Do you ever watch a trailer and immediately start planning your evening around a film that isn't out yet? Because that is exactly what happened to me this week, and I was only meant to be checking the news before making coffee.
The film is Vampire Carnival, and it opens in cinemas on 7 October. It stars Jason Isaacs and Nell Verlaque, and it comes from the team behind The Djinn. The trailer arrived as an exclusive at Bloody Disgusting, so that is where I found it, and the credit for the first look belongs to them. I'm only telling you what I saw and what I thought, in my own words.
The facts, plainly
I'd rather give you the useful bit first, because I know how it goes. You scroll, you get distracted, and three weeks later you find out something you wanted to see has already left the cinema. So here it is:
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- The film: Vampire Carnival
- In cinemas: 7 October
- Starring: Jason Isaacs and Nell Verlaque
- Made by: the team behind The Djinn
- The trailer: an exclusive reveal from Bloody Disgusting
That's everything I can promise you. I haven't seen the film, and I'm not going to pretend to know how it ends or how it plays over two hours. Nobody has earned that from me yet, least of all a film that hasn't opened. What I can tell you is what the trailer makes me want.
Why the trailer got me
It's the mood. It looks moody and candlelit, the sort of vampire story that seems to live in warm, flickering light and long shadows rather than in a wall of noise. If you've been reading me for a while, you'll know that is my whole weakness. Give me a dark room with the glow of a few candles and a monster who might be charming or might be about to ruin everyone's night, and I'm already reaching for the good blanket.
And then there's the cast. Jason Isaacs has a way of making a scene feel like it has a slightly dangerous smile behind it, and Nell Verlaque is someone I'm now paying attention to. I'm not going to tell you what either of them does in the film, because I don't know, and I don't want to guess in public and be wrong. But the trailer sets them up as the sort of pairing where you lean forward.
Then there's the name of the team. I liked The Djinn for the way it stayed in one place and let the dread build, so seeing the same people turn to vampires and a carnival feels like a nice change of scenery for them. A carnival at night is already halfway to a horror film. Bright lights, odd music, something that shouldn't be watching you but is. Add a vampire and I think I've been sold, which is annoying, because my schedule was fine before this.
Where it sits on a dark-night list
I keep a mental list of films for nights when I want to be properly cosy but also a little unsettled. The rules are simple. It has to look good in the dark, it has to be worth silencing my phone for, and nobody is allowed to talk through it. I mean that last one. If you are the person who narrates the plot to the person sitting next to you, I love you, but please go and do it in another room.
Vampire Carnival goes on that list for now, with the honest caveat that a trailer is only a promise. Trailers can be the best two minutes of a film. I have been let down before, and I'll tell you if that happens here. I'm treating this one as a strong maybe with a date in the diary, which is about as far as I'll go before I've seen it.
My plan, for what it's worth, is a small one. Cinema if I can manage it on the week it opens, hot drink in hand, phone face down, and no reading about it beforehand beyond what I've already told you. I like going in knowing the date and the mood and nothing else. Spoilers are the enemy of a good night, and a trailer that shows you too much is a small betrayal all by itself. This one, from what I could tell, keeps its cards fairly close.
If you want to see the trailer yourself, look for the exclusive at Bloody Disgusting. It's worth watching with the lights down and the sound up, and it's short enough that you can do it before your coffee goes cold. Mine went cold, obviously, because I watched it twice.
Now I want to know what you think. Are you a candlelit, slow-burn vampire person, or do you prefer your vampires loud and messy? And is a carnival a good setting for horror, or does it give you the creeps before anything has even happened? Tell me, and I'll make a proper night of it when 7 October comes round.
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