. The human element of the vampire is accentuated. Characters in the Subspecies franchise struggle with their loss of humanity and their new identity, torn between the person they used to be and the instinctive devotion to their new master. So much of the suffering of the victims is conveyed, even with so little to work with in the time that Nicolaou and the cast have. The characters are endearing and enduring despite the cheesiness of the films. It’s all the sex, blood, and insanity of a Hammer Horror.
And that’s precisely why fans love this franchise. Charles Band’s film enterprises at Empire and Full Moon operate like the old Hammer studio, providing a slew of fantastic cult films we love and that we will defend with our dying breath despite the fact that the films lack high dollar production values and the effects and acting are over-the-top. Some of the greatest names in horror in the 1970 and 1980s, names that we remember well into the 2000s, got their start at Hammer, and became icons of the genre. I speak of course of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Hammer was renowned for doing on camera what no other studio was willing to do. Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein were all out of fashion until Hammer came in. Well, out of fashion in pop culture anyway. The horror film to this day is relegated to the realm of freaks and weirdos. We thrive in the dark. What was pop in the 1940s became pulp by the 1970s. As the vampire surged anew in the 1990s with Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Interview With A Vampire, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Subspecies arrived early on in the height of vampire fever. We couldn’t get enough of them. Full Moon was eager to provide for the adoring fans, and their Puppet Master fanbase was eager to jump on the band wagon. When Twilight heralded the end of the vampire as we knew it, when the vampire once again became a cliché, the fans admitted a kind of defeat. It was true. The vampire was no longer fashionable.
Thanks Edward.
But as with all things, what goes around comes around. We were always going to come back to the vampire. The blood was always going to rise. We are, as a member of western culture, inexorably drawn to the vampire. And what better way to welcome the rebirth of the vampire and vampire fiction than with a reprisal of the most debased and obscene of all vampires. The promise of eternal youth, ageless beauty, sexual dominance, power over others, all of the things we will never have but that humanity has coveted since the Fall are represented in the vampire–our savior.
Our damnation.
Let There Be A Blood Bath
Subspecies V: Bloodrise is the vampire film we needed. 30 years ago, Charles Band had an inkling of an idea about a half demon, half vampire with long, unusable hands and filthy hair. In 2023, he is reborn, and to have him be reborn on the big screen was certainly a treat. Charles Band felt compelled to bring the fans another installment of the series. As a collective fandom, we all would like to thank Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou, Anders Hove, and Denise Duff for allowing us to see them one more time. Subspecies V was truly a gift to the franchise, and if their treatment of Diana is anything to speak of, perhaps it will not be the last one either?
Subscribe to Full Moon Features to get your fill of the Subspecies series, along with all of your favorites like Killjoy and Puppet Master, and of course Subspecies V: Bloodrise. It is a blood bath the likes of which only Full Moon can provide.
Check out Kevin Lane’s week-long Subspecies event, kicking off with Denise Duff, Helana and Michelle, followed by Kevin Spirtas, and then the inimitable Anders Hove! Subscribe to Kevin and keep up all week!
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