SUBHUMAN (2005)

This is an interesting one. The first twenty or so minutes of the film proved to be relatively banal fare, featuring one seemingly crazy (yet surprisingly literate) generic tough guy tracking a pair of seductive female vampires to a murky back alley before decapitating and immolating one of them before being hit by a car. Following his strange urging, the driver and his girlfriend elect to take him back to their apartment in order for him to spend the night there recovering, instead of to the nearest hospital. Theoretically it’s not a particularly bad way to start a movie but surprisingly, the presentation and feel of these opening sequences just didn’t whet the appetite.

However when the trio arrive at the apartment, business begins to pick up. Following a terse introduction during which we learn that the hulking, tattooed skin headed hunter is called Martin (William MacDonald) and the couple are Ben (Bryce McLaughlin) and his partner Julie (Courtney Kramer), Martin excuses himself to the bathroom to shoot himself into unconsciousness with an ample helping of heroin, whilst Ben discovers a small fortune and a large supply of drugs in his bag, which he then disposes of. After dragging him back into the living room, Ben and then Julie invite Martin to leave and he subsequently refuses, insisting that he requires six hours rest before he can depart and that they must also replenish his drug stash.
Unhappy with his demands, Ben and Julie’s requests for him to leave become increasingly adamant and in response Martin reveals that if he leaves they will be dead within the day. Likening their plight to that of the common housefly, which, without knowing the truth of its condition, can only live for twenty-four hours, Martin hints at the truth of his own existence, of which they both have now become an irrevocable part. Indeed, as his dialogue develops, he reveals to the hapless couple that he is one of only twelve hunters on earth stalking a parasitic species of human leech that feeds on the blood of other humans. It might read a little corny and unoriginal here, but MacDonald’s delivery is manic and strangely compelling, and injects a measure of genuine pathos into the unfolding story.

Subhuman is a film that occasionally requires a little bit of effort from the viewer in order to get the most out of it, as it was certainly not made with the biggest of budgets and therefore often relies on the power of imagination. However, credit is due to its director and writer Mark Tuit who proves conclusively that a small amount of creative thinking and considered script writing can take a low budget film a long way. The dialogue uttered by the fearless yet ultimately doomed vampire hunter is particularly well contrived, combining an unrelenting mix of Nietzsche and nihilism that is oddly compelling. The film is also aided by some original photography and a blending of distinct and imaginative tones, reminiscent of a range of movies from The Evil Dead to 28 Days Later and more besides.
On the down side, the film’s soundtrack is terrible, featuring the very worst of contemporary hard rock, probably provided by a friend of the director or cast member (i.e. cheaply). Indeed, why both many mainstream and underground filmmakers resort to using such bland ‘alternative’ music for action sequences is beyond me. Additionally the performance of McLaughlin as Ben, the cynic-cum-apostle, is at times laughably poor with his delivery being more akin to a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker character than someone acting in a serious horror movie.

However these flaws aside, it’s a very watchable film and yields some great gore in the form of dismemberments, decapitations and the like, which is never a bad thing. And although the CGI in one or two places is not the best (and here there’s no excuses when considering what the Spierig Brothers did in Undead), the buckets of blood in tandem with a thoughtful, reasonably original storyline, result in Subhuman being one well worth checking out.