Tainted (1998) — Triskaidekafiles

TAINTED

WRITER: Sean Farley

DIRECTOR: Brian Evans

STARRING: Dusan Cechvala as Alex
Greg James as Ryan
Sean Farley as J.T.
Jason Brouwer as Slain
Tina Kapousis as Adia

QUICK CUT: A video clerk does his best to make it to a midnight showing of his favourite movie.

THE MORGUE

Alex - A vampire by day, and a video store clerk by night. He just wants to keep his head down, pay his bills, and stay alive. He deeply cares for Adia, even if they’re on the outs this decade.

Ryan - A real ladies man, with a different girl every night, and that’s by design. In the wrong light, his behaviour is a little scummy. In the right light, it’s still a little scummy, but he’s otherwise a nice guy.

JT - A sarcastic guy with anger issues who will rant at anything the universe throws at him.

Slain - A vampire with a chip on his shoulder and a plan in his brain.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! May is here, and I am wrapping up the Troma terribleness triple pack of vampire movies I got awhile back, with the movie Tainted. So without further ado...

The movie opens with a quote from the most unlikely of places, a Sarah McLachlan song. A Troma movie is the last place I'd expect to see that.

We then have to sit through a LONG almost completely wordless sequence of a guy, who we will catch hints of fangs of shortly, being stalked through a grocery store. He then chased outside, and finally strapped to the top of his pursuers car, and drained of blood, before he is finally killed.

But don't worry, while that first ten minutes had one single line of dialogue, the almost two hour long movie will make up for it, but more on that later.

Once the vampire is dead and his killer drives off with the collected blood in a cooler, we meet Ryan as he wakes up, and kicks his latest one night stand out of bed and his apartment.

She leaves, Ryan ignores three other calls from women he's had relationships just to drive the point home that he’s a manwhore. He sits down on his couch, ranting out loud to no one in the quirkiest trying too hard to be funny dialogue this side of Joss Whedon. Seriously, it sounds like someone is trying to work on his tight fifteen for standup.

Next, we're off to the video store, where Ryan's friend JT works, and he is cynical, sarcastic, rude to the customers...I feel like I've seen this movie before.

Yep, did you ever wonder what Clerks would be like, if vampires? No? Well, too bad, because I know the answer now, including someone wishing really hard he was Kevin Smith.

Brace yourselves for lots of rants, tons of pop culture references, and a long wait before anything else vampiric happens!

Oh, there's also the new guy working at the store, Alex, and long story kept from being any longer, he's a vampire. But we'll get to THAT much later.

The big thing that kicks the plot off is, JT plans to go see a Blade Runner double feature at a late night screening, and Ryan is along for the ride. Unfortunately, their other friend who has the car, breaks his leg, and can't go. But wait! New kid Alex has a car, so they rope him into their midnight adventures.

Is this a real film? Or is it a travesty?

After ten minutes in the video store, we finally get into a car and are at least going somewhere, but we have to sit there and talk EVEN MORE about quirky stuff because someone thinks they're witty. Or maybe the writer, who also plays J.T. just has a lot of things to get off his chest.

The one upside is that Alex, the long lived vampire, makes a few slips like "I remember..." referring to events that would have happened decades before any of them were born.

Heaven forbid this movie gets anywhere, because the car’s engine starts to overheat. Alex pulls off on the side of the road, JT declares the car has stalled.

This whole MOVIE has stalled, dude.

So we hoof it to the nearest gas station to get antifreeze, but the dude behind the counter just closed up so HE could go to the Blade Runner showing. I'd say hey, ask HIM for a ride, but JT gets in his face for closing early, which kinda kills that, even if they knew he was going.

The good news is, Alex realises they're not far from someone he knows, who might be able to help. The bad news is, it's his ex girlfriend. The even worse news is, we are going to watch them walk the whole way there, and talk about how awesome Harrison Ford is. Oh god, don't care, don't care.

Fortunately, a couple of muggers show up, so something can happen. Alex refuses to give them any money, the lead mugger stabs him several times in the gut, and leaves him on the ground for dead. He then turns his attention to the other two, so he is VERY surprised when Alex gets up a few seconds later.

Alex flicks the knife out of the mugger's hand, lifts him into the air, and tears into his throat. Because yay, vampires in the vampire movie, finally! We're only forty minutes in!

Hey uh, you um, yeah you got some mugger in your teeth.

The two guys are reluctant to believe Alex's claim, but he's still determined to get them to the theatre, having found something vaguely resembling friends. And it's either wait for the cops show up, or keep going. Also, he DID just rip a dude’s throat out with his bare teeth.

We arrive at Adia's place, and sparks fly. But not the good kind. It's easy to see why these two broke up. However, after sufficient begging, she lets them in so they can borrow some antifreeze. She also loans the boys a car, so they can get back to their car.

Adia also mentions that it's a good thing Slain isn't up, and that's her new boyfriend. Huh, wonder who he could be!

Rather than just get back to the car, we have to watch the entire drive back with EVEN MORE BANTER. I am begging this movie to get on with it.

While they're driving, the trunk comes lose, and they discover the dead vamp from the start of the movie, and Slain's cooler o' blood bags. Ah, finally, the plot returns midway through the movie.

