The first question that arose from Nest of Vampires is if that is indeed the proper collective noun for said mythological creatures. While there is some discrepancy out there, “nest” does seem to be an agreed-upon term (though “coven” and “house” are often used, as well as my personal favorite, a “clot”).
The film opens with a mysterious intruder slithering his way into a home and murdering the woman inside. It turns out she is the wife of MI5 agent Kit Valentine (Tom Fairfoot), and the stranger absconds with the agent’s daughter.
After a brief meeting with his boss, Kit vows to hunt down those responsible and heads to a sleepy little village in the United Kingdom that is teeming with shadowy figures and nefarious Nosferatus. The hard-boiled Valentine appears singularly driven and plows ahead despite the increasing level of danger in which he seems to place himself.
Nest of Vampires is the first feature-length film by writer/actor/director Chris Sanders. Given the budgetary limitations, Sanders manages to bathe his film with moody ambient lighting and stages the camera with an effective placement that lends to the off-kilter world of blood-suckers, Satanists, and spies he attempts to create. A notable example is staging a scene involving a reserved business transaction while in the background, a former “victim” is being brutally dismembered.
“…MI5 agent Kit Valentine…heads to a sleepy little village in the United Kingdom that is teeming with shadowy figures and nefarious Nosferatus.”
Unfortunately, Sanders seems to have bitten off more than he can chew (pun intended). The resulting story is a rather unwieldy union of Taken, James Bond, vampires, and QAnon conspiracies. There are far too many characters out to double-cross one another that we are never truly clear who is duping whom and, more importantly, why.
Acting from the leads is solid, with the right amount of cocksure strut from Tom Fairfoot as the square-jawed agent Kit Valentine. With his slightly disheveled appearance but no-nonsense delivery, Fairfoot could have easily stumbled in from a Guy Ritchie film by accident. Equally impressive is Jet Jandreau, as possible femme fatale Simone, who lives in the sleepy little town and who may or may not be of assistance to Kit. She delivers her lines with urgency and just a hint of ambiguity as to her true allegiances.
But to whom is a question that is never truly clear, as there is any number of characters that are introduced and share screen time to bark and snarl at one another, usually ending with someone in desperate need of a blood transfusion. The marriage of the spy and vampire genres is an interesting one, and if Nest of Vampires had settled with balancing just the two, it might have presented a more focused result. Instead, it shovels in human trafficking, Satanism, and even mentions of adrenochrome, the infamous buzzed-about chemical compound which has become all the rage with those in the QAnon community.
As it stands, Nest of Vampires is a little too deluged with demons despite hatching an enticing premise.
"…delivers her lines with urgency and just a hint of ambiguity..."
