STRIGOI (2009) review

Strigoi (2009) (1st viewing) d. Jackson, Faye

Bizarre little UK vampire film set in Romania (the performers speak their lines in English through oft-impenetrably thick accents, an odd choice to be sure) that conjures memories of The Wicker Man in its intensely collusive community and wry, unblinking dark humor. However, the rules of these bloodsuckers are a little sketchier, and while this may have been by writer/director Jackson’s design (leaving the audience as off-kilter in dealing with supernatural elements as the onscreen characters), the result is troubling in that I found myself asking, “What just happened?” when I probably should have been asking, “What’s going to happen next?” That the living characters are just as quirky and unpredictable as their undead counterparts doesn’t help matters, though it definitely lends a foreign, otherworldly quality to the proceedings. Not wholly satisfying, but still somehow strangely worthwhile.