Review at Tattoo Hodge Podge by John Robert Mariani

Serena the short film by Jay Coughlin kicked off the first night of the 3rd annual Homegrown Fim Festival at the Ripe Art Gallery.  A short, bizarre Vampire flick that keeps true to Vampire lore, and yet adds more to the story.  Serena isn’t have the best luck with love as of late.  Failed nights out at bars, and even internet dating is proving fruitless.  She’s just about ready to give up when she meets a street musician, vampiure, named Mark, and they quickly hit it off.  He seduces her in somewhat normal vampire fashion, she falls for Mark hard, and they begin to date, all leading up to her inviting him in, and Mark going down on her…neck.  Serena is turned, and is now a vampire with a little bit more sex appeal, and pretty much the movie ends.

The movie was fun, Coughlin knew what he was doing mixing in the campy elements with the horror. He uses alot of musical elements throughout, the two scenes that stick out are the bar scene, where it becomes all must a full fledged music video for the track, and then later on when Mark takes Serena out for the first time, and the two of them and the waiter break out in song. Amazing.

The movie was shot in SD, standard definition, and in this day of HD, it was a breath of fresh air. Here was a filmmaker, making what he wanted, with what he had, and thats true to anyone’s art.

The movie was good, but it still had its flaws. The acting wasn’t the best, alot of awkward pauses in the dialogue, pretty much it needed to be tightened up. Also, the random storyline of Serena’s doctor, keeping patients in her basement, injecting them with some type of stuff, kind of threw me off.

So check out this flick, it’s fun, and in a time where every other movie is worrying about 3D and HD, this movie cared more about the important thing, and that’s a filmmaker’s vision to make the movie they set out to make.