By Sammy, Your Resident Expert on All Things Dark, Twisted, and Now APPARENTLY VIETNAMESE VAMPIRES (Currently Stockpiling Garlic and Wondering if Banh Mi Repels the Undead)
🎤 YOU THINK VAMPIRES ARE ALL brooding European dudes in velvet capes? THINK AGAIN, SUCKER! Dark Star Pictures just dropped a bombshell hotter than holy water on a disco ball: they’ve snagged the U.S. rights to DAYDREAMERS, a goddamn Vietnamese vampire thriller from the twisted mind of Timothy Linh Bui (the lunatic behind THREE SEASONS and GREEN DRAGON!). Prepare for a genre blender set to “pulverize your expectations” because this ain’t your grandma’s Dracula.
Mark your calendars in blood (or maybe just a Sharpie): DAYDREAMERS is sinking its teeth into select U.S. theaters starting May 2nd in 15 top markets, followed by a nationwide digital bloodbath on June 3rd across all the streaming platforms you’re already chained to.
Dark Star, those magnificent purveyors of cinematic insanity, are clearly upping the ante with this one. They’re known for their bold and brain-bending international flicks, and DAYDREAMERS looks set to carve a bloody new niche. Imagine: fangs in the Far East, a whole new mythology dripping with Southeast Asian dread. Bui himself describes it as a story about the overlooked, the “people who live within the shadows of a modern city,” using vampires – the ultimate outsiders – as the perfect lens.
Forget your dusty Transylvanian castles. DAYDREAMERS throws us back 400 years to a Vietnam (then Annam) where European vamps, facing extinction back home (good riddance!), hauled their coffins east, bringing their nasty curse with them. Fast forward to modern-day Ho Chi Minh City, a sprawling urban jungle now teeming with a hidden, bloodthirsty underbelly.
Our guide through this nocturnal nightmare is Nhat, a young bloodsucker raised in a secluded river community trying to suppress his thirst and maybe, just maybe, reclaim some humanity (good luck with that, pal!). But when his long-lost brother Marco struts back into his life with tales of vamps living it up in the big city, Nhat gets sucked into a dangerous world that’ll test his loyalties, his beliefs, and his ability to not drain some innocent bystander dry.
Things get even messier when Nhat meets Ha, a rebellious schoolgirl who stumbles upon his little secret. Forbidden vampire law gets broken, executions are ordered by the ruthless vampire queen Trieu, and suddenly Ho Chi Minh City is about to erupt in a brother-on-brother, monster-vs-humanity showdown.
Word on the street is the visuals in this flick are gonna be INSANE, blending genre spectacle with some seriously grounded (and probably gut-wrenching) emotional storytelling. And the cast? Forget your usual pale faces. We’ve got Vietnamese superstar Chi Pu (Trieu), who apparently broke the internet in China, alongside rising talents Trinh Thao (Ha), Thuan Nguyen (Marco), and Tran Ngoc Vang (Nhat).
This ain’t just some schlocky B-movie either. DAYDREAMERS snagged a bunch of nominations at the Vietnamese Ngoi Sao Xanh Awards, with Bui himself winning “Best Director,” Tran Ngoc Vang taking “Best New Talent,” and An Do for “Best Production Design.” Clearly, this is a flick with some serious bite (pun intended).
Bui, a name you should probably start etching into your horror watchlist, has a history of bringing compelling Vietnamese stories to the global stage. He produced THE HOUSEMAID (which IFC unleashed on the world) and, with his brother Tony, gifted us the Sundance winners THREE SEASONS and GREEN DRAGON. These guys are credited with kicking off a whole new wave of Vietnamese filmmaking, so you know DAYDREAMERS isn’t going to be some half-baked vampire knockoff.
BOTTOM LINE? Dark Star Pictures is about to unleash a whole new breed of vampire on our unsuspecting eyeballs, and it’s coming straight outta Vietnam with a vengeance. Forget your garlic necklaces; you might need a whole new arsenal for these bloodsuckers. Get ready for DAYDREAMERS – it’s gonna be a bloody good time.
🦇🎤 PS: IF THESE VIETNAMESE VAMPIRES HAVE ANY TASTE FOR METALHEADS, I’M INVESTING IN SOME SERIOUS BODY ARMOR MADE OF CONCERT MERCH. YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO CAREFUL. 🎤🦇
