Umbrage: The First Vampire Review: A Vampire Story Combined with Cowboys and Family Drama
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Umbrage: The First Vampire is about the conflict between a cowboy, the millennia-old vampire who turned him, and the dysfunctional family caught in the middle.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
January 22, 2012
Release: 2009-2011 (Various Festivals), October 17, 2011 (UK DVD)
Written and Directed by: Drew Cullingham
Starring:
Doug Bradley as Jacob
Rita Ramnani as Rachel
Jonnie Hurn as Phelan
Natalie Celino as Lilith
Grace Vallorani as Lauren
Jacob (Doug Bradley) has moved his family out to a secluded spot in the woods for privacy, peace, and quiet. He’s hoping that an obsidian mirror he’s gotten possession of will fetch good money on the antiques market. Unfortunately, life would be a lot easier for him if he, his pregnant wife Lauren (Grace Vallorani), and the young Rachel (Rita Ramnani) could just get along and coexist without biting each other’s heads off at every turn. One evening, a camper and a birdwatcher (Natalie Celino) arrive at their house in a panic claiming that another camper had been brutally killed by some unseen force described as “shadows”. While the family tries to figure out what’s happened, Rachel finds her way out to the barn and discovers a smooth-talking vampire cowboy named Phelan (Johnnie Hurn) who tells her that the vampire that turned him many years prior is there somewhere, and he wants his revenge.
Umbrage: The First Vampire deserves some credit for what’s right in it: its entire second half. Phelan is smooth, interesting, fun, and a character an entire prequel film could be based around. He’s, by far, the best character and performance in the movie to the point where a weaker, more annoying one is calmer and more likeable when sharing a scene with him. Jonnie Hurn should absolutely be commended for an outstanding job, turning this character effectively into the entertaining, one-liner spewing badass that it needed to be.
Similarly, Umbrage: The Last Vampire is a far more intense and interesting movie in its latter half as the story’s real conflict and unique spin on vampire history come to the forefront. It takes a very welcome turn towards the more violent and action-packed as the focus shifts away from the family and toward Phelan’s story. Effects are suitably grisly and usually done practically, and the fights, while done with mildly erratic camera work, are entertaining.
The problem is that all of this happens… in the
SECOND
half. The first 45 minutes of Umbrage: The First Vampire are
boring, dull, and filled with completely unlikable characters. Jacob
and his family, for instance, are at each other’s throats to such a
degree that they actually inspire anger. The character of Rachel is
particularly guilty of this as she always has a ready-made cutting
remark or insult at the expense of either Jacob or Lauren even when
horrific things are happening around them. A realistic, logical
character can still be bitchy or mean but usually knows how to dial
that back when legitimate danger is there. Rachel only learns to do
that later on when she interacts with Phelan (and the character is then
that much better for it). This then filters down to the rest of the
family as Lauren comes across as whiny and weak while Jacob feels like
he’s completely lost control of the group. And, of course, let us also
not forget that, besides those characters, there are the two campers
who get a bit of screentime in the first half, one of whom comes across
as rowdy, boisterous, and obsessed with sex and alcohol. Way to build
interest in the plot of this movie with the word VAMPIRE in its title
using such likable characters who aren’t VAMPIRES for the first half,
filmmakers!
That’s not to say the second half of the movie is without
detractors. At that point, a few characters begin speaking with a weird
voice effect 
overlaying their regular voices. Considering
that this is a
movie from the UK, some of their accents are made at times
unintelligible by the change. The script is also filled, in BOTH
halves, with random references to other movies that come completely out
of nowhere and completely derail the movie whenever they occur. These
include quotes from or discussions of An
American Werewolf in London, Predator, City
Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold (???), Army
of Darkness, and a seeming homage to a scene from a certain
teen vampire romance series that shall remain nameless. All of these
immediately kill any momentum or tension that had been built up
previously for a short time. There are reasons to reference or pay
tribute to other movies. One of them is not “just to do it”.
Umbrage: The First Vampire is yet another example of a movie with two distinct halves. Its second half features an interesting conflict and unique take on vampire history as well as some decent performances. However, its first half is dull, boring, and filled with unlikable characters. That, coupled with a script that would be great if it stopped shooting itself in the foot with pointless references, dooms the movie to mediocrity that even some nice gratuitous nudity cannot rescue it from.
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