Vampire Academy (2014)

Elevator Pitch: If I’m honest I did not quite understand what was happening, and the Wikipedia description of the plot has not helped much. This is an alternative reality where there are Moroi, who are vampires of limited capability with normal lifespans, Dhampirs who are half vampires and guardians of the Moroi and Strigoi who are the real undead and who will without provocation attack the others types. So, Lissa is a Moroi princess whose trainee guardian is Rose. Both are students at the Vampire Academy from which they had escaped but have been recaptured. Lissa seems to be the target of hate activities, Rose falls for another guardian and the Strigoi are waiting in the wings. 

Content: Look at the ratings. This is tame teen fodder where young men bare their chests and the young women wear tight clothing. so no nudity sex or drinking. There is quite a bit of martial arts in semi-darkness. The headmistress has meetings with the young women. There are big gatherings in the main assembly space. Sometimes outside the school the Strigoi attack. There is an undercurrent of treason.

A View: This outing bombed at the box office. Yet another sort of combined Harry Potter and Twilight Saga, which might have worked as a book, but could only fail as a film because people are not taken in. Maybe because of the complexity of this environment the script could be nothing more than leaden as we are told what is going on. But not too well as far as I was not concerned. This is one of those films which I have watched so that you don’t have to.

There are three vampire films reviewed on this site which are just a bit unusual: 30 days of Night, Eat Locals and Let Me In.