“Maidenhead” is a startlingly original piece of experimental cinema that is unlike anything you have ever seen before. Director Jim Spanos walks the line between art-house and horror, never blurring the line or allowing the audience to see what is coming next. His inspirations from George A. Romero and David Lynch are evident throughout, but he has infused older ideas with something new, which is united by exceptional performances.
Martin (A.J. Bowen) has scarified his personal life to help care for his elderly father. However, that concept (which has been done multiple times) has a huge variation here: Martin’s father (the great Michael Parks) is actually a vampire that needs the blood of fresh virgins. Did I mention his father is also a dangerous sociopath chained to a bed who sounds eerily similar to the midget from “Twin Peaks”?
Up until this point, Martin has been a very good son by spending his Sundays at local churches, drugging women that he believes may be virgins and draining some of their blood for his father, but Martin suddenly has a crisis of the conscience when he falls in love with one of the virgins, Meredith (Lorri Hamm). Martin must choose between his loyalties to his ailing father and his new girlfriend.
The film takes this bizarre concept and uses it to focus on human drama, and allows us to become invested the lives of its characters. The horror element is always visible, but we essentially follow the journey of two socially inept people finding romance in their crazy universe.
Hamm is a wonderful new actress, and she creates a charismatic character that, at first, appears to be a potential stalker. Full of rage and some hostility at never being able to have a boyfriend, she latches onto Martin just after one coffee date on a Sunday afternoon. Hamm hits all the right notes in this amazing performance as a very unique and, at times, lonely character.
Of course, having Parks on hand to portray the sickly vampire enhances this production. Parks’ character is downright loathsome and manipulative, with no shred of decency – Parks creates a hauntingly memorable performance.
The grimy, desperate loneliness is made palpable by the excellent cinematography.
With a movie such as “Maidenhead” from Spanos, it makes one hopeful for the future of the genre to know that passionate filmmakers are attempting to make new and inventive ideas in a world where all Hollywood seems to be doing is recycling clichés.
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