Fusing the horror movie sub-genres of the vampire and the serial killer may at first seem to be a concept that only a drooling 15-year-old gorehound or a Hollywood marketing moron could love. Maybe that's the main reason Kevin Lindenmuth's "Addicted to Murder" is so shocking - because he somehow manages to pull it off. He doesn't resort to exploitation - the film lingers neither on the rampant bloodletting, nor on the supple flesh of its sultry vampire temptresses (not that I would have minded). Hollywood high-concept? No danger of that, since his budget's in the neighborhood of $10,000. Not that it's a bad neighborhood - really, it's a place I wouldn't mind visiting again.

The story - told in non-linear fashion and leavened with flashbacks, visions and pseudo-documentary footage – centers on Joel Winter (Mick McCleery), a brooding twentysomething with a severe social handicap: he just can't express his feelings to others without killing them. Despite his fluffy hockey hair, it's quite the impediment to his career as a handyman, and makes for a very short and tension-filled marriage (at least his wife escaped with only minor injuries). What's worse, he's haunted day and night by memories of his abuse-filled childhood, during which he had only one friend - a lovely vampire named Rachel (Laura McLauchlin).

As Joel grows to manhood, Rachel is always around to ease his pain. That is, until she decides to introduce him to her favorite game, which basically involves him killing her over and over again with a variety of home and garden implements so she can experience the fleeting "thrill" of death - something very foreign to her kind. When Rachel disappears, the adult Joel finds he can't connect with others in any other way. Like I said, it's kind of a bummer, socially.

Despite his undying obsession with Rachel and a potentially lethal fixation on his boss's ice-queen receptionist (Candice Meade), Joel finds the first hint of finding a "normal" relationship with a pretty fellow tenant (Bernadette Pauley). That is, until he starts receiving mysterious invitations to a club called "The Hungry," where he crosses paths with slinky seductress Angie (Sasha Graham), whose appetites match those of his childhood pal, but whose intentions seems a bit more, well, evil. That is, EE-VEEL. If only Joel had sat in on a few of my wife's soaps, he might have been properly armed against Angie's demon-superbitch charms.

(I'm gonna sideline for a minute here to say that Mick McCleery is one lucky bastard, as he shares nearly all of his screen time with a half-dozen phenomenally beautiful women in this film. Not a bad gig for a slightly pudgy guy who looks like a roadie for Night Ranger.)

As Angie weasels her way into Joel's bed, life and mind, Joel becomes convinced that his true predatory calling is at hand - and that Rachel is still out there, waiting for him to join her and prey on the living for all eternity. There's just one hitch - he's beginning to develop something like a conscience. It gets ugly.

Lindenmuth compensates for his meager budget and the unfortunate coarseness of a mid-'90s SOV production by opting for the "video verite" approach, inter-cutting his central story with deliberately grainy interviews between a TV journalist and an assortment of investigators, psychologists and eccentrics - not to mention Joel's harried ex-wife - as they attempt to make sense of the horrors perpetrated by this seemingly mild-mannered fellow.

In theory, this kind of structure might seem a bit pretentious for a low-budget vampire flick, but Lindenmuth pulls it off for the most part; it's a well-considered approach that makes for a thoroughly creepy character study. He also manages to avoid lapsing into self-parody, which has become the bane of so many "revisionist" horror movies these days. Another nice touch is the non-linear plot construction, which seems to be telegraphing Joel's impending doom, but actually is a clever bit of misdirection. Not that the ending is a mind-boggling twist, but I'll admit there are some startling revelations along the way.

Although gritty realism predominates (after all, it's kind of a natural by-product of the medium), Lindenmuth does offer some effectively surreal touches, with some surprisingly eerie moments of expressionistic lighting. Heavy shadows seem to encroach on Joel in the already claustrophobic sets and locations, and there's some effective black & white sequences depicting his flashbacks and/or delusions. On the downside, some of the performances are a bit forced; the VHS transfer muddies the contrast and accentuates the grain a little TOO much; and there's a buzz-in-your-ear electronic score that's not so much unsettling as just kind of annoying.

Overall, vampire fans looking for something to transfuse their genre's tired blood (sorry, I had to get one of those in somewhere) might find a tasty sanguinary treat in this clever film - which as of this writing has spawned two sequels. It's inventive enough to rise above its budget handicap, marks its maker as an indie force to be reckoned with, and will hopefully manage a nice DVD re-master.

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Editor's Note: Addicted to Murder 1 & 2 have both been released on a single edition DVD by Navarre, available at most online retail outlets.