In the early 1990s, Full Moon Features enjoyed great success thanks to their partnership with Paramount Pictures as their distributor. Unfortunately, in 1994, Paramount ended their partnership with Full Moon, which put an end to many titles they had announced. Thankfully, Full Moon Features were saved by Kushner-Locke, a production company founded in 1983 by Donald Kushner and Peter Locke. While they helped save Full Moon from bankruptcy, they weren’t able to provide the budgets that Paramount offered. Under Kushner-Locke, Full Moon could expand their MoonBeam line of children’s films and branch into softcore films with Torchlight. While many Full Moon regulars were starting to jump ship, Ted Nicolaou stuck around to direct Dragonworld and Vampire Journals. Four years after Bloodlust: Subspecies III, Nicolaou decided to revisit the series with one final installment, providing a definitive ending. 1998 saw the release of Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm.
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Synopsis
Following the end of the last film, Radu (Anders Hove) is severely burned and makes off with the Bloodstone. Meanwhile, Ana Lazar (Ioana Abur) finds the car driven by Rebecca and Mel having crashed, leaving no survivors. However, Michelle (Denice Duff) survives, so Ana takes her to Dr. Ion Niculescu (Mihai Dinvale) to treat her. Niculescu discovers that Michelle’s a vampire and promises to cure her, only it turns out Niculescu is also a vampire. Meanwhile, Radu makes his way to Bucharest to reclaim his fortune from one of his fledglings Ash (Jonathon Morris). Turns out Ash has his own fledgling, Serena (Floriela Grappini), and she wants Ash to help her destroy Radu. The Bloodstone at stake, Radu is pursued by Niculescu and Ash while Michelle is torn between Radu and her humanity. It’s the ultimate vampiric showdown in what’ll surely be the final installment in the series.
Review
Compared to Trancers 4: Jack of Swords, Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm isn’t nearly as bad of a fourth installment. Unlike that film, this one still feels like a proper entry in the series, maintaining the same tone and style. As always, Nicolaou’s direction is solid, taking full advantage of the Bucharest locations to create a gothic atmosphere. Anders Hove and Denice Duff both continue giving solid performances as Radu and Michelle, having established their characters for years. Admittedly, Duff takes a backseat to Hove as Radu is given more emphasis with the addition of Ash and Serena. That said, we do see some character growth with her as she fully accepts her vampiric nature. While Radu’s demise has been done before and in a worse fashion, it does effectively leave a sense of closure. At roughly 90 minutes, the film moves at a decent pace and never gets boring.
While Nicolaou is mostly able to mask the low budget, there are still moments where it pokes through. For instance, the Radu makeup looks noticeably worse, resembling some sort of cheap plaster rather than looking like natural skin. Also, while Hove and Duff are doing their best with the material, the rest of the acting is pretty uninspired. Dinvale whispers all of his dialogue to make himself sound mysterious and dark, but it comes off more as cliche. Abur lacks the charm that Melanie Shatner brought to the last two films, though Morris and Grappini are somewhat decent. Story-wise, the film has several subplots that go nowhere and retcons because certain cast members were unavailable, though that’s understandable. One bright spot is that the low budget means no more tiny creatures, but this is still fairly lackluster. Overall, Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm is a somewhat disappointing finale to a decent franchise.
Buy Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3aWXXsI
