Sunset On The River Styx (2021)

Vampires. Vampires are always a very useful horror archetype. They can be used to explore sex. They can be used to explore age. They can be used to explore almost every human experience, but in an amplified way, from love to grief, pleasure to pain. Not all vampire movies are interested in delivering scares and/or bloodshed, but they're still often very much vampire movies. Sunset On The River Styx may disappoint those seeking some easy thrills, but it should please those after a new vampire movie.

Phillip Andre Botello plays Will, a bus driver who seems to be in a bit of a funk. That funk could be alleviated by an encounter with Ashe (Jakki Jandrell). Ashe tries to encourage Will to start acting on some of his impulses, which include more confrontational ways of dealing with the occasional troublesome passenger. Ashe also ends up encouraging Will to try something else though, something that drags him into the orbit of Wreck (Cory Vaughn).

Written and directed by Aaron Pagniano, this is another interesting and effective use of vampirism to explore relationships and sexuality. There's a love and respect that develops between the main characters, but there's also some manipulation that makes things a lot more complicated when they look to possibly move forward to whatever the next stage of their relationship might be.

Botello and Jandrell are both great in their roles, and both work really well alongside one another. It's fascinating to watch how different they become around Vaughn's character, but it should be noted that Vaughn is easily on a par with them when it comes to the acting talent. This is a single person becoming part of a duo, and then being shown that there are many more connections they may want to consider, for better or worse, and everyone onscreen does well to show that development in status.

It's a bit slight, more concerned with being a character study than a full rumination on the potential and pitfalls of vampirism, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth your time. Everything looks and sounds good enough, with Pagniano clearly having assembled a team he could trust to get his vision onscreen, and there are some definite highlights scattered here and there throughout the 94-minute runtime.

I may well forget this by the end of the year, and I doubt it will shoot straight to the top of any favourite movie list, but this review can serve as a reminder to others to check it out. It deserves to find an audience, and there will be at least one or two others who enjoy it even more than I did. I would happily rewatch it though, and maybe next time around I will appreciate even more of what it has to offer. 

7/10

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