PERFECT CREATURE (2006)

Day #159

Some of you have been asking questions about my existence here in Igloo Land. Sorry I can't answer them all personally but here are a few answers to the most popular questions:

1) Fish. I fish every day. That's all the food there is. Sometimes I have ice for dessert.
2) Water. Luckily there's a fresh water spring about 2 miles away. Inside the force-field, thankfully.
3) Yes, of course it's bloody cold.
4) I only have one battered old TV. No, I have no control over it. It comes on of its own accord and shows... hang on, here it comes now!


PERFECT CREATURE (2006)

If Underworld had been directed by Ken Loach – with no budget - it would have looked pretty much like Perfect Creature. This brave new world is a little bit grey and grimy, and our heroes are miserable, downtrodden bunch at the bottom of the social heap.

Saffron Burrows plays a hard-bitten cop. Here’s a transcript from the Initial casting meeting:

“We need a hard-bitten cop. Who immediately springs to mind?”,
“Harvey Kietel?”
“No”
“Bob Hoskins?”
“No”,
“Got it! Saffron Burrows”

To be fair to her she’s fine. She’s certainly a lot better than Dougray Scott. No offence to Saffron Burrows but when you’re out-acted by Saffron Burrows you know you’re in trouble. Dougray Scott looks as if he's sleepwalking through the entire film. Here’s a glimpse of him emoting anger:


At one point (47 mins 50 secs) I swear to God he does actually fall asleep, and has to be nudged awake by someone off camera.

The premise of Perfect Creature is actually pretty original and interesting. Vampires and humans co-exist quite happily. In fact, vampires are worshipped as near gods, with churches dedicated to them.

It all kicks off when an influenza epidemic sweep the human population, and – obvious spoiler coming up - one of the vampires goes 'rogue' and starts preying on humans.

Good vampire Silus (Dougray) is sent by the church to catch bad vampire Edgar, his brother (wouldn't you have guessed)who looks like a young Bon Jovi.Edgar teams up with the hard-bitten cop that is Saffron Burrows, and they run about a lot. At least, Burrows runs about and Dougray Scott walks and talks slowly about. Every couple of minutes he twists his neck at 45 degrees and looks upwards. This is to signify his supernatural hearing. It’s the only thing he does.

Despite a promising premise, Perfect Creature doesn’t quite hit the mark. The plot fails to deal with a number of interesting issues raised and kind of collapses under the strain half-way through, leaving us with a standard chase/fight/chase/fight movie. Bit of a shame really. At the end it’s set up for a sequel. I’d watch the sequel quite happily, but will there be one? Will anyone find the budget for a sequel? And so I found myself saying, “Ah, bless, hope it works out for them” in an incredibly patronising way. Probably not the reaction that the film-makers were hoping for.