A howling wind echoes throughout the dead of night, parting shadow glazed clouds hanging ominously overhead like a black stage curtain to reveal a blood moon lurking behind them. Beaming with its hateful glow, woodland shadows scatter back, humbling themselves like a sea of obedient servants or perhaps soldiers, ready at the beck and call for any mischievous charge bestowed upon them. And once those dark whispers permeate the air, so too do the shadows send out their children to wreak havoc upon the night. Wicked beasts, spectral apparitions, flesh hungry ghouls, and benders of death and shadow; but none more fearsome or revered than the blood hungry, winged eternals known as vampires.
Yes, for many a millennia, no fellow beast of flesh and bone ever stood a chance against these apex predators. Even humans, with all their spirited defiance, holy backing, and ingenuity, could only barely hold the accursed masses at bay. However, no dynasty lasts forever. For once humans gave into desperation, it was only a matter of time before their twisted imagination begat the shining, mechanical demons of every vampire's nightmare.
Blood & Steel is the latest fever dream brought to life from the wild imagination of Lataro Despada. Known for such action/horror thrillers as We Live Again, Silver Fang, and Scream Eater, Despada now smacks us upside the face with a bloody tale of Vampires vs. Robots.
In the year 2025, humans struggle to deal with their greatest predators, Vampires. Pushed the point of desperation, they hurriedly assemble a small army of combat bots known as "Seraphs," charged with the sole task of eliminating all vampire life.
At first everything seems to go well, but as the war rages on, the Seraphs determine that the best way to deal with the vampiric threat is to starve them out. And so, without warning, the robots turn on their human masters and slaughter them.
Fast forwarding to 2199, humans verge on extinction, leaving vampires with little food to survive on. But when recently turned vampire, Cribben Poe (Drexel Malone), captures human scientist, Dr. Lucia Heartstone (Holly Guanichi), the two begin to devise a plan that they think may benefit both human and vampire-kind. However, with many players working various sides of the conflict, it's tough to know who to trust in this ludicrous world of shadow and cybernetics.
Looking to dawn as many hats as it can, Blood & Steel stacks horror on thriller, on action, on espionage, on fantasy, on sci fi. It's ambitious to say the least, but ambition alone cannot carry a movie, as unfortunately is the case for, what I can only describe as, the most bloated, maddening, and phantasmagoric mess in cinema history.
Blood & Steel has no interest in sprinkling notes of every genre imaginable, but rather it seeks to be all and none of them at once in the biggest way imaginable. It's a film with an interesting premise and by all accounts a fair bit of thrilling sequences, both from an action and suspense point of view. It's just unfortunate that the drastic shifts in tone, the massive push for plot over story, as well as a lack of care for the characters, undercuts all of it, leaving the whole experience feeling like a disjointed fever dream of bites, brawls, and explosions.
Furthermore, it can't seem to decide on a main character to follow as it awkwardly splits time between the exploits of Cribben, Lucia, and a vampire side character known as Loden Stoke (Maxwell Pharuj), the latter of which peculiarly has the most depth. They all have the same ultimate goal of defeating the robots, but it's Loden's path of violence as well as his relationship with another robot side character known as D-88 (Mia Vivens) that proves the most coherent and interesting. For the entire runtime, I always wanted the film to cut back to Loden and D-88, but instead the focus stayed on this flimsy will-they-won't-they/espionage romp of Lucia and Crebbin. But even then!!! There's so much plot the movie is trying to speed through in its two and a half hour run, that it hardly has a moment to develop anything in any real way.
That being said, I don't want this to feel like a total dumpster fire because there are some notable highlights. As I mentioned before, the action is stellar. Stunt Director, Ricki Tan, brings his best when choreographing some eye catching, gritty throwdowns between the metal and undead titans of terror. This is easily the best part of the movie with a second being the small moments of suspense sprinkled throughout.
Despada is a master behind the camera, especially when it comes to the slow, lingering buildups that really set an audience member on edge in the best way possible. It's just a shame that these moments don't come often enough, but even when they do, the lack of investment in the characters dramatically detracts from the experience.
Lastly, the unsung hero of this film is the world. Between intricately detailed sets oozing with personality, as well as some exquisitely interesting lore bits sprinkled throughout, the world itself feels lived in and alive, very much a character unto itself that the rest of the cast unfortunately doesn't play with enough.
Blood & Steel is at its absolute best when taking its time or flying at 100 mph in a heart thumping brawl. But it's the in-between moments as well as the strange lack of focus that makes the craziness of this world much less of an odd marvel and more of a chaotic headache. Hopefully in the future, Despada can reign himself in a bit, holding to the mantra that sometimes, "less is more." That being said, if you’re just there for the monster mash wiz-boom-pow, this will certainly rake your itch until you happily bleed out.
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