Winepires: Blood Toll is apparently, the third in the Winepires series. I haven’t seen the first two because there doesn’t seem to be any lesbianism in them. If I had, would I understand Blood Toll a little better? Maybe. Would I like it better? Probably not.
Eva falls headfirst into a local conspiracy after her brother dies. Following his funeral, Eva returns to her home to find her girlfriend, Nina missing and her father wounded. Obviously, Eva begins investigating what’s going on. The cops are pretty useless and perhaps part of the bigger conspiracy Eva finds herself falling deeper into. Her main ally becomes Kristjan, a local mechanic and ex-boyfriend. But as Eva and Kristjan continue to dig, the sheer scope of the conspiracy slowly reveals itself. Oh, and if you hadn’t guessed already, the conspiracy involves vampires. And wine. Winepires.
The main thing I think I missed by not watching the other two movies in the series is connection between vampires and wineries. By the time Blood Toll comes around, this connection is largely a given. We see some vampires buy a winery and there’s some vague talk of why they have a connection to vineyards and whatnot. But there’s not a whole lot of wine in this Winepires movie. And when that does become a focus, it still seems silly to me as I do not have the framework for it to be anything else.
There are bits of Winepires as a small, indie production I do admire. The film tries to have atmosphere and tone. Given that it is a series, there is some ambition here regarding this universe and its storytelling. But as ever, this potential and goodwill that I had for the movie didn’t take me to the finish line. I can respect certain choices Winepires makes, especially with its limitations. But even for a low budget movie, Blood Toll is not great.
Perhaps due to budget reasons, the horror in the film is fairly minimal. According to one review I read, Blood Toll has less gore than the other Winepires entries. And that disappoints me. Why can’t gore and a lesbian lead character exist in the same narrative. Instead of overt gore or even jumpscares, much of Blood Toll is investigation into the conspiracy. And that’s not particularly interesting because the premise of the film is the answer to the mystery. The town is run by a bunch of corrupt elites who are also vampires. Can someone relay that to Eva so we can move the plot in a more fang-y direction?
Winepires: Blood Toll tried. It tried hard; to continue an ambitious series, to be a good indie horror movie and also, to now feature a more diverse protagonist. And I appreciate these efforts. But at the end of the day, Winepires was mostly dull, a little confusing and had some of the worst blunt force trauma sound effects I’ve seen in a movie. There isn’t any anything good or unique enough to drag the film out of its small budget purgatory. And even if there was budget, I wonder if the story would still be focused on fairly dull vampire conspiracy, vineyard acquisition and a protagonist learning information the audience already knows.
Overall rating: 3.3/10
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