Back at Adia’s, Slain has woken up, and discovers his car is missing. He is none too happy about this, and kills Adia for what she did.

The boys look over what they've stumbled into, and Alex wonders what it's all for, why kill another vampire, why store their blood, and why is there all different kinds?

Alex calls Adia, and realises something is wrong, so they hurry back to her place, either to save her, or return the car, or maybe a bit of both.

By the time they get there though, it's too late, and they find Adia's body dead on the floor. JT notices Slain getting something from the car, and Alex power tackles him, fueled by rage.

Slain beats up Alex though, and runs off with his blood cooler, saying something about how "It's not finished".

Alex is still angry though and goes running after him, leaving the two mortals to follow in Slain's car.

He catches up with Slain, and they fight in a parking lot. Slain is about to stake Alex, but the other guys nearly run them both over. Slain takes off into the night, for now.

We really need to do something about the epidemic of fang violence in our cities.

The trio heads back to Adia's place and ransack Slain's room for any hints of what his plan might be, or where he might be going. Fortunately, he's an anal retentive plotter and keeps all his notes in a handy journal.

JT wants no part of whatever is vampire bullshit is going on in, but Alex spells it out for him in a...well, credit where it's due, a decent little speech. A bit heavy on the pop culture references as per the usual here, but it hits the right tone of telling JT yeah, it shouldn't have fallen to us, but here we are, so man up, pick a man of action, and get ready to ride.

In the notebook, they find a list of vamps, and their blood types, and three are checked off, leaving only a Marcus Thoel and his O blood left. So that must be where Slain is going.

They head down to the local vamp bar to see if they can find any info on where Marcus lives, so they can get there before it's too late.

The guys sit down at the bar, and have a morality discussion about vampires, surviving, and murder. Alex starts off by saying, "Let me tell you a story..." and DON'T YOU DARE.

If you thought this would be a whole lot more quirky talking, you would guess right, but eventually the vamp who sired Alex has the info they want.

The one major highlight of visiting the bar is when Ryan gets his clock cleaned for being a manwhore by one of the girls he wham bam thank you ma'ammed, and just so happens to be a vampire.

So they head out to Thoel's place, and gosh darnit, they're too late. Maybe if you didn't chit chat so much, we coulda saved an unlife!

But there's something different about this victim. The others were done in, drained, and disposed of, in an almost matter of fact fashion. But Marcus has a heightened level of brutality to it, so Alex figures this must've been the guy that turned Slain.

The boys hit up an all night coffee shop or something to try and figure the plot out, and we also get the story of why JT is the way he is, and why Ryan is friends with him.

After a coffee fueled brainstorming session, it's a comment from their server donating blood that finally makes it all click into place; Slain works at the hospital, so must want to taint the blood supply with the vampire blood, and create hundreds of vampires, so he will feel less alone and others will understand him or some other psychological BS.

They rush to the hospital and this time are not too late. Slain has infected a few bags of O blood, but otherwise they're good. There's a fight in the halls of the hospital, and eventually Slain is the one to get, well, slain.

He dies with a "thank you", the boys collect the tainted blood and burn it so it can't be used for any other evil purposes. They then head to the cinema to catch the rest of the Blade Runner showing, so at least they did finally get there.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks fine, but it’s clearly a low budget indie movie from the late 90s.

Audio: Average

Sound Bite: “Can you fuck a car? No? Then why would I know anything about fixing cars?" Ryan on his life skills.

Body Count: Not a very large amount this time around.

1 - Eleven minutes in, and the first vampire gets staked
2 - Alex eats the mugger
3 - And his buddy
4 - Slain uh...slays, Adia
5 - Marcus Thoel is found dead
6 - Alex slays, uh, Slain.

Best Corpse: Adia is the most notable death, the one we deal with most, and probably the bloodiest.

Blood Type - C-: Boy is this category ironic for this movie…but I digress. There’s a little bit of blood, but the movie uses it sparingly, and some of the effects aren’t great. It’s fine, and the movie knows when to sprinkle in some blood at least.

Drink Up! every time someone goes on a long winded rant or story.

Movie Review: Okay, I know I really went at this movie hard, but I gotta say, the core idea isn’t terrible. A movie about a few guys going on a journey, who discover one of them is a vamp, and fall into weird, increasingly terrible circumstances as they try to just get to where they want to go with endless roadblocks stopping them, is actually a solid idea. It's the basic plot of any road movie. There are some genuinely good quips here, and the dialogue is occasionally sharp and witty. Any scene in isolation might be fine, but it’s just sooo much, and could stand a bit of editing to tighten the movie up. Once things start happening halfway through the movie, you don’t mind the rambling dialogue so much, because you have more balance, and it’s broken up more with plot. I like the main cast, and especially Alex does well in his role. I like a lot of the ideas here, and a lot of my frustration comes with I can see the good ideas, it just takes so long and there’s so much to actually get to them. I know I’m hard on the movie’s writing, but I do like to find the good parts, and this movie does genuinely have them, with a lot less effort to find than some other movies I’ve gone through. Two out of five blood bags.

Entertainment Value: It’s a fun idea, with some genuine laughs to it, and some fun vampire moments. Not exactly a stand out, but not the worst time I’ve had either. Two out of five one night stands