Written and Directed by Sean Nichols Lynch
Starring Dennice Cisneros, Nico Bellamy, and Vernon Wells
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes
Available digitally on December 6

by Whitley Albury, Staff Writer

As always, vampires come back (eheheheh) in waves. And I am so very glad that Red Snow is a part of the new wave.

Olivia Romo (Dennice Cisneros) is a failing romance author; specifically, she writes vampire romance novels. For the get go, I adore her and would fight a vampire for her. She’s exactly the kind of author that definitely has a major following on Twitter and Instagram, but just cannot get a break with her manuscripts.

She’s in Lake Tahoe at the house her mother left her, spending Christmas alone. Her sister insists on Olivia seeing her nephews but she’s stubborn and just wants to be left alone. Enter an injured bat who flies into her window. She bandages the little bat up (with a teeny tiny band aid), puts him in a shoebox for the night, and tucks him into the garage. Only SURPRISE, it’s a vampire (Nico Bellamy)! Luke is your typical vampire: hates sunlight, garlic, holy relics; loves blood. But he becomes almost like an even more tame version of Angel the longer he stays with Olivia. He gives her solid feedback on her writing, encourages her to follow her dreams, and even dresses up in her mother’s old clothes without being a dick about it. This last one is a nice little touch to me, personally. He’s naked when he switches from bat mode, and he just accepts these cardigans and skirts without a fight.

Sure, the whole story is pretty predictable, but it doesn’t even matter! It’s just such an earnest film, and it’s so well acted! Julius King (Vernon Wells), the vampire hunter, is such a delight. He’s the perfect level of campy without going completely over the edge. The whole film is a great study in campy horror/comedy without going overboard, honestly. It’s the perfect level of cheese. I greatly appreciate that the makeup artists didn’t try to do prosthetics for when Luke and the other vampires go deep into bloodlust mode. While I still love my Buffy vampires, it can easily make a story feel dated, so this was a nice touch.

This isn’t to say the entire film is warm and fuzzy. There’s a solid amount of blood shed throughout, but again, it never goes overboard. I’m not talking total evisceration here; but there was one particularly funny point with fake blood that just...kept spewing out. But it’s about the same level of bloodshed as was in Dracula: Dead and Loving It!

I’m not a holiday film fan, admittedly. I feel like they all peaked when Jim Carrey donned green makeup and prosthetics, but this one might actually make it onto my favorite holiday films list. The Christmas theme isn’t overdone, just a nice little advent calendar shot every few scenes to just show the passage of time. It’s a nice one to turn on at the family holiday party. Especially if your family just accepts your deep-seated love of corny movies and vampires.