DVD review: Desire of the Innocent Blood (2002)

Rain is tormenting the ground and melts the thin coat of snow revealing a ground covered with mud and dead leaves from beneath... A moment ago a beautiful white veil and and already a stench of moist dirt instead of it, sludge and ponds... Grey tombstones standing and leaning in dirty ground like rotten teeth in a filthy mouth... While the ravens cry out the young Elise rises from her grave. Because a true love never dies, does it? No, even though there is a saying "until death do you part"! Desire of the Innocent Blood is written and directed by Sami Haavisto. The cast try to make the most of their characters, using movement and facial expressions as this is a silent movie (except for when a character screams out in agony or someone knocks on the dooor). The camerawork and editing is decent, it is in black and white, some imagery are much stronger than others.  The budget was obviously quite low which is quite evident in some scenes. The soundtrack is uneven, some of it is VERY good while some of it really doesn´t match what is happening on screen and some of it becomes annoying after listening to it for awhile (remember this is a silent movie....). and soon you´ll find yourself wishing that the scene and the music will end. The pace is pretty slow.There´s no gore in this, the impaling and beheading scene is just to dark too make out any details. There´s topless nudity and a prolonged scene of lesbian action.
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This review is based upon the region all (Region 0) DVD release from Blood Ceremony Films. There is no audio except for the soundtrack. The dialogue cards are both in english and finnish.
Rating: 3½ out of 7. It´s pretty uneven, I like that it is so pessimistic and bleak and there are a couple of really nice moments in it. I also like the plot, it present us with a somewhat fresh take on vampires. Making it in black and white and doing a silent movie is a nice move from the filmmakers. It has its flaws, the slow pace, some of the soundtrack and so on. Following the timeline of Blood Ceremony Films this is their earliest production and they have improved their craftmanship since then.

/JL