It’s kinda hard to believe that somebody actually ‘wrote’ the new horror movie from director Jeremy Kasten called ‘The Thirst’. I mean how exactly do you write ‘chunks out of the neck and gushing arterial blood splatter’ over and over again? That’s not to say that ‘The Thirst’ is a bad film… well, actually ‘The Thirst’ is a bad film but it’s a ballsy one to be sure.

When we first meet Maxx (Matt Keeslar) he is sitting in on his AA group or whatever substance abuse group he happens to be in, whining to his other recovering drug addicts about his girlfriend Lisa (Claire Kramer) who he suspects is still using and has taken to becoming a stripper to pay the bills. Cut to Lisa who is in midst performance, wearing a purple wig and swinging on a pole. I was a little disappointed that Lisa didn’t get all the way down on the nudity tip, but if I was disappointed by Lisa’s show of stripping modesty, the filmmakers would make up for this in spades later on. Trust me on this one. Turns out that Lisa is cancer ridden and has hidden this from Maxx because of his weak mental fragility. Lisa, now at deaths door, is met at the hospital by a strange counselor named Mariel (Serena Scott-Thomas) who seems to have a solution for her little problem of impending death, and Lisa decides to take her up on this offer.

Lisa goes ahead and clocks out, leaving poor Maxx miserable and alone. His good buddies Kiki (Dawn Weld) and Jason (Erik Palladino) have had enough of dudes self pity and drag him out a club for a fun night of submission and whips. Dagnabit, who does Maxx see at the club but his dead girlfriend Lisa doing the nasty dance in the center of the room. Perhaps it’s just me, but if I see my dead girlfriend doing the nasty dance or any kind of dance anywhere, no matter what kind of magical love we may have shared, I’m outta there. Max though just wants to be next to his boo again and manages to find her again at the whips and chains club the next day. Thing is this club

seems to be the temporary stomping grounds of a group of brutal, and I do mean brutal, vampires. These cats don’t believe in the old subtle two fanged hole in the neck approach, no sir, they like to just rip you apart and let the blood flow everywhere. The two fanged approach seems a little more efficient, considering the incredible amount of wasted blood these vampires spill, but I suppose the filmmakers didn’t have fangs in their budget. Though they did allow for ample amounts of Karyo syrup in their relatively measly budget.

Lisa manages to convince her new family of vampires to spare Maxx’s life. A family that consists of the aforementioned Miriam, smarmy British vampire Duke (Neil Jackson), head vampire Darius (Jeremy Sisto), and a lot of busty naked chick vampires. Oh, Adam Baldwin, who once had made of career of being Hollywood’s stiffest, most uncharismatic actor shows up as maniacal, southern, dirty ass vampire. So Maxx agrees to turn so he and Lisa can be together forever, but it turns out that breaking people in two and imbibing their blood kind of sucks if you’re not really into that, so our lovers decide to flee. Everybody knows it don’t work like that, so now we have a battle on our hands as our evil vampires attempt to dispatch with our new vamps with the semi-hearts of gold.

So ‘The Thirst’ was obviously shot on the cheap and director Kasten and his DP Raymond Stella tried to make their shots look as good as they could with what they had, but it still had a low bud sheen to its overall look. The acting was certainly spotty with the best work being done by Claire Kramer and Adam Baldwin, but Matt Keeslar seemed to struggle throughout the film with his character. I admire dudes chin-dimple and all, but Tom Brady is tall with a chin-dimple too and I don’t see anybody making HIM a lead in anybody’s movie. And where was Jeremy Sisto going with that accent? Sometimes he was Count Dracula, other times he was Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrain and other times he just, well, Jeremy. I know he probably got below scale for this deal, but maybe he could have practiced his accents for future productions on his day off.

So ‘The Thirst’ wasn’t that well shot or directed and wasn’t particularly well acted, so why would anybody want to see it? Why tits and violence my friend. After about the 10 minute mark, this film didn’t go more than two minutes between bloody slaughters, and they lasted like forever. Now I know there are folks that like that, and though I’m not really one of them, but I do know you cats are out there. There was also a lot blood covered breast as well. A lot. I can see where Kasten may have been thinking that he may not have a budget, but at least he can find some breast and that alone should cause some rental surge activity. A sound theory I believe.

Look, it’s not ‘Interview with a Vampire’ or something along those lines, but it is a breastiful bloody mess. And that just may be enough for you.