Film Review: Summer of Blood

Summer of Blood is a film that can be described as a splatter horror written by Larry David. If this sounds like a compliment, it sounds correctly, because this film is probably one of the best horror comedies in 2014, especially if we consider that it was made on a super low (I’m guessing here) budget.

But, instead of Larry David, a man called Onur Tukel is the main motor behind the film, having written, directed and starred in it. Apart from David, I could see hints of Woody Allen (mainly in the notions of looser lusting attention from women) and other influences, but at the end it doesn’t matter where Tukel draws his inspiration.

The point is that he tapped the genre of conversational, socially awkward comedy with incredible success.

In the film, Tukel stars as Erik Sparrow, a lazy middle ag¬ed man who is scared of commitments and somewhat of a giant ass. One day, he gets bit by a vampire, which gives him Jedi-like powers. Using them, he starts to mostly have sex with women, and half-heartedly tries to fix his life.

During the film, Tukel is hilarious as the douchebag Erik, who remains because of this fact also very believable. He comments on pretty much everything that is going on, often coming out as incredibly obnoxious and cynical, while other people’s blood continues to splatter all over the place. The film doesn’t try too much to get into the gory/splatter domain, but does include plenty of red paint. Occasionally, important real-life ideas do come up, but they are immediately (and intentionally) squashed by some idiotic thing that Erik does.

Summer of Blood is an exceedingly entertaining film about selfish morons becoming selfish moronic vampires. Onur Tukel is without a doubt a great and witty writer, but he also managed to direct this film and steal the show as the main star.