Perfect Creature

Perfect Creature depicts a parallel world melding ’60s Victorian gothic style with a grim, futuristic Orwellian society steeped in reverence for religion and genetic science in equal measure. Mankind is looked after, or controlled by, what’s said to be the evolution of a new species of man, known as Brothers, and collectively as the Brotherhood. This new species is strong, agile, fang baring, afraid to tan and hungry for blood, but only from willing donors at church, where the collection plate acts as a kind of Red Cross food bank. The "Brothers” are never actually called vampires and great liberties are taken with all pre-existing lore but these mysterious gatekeepers of knowledge are unmistakable versions of the classic bloodsuckers. Apparently, it’s believed that no Brother has ever harmed a human, but that myth has a bite taken out of it when a renegade vampire goes on a killing spree. Of course, the psycho vamp is the brother of the Brotherhood cop sent to bring him down and snuff out any murmur of nefarious doings. That setup doesn’t sound like it would make for too bad a film but Perfect Creature really is terrible. The cast and crew seem so excited by the basic ideas of the film that they overdo everything, suffocating all potential in hammy acting, overindulgent stylisation, schizophrenic editing and a plethora of cheap effects. As vampire hero Silus, Dougray Scott is more vacant than a lobotomised Keanu Reeves, and his foil, Leo Gregory as Edgar, is laughable in his sub-soap opera villainy. In the "making of” special feature, director Standring mentions that six months of research went into developing the ideas but from the results, it seems none of that time was spent writing an actual plot. Whether you want to blame the bad editing or directing for the story’s lack of coherency, nothing but poor writing can account for the flat dialogue and broad clichés littering the script. Despite good intentions, Perfect Creature just doesn’t work on any level. Also included are requisite theatrical trailers and a "Designing the Perfect Creature” production featurette.