Review - TF8 - Night Kaleidoscope - Review by HorrorHotHouse

Original article by Simon Ball http://www.horrorhothousereview.wordpress.com

‘Don’t you know it’s dangerous to walk home on your own?’ daft question in a vampire movie especially when it’s a raven tressed seductive woman doing the asking.

Fresh from its preview screening at the Atlanta Days of the Dead Horror Convention, Grant McPhee’s psychedelic Scottish Vampire Noir Night Kaleidoscope is now out on Amazon Prime, Region 2 DVD and even a very limited VHS edition. (Region 1 and NTSC VHS and Very Limited Betamax to come soon).

Patrick O’Brien is Fion a hard-bitten psychic detective, whose waning powers are bolstered by smoking a mysterious substance. Fion’s latest case involves a mysterious wave of murders across the city’s poor and deprived. With the aid of Isobel (Mariel McAllan) and despite being warned off by Police Scotland’s Detective Sergeant Pollock (Craig-James Moncur) the investigation leads the pair to a world of ancient evil that surrounds the beautiful but deadly vampire couple – Carrie (Kitty Colquhoun) and Lewis (Jason Harvey)

Night Kaleidoscope is set against the backdrop of Edinburgh’s decaying sink estates (although some of the filming took place with Glasgow standing in for the Scottish capital), however the gritty character of the city’s streets is viewed through a lens heavily influenced by Euro-trash directors like Franco and Argento, that is further refined through Nic Roeg’s miasmatic vision (aided by the watery quality of Scottish sunshine during the daylight hours) and then pushed to the limit of the deranged imagination of Kenneth Anger. As such story and logic come second to the film’s atmosphere as the trippy, psychedelic imagery flashes against Alec Cheer’s pumping 80s style synth rock score turning Night Kaleidoscope into a dreamy nightmare captured on film.

Moody, atmospheric and magnificent we give Night Kaleidoscope a 555/666