Rad (James Eastwood) is a person with high morals. When he and his beautiful girlfriend get invited to a château located away from the City of Angels, little does he know the next two days may well be out of Rocky Horror! That’s because Janet, er Kayla’s bestie (Jessica Lelia Greene) asked this couple over for an evening they’ll never forget. Glory (Erin Anne Gray) says it’s okay; she was never pure even when the two met and he knew. And their night is debauchery as its most Greco-Roman. I was curious because vampires are involved!
But even in Anne Rice’s world, what’s presented suggests these creatures of the night have to find willing participants. This film by Dallas King feels like a work in progress, as not everything is fleshed out. The only one good constant is where the unwilling hero struggles with whether he should accept a deal with the devil, and that’s to trade partners and become of their kind. There’s no FX to enhance the terror and I hoped for some moments of some classic vampirism and got none.
Instead, this work is character driven and had to rely on the imagination to fill in the blanks. When the bad guy is from Polynesia, I was left wondering why he didn’t represent anything from that world? Instead of detached heads and something that’s wildly exotic, my guess is that offshoot are talamaurs. According to one online resource, just how they want to bend others to their will jives well in what this movie is showing.
Like RHPS, some witnesses will opt to put a stop to the debauchery going on, and this film spends too much time with that. All that nudity is not required and I was hoping some injection of body horror would occur. As for saying this movie is about vampires, I’d say it the idea is a tacked on afterthought. That’s because all the lore dump happens later on, and no one is none the wiser until someone bares their fangs.
3 Stars out of 5
Swap (2024) Movie Trailer
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