Let me start this off with a disclaimer – when I was contacted by Phil Messerer, the writer, director, and producer of Thicker Than Blood: The Vampire Diaries Part I, I was at best skeptical.  I’ve watched a lot of bad low-budget horror movies over the years and let’s be honest, they usually suck.  They’re riddled with cliches, lousy acting, and miserable production quality.  I’m always willing to give things a chance but to be completely honest, I do tend to go into most things with a bias one way or another.

Also, vampires are everywhere these days it seems.  From Twilight to True Blood to Let the Right One In, everyone is competing for a place in this sub-genre, some with more success than others.  The point is, as a writer/director it is difficult to say something about vampires that hasn’t already been explored to death (no awful pun intended).

Surprisingly, what I found with Thicker Than Water was completely unexpected – a competent narrative, solid acting, creative art direction, and some genuinely funny moments.  Messerer succeeds by crafting his tale less around scares than around the changing dynamic of a dysfunctional family thrown into a moral dilemma when 16-year-0ld Helen Baxter (Devon Bailey) becomes a vampire.

The film centers primarily around Helen’s twin, Lara (Eilis Cahill), a socially-awkward goth girl who literally prays to an Anne Rice shrine, tries to cast Wicca spells and secretly wishes to be accepted by her peers.  We are introduced to the family’s world through a series of often funny monologues from Lara.  What I like about this is that Messerer instantly begins to give his characters depth, which unfortunately is usually lacking in the genre.  And beyond Lara, The Baxters all have their quirks.  Helen is a beautiful, blonde goody two shoes whose personality stands in stark contrast to Lara’s.  Their brother Raymond is a scientific genius and closet homosexual with a stockpile of gay porn hidden under his bed.  The family’s matriarch is a former Ukrainian Olympic figure skater who gave up her craft to marry, which she sadly regrets.  And the father is a typical American man who “likes to take the bull by the horns”.

The Baxter family dynamic goes from dysfunctional to insane after the parents decide to separate and Lara’s jealousy of Helen continues to mount.  After Lara casts an “ancient anal acne” spell, Helen begins gushing blood from her nose and subsequently dies from blood loss.  Oops.  Later that night, Helen shows up back at the house covered in blood and screaming incoherently about killing someone.

Raymond analyzes Helen’s blood and discovers that it is infected with an unidentified virus that feasts on red blood cells and is destroyed by ultraviolet light.  Apparently, Lara has made Helen a vampire.  The family is then challenged by a heavy moral dilemma.  Do they become serial killers in order to feed Helen or do they let her starve?  I won’t delve into plot details much further, in order to avoid spoiling anything.

However, there is an interesting sub-plot (that ultimately ties in with the Baxters) about how the Mayans sacrificed humans to a female vampire held captive in one of the temples at Chichen Itza.  Once the Mayan civilization crumbled, the vampire escaped.  The legend and life of this vampire was researched and made into a book by an author who apparently committed suicide after its publication.  He was found missing multiple limbs.  Strange suicide method, no?  Following his death, all of the books were destroyed except for one, which just so happens to end up in a store called The Freakatorium in Lara’s hometown of Sugar Loaf, NY.  While this story adds depth to the plot, it also acts as a vehicle for Messerer to show off some damn cool etchings done by artist Rostislav Spitkovsky.

Aside from its unconventional vampire plot, Thicker Than Water really derives its strengths from solid dark humor.  Messerer does an excellent job of making the viewer laugh at a pretty awful situation.  There’s something undeniably funny as the family sits down to Christmas dinner in a basement room where the walls are covered in blood, Helen is rocking and twitching uncontrollably due to lack of nourishment (blood), and holiday music plays in the background.  It’s an awesome juxtaposition of convention and dysfunction.

While Thicker Than Water is not based on gore, visual arts director Randall Leddy manages to pull off some impressive effects with a minimal budget.  There are some amputations, stabbings, face removals and decapitations that look better than some effects I’ve seen in big-budget films.  I admire effects artists who don’t rely on computers to make us squirm.  Say what you will, but the best gore effects are almost always done with latex and fake blood.

Thicker Than Water does have its weak points – an over-the-top Cajun vampire and some last minute revelations that seemingly come from nowhere – but overall, it’s a solid movie.  There are a few awkward audio transitions between shots, but nothing that detracts from the film as a whole.  The score throughout is well executed, particularly the classical music.  If you’re interested, the film can be viewed on demand at Amazon or check out the official site.  Clearly, Messerer has a knack for screenwriting and the ability to infuse an often stale sub-genre with some new life and laughs.  Next time he releases something, I’m going to be less skeptical.