Before They Were Famous, Henry Cavill And Michael Fassbender Led A Memorably Awful Horror Movie

This post contains mild spoilers for "Blood Creek."

Vampire horror movies are a dime-a-dozen, often falling into the same genre trappings or retreading familiar storylines. This is not always a bad thing, though, as long as there's fun to be had: films like "Blade" or "Van Helsing" entertain us by expertly balancing thrilling action with dramatic tension while knowing it is best not to indulge in self-seriousness. Well, what about an odd little vampire tale that is both campy and self-serious, as well as equal parts ridiculous and entertaining? Welcome to Joel Schumacher's unforgettable "Blood Creek," where a Nazi vampire scholar named Richard Wirth (a young Michael Fassbender) wreaks havoc after being freed from captivity by two brothers who really should have known better. Henry Cavill and Dominic Purcell play Evan and Victor Marshall, respectively, and it is up to this duo to try and stop this near-immortal Nazi occultist from activating some kind of rune that can plunge the world into chaos.

It is worth noting that Schumacher knows his vampires, as exemplified by his 1987 dark horror comedy "The Lost Boys," which took a fresh, revamped look at the genre and brandished a bold visual style. Although "The Lost Boys" is thoroughly flawed, and feels more accomplished as a stylistic endeavor than a substantial one, it boasts memorable performances and should be acknowledged for daring to be different. In contrast, "Blood Creek" is middling in its execution, the only aspects making it stand out being its introductory noir flourishes and the thoroughly absurd nature of its plot. There's an air of obscurity that both the film and its setting embrace, but on closer inspection, it becomes clear that its vampiric mythos is a barely cobbled-together string of tropes that should have been fleshed out in greater detail.

"Blood Creek" picks up in 1936 as the Wollners — who are settled in rural West Virginia — host the eccentric Richard Wirth, a Nazi academic in search of ancient runestones supposedly buried in the area by Viking explorers. Wirth's intentions are obviously unsavory, and he wants to use the Wollners as test subjects for some sort of twisted occult experiment, but the family manages to trap the vampire necromancer in a cellar.

The price for trapping and sustaining such an evil entity is to sacrifice locals over the years, and this is exactly what the Wollners do until the relentlessly determined (and violent) Victor Marshall escapes after being caught in 2007. However, instead of running away like any sensible bloke, Victor returns to the farm with his brother Evan, and the two hatch a plan to take down Wirth after accidentally freeing him from his confinement. The goal is to stop every Nazi occultist like Wirth, who plans to feed upon the locals and activate runestones with the power to transform them into superhumans. Yes, there is more than one Nazi necromancer/vampire running around in rural West Virginia, where most of them remain trapped in basements or cellars. The how and the why of it all remains immaterial in the face of the plot's overarching silliness.

Although "Blood Creek" is deeply absurd, the ominous aspects of the film work well thanks to an authentically creepy Fassbender (who makes the most of what little he has to work with, which mostly amounts to cursing and appearing fiendishly evil). Cavill also emerges as a worthy protagonist here, capable of selling the ridiculous heroic impetus his character is expected to fulfill, even when the script by David Kajganich (writer of the 2018 "Suspiria") fails to stitch together a coherent chain of events or explain why key developments are occurring in the first place.

However, it is fun to watch Fassbender's Wirth do bizarre stuff like using his necromancer powers and transforming the dead into demonic beasts, and certain moments — such as a demon horse storming a farmhouse — fare well on the oddity meter. There's some decent gore and creature design to look out for here too, but apart from these touches, "Blood Creek" boils down to its crackpot premise and a villain who impales his own skull for funsies.