User reviews

In the midst of deadly and rampant plagues, the vampire is born. During several centuries that follow, the vampire race becomes known as "The Brotherhood", keepers of the faith, holy icons of hope and inspiration during a time of pestilence despair. Unfortunately, one of the bros ( Leo Gregory) gets a taste of some bad blood and slowly graduates from serial killer to mass murderer. It's up to his "biological" brother (Dougray Scott) and a cop (Saffron Burrows) to rein him before he gives The Brotherhood a bad rap.

"Perfect Creature" has a lot going for it. The premise is intriguing enough, the characters are interesting, and it casts (pardon the pun) an interesting light on the vampire genre. Edgar, the psychotic Brother is quite sinister and contrasts nicely against his priestly peers. Burrows and Scott also adeptly assume the shoes of their roles as well.

The bummer is that the film lacks in plot development and suffers from some pretty significant story flaws. How do the Brothers sustain their need for blood? What exactly is their religion? Why don't those bitten by Edgar contract his virus? I guess, referencing the common question from the film "Outbreak", is it airborne?

For me, "perfect Creature" ascended nicely from nothingness, but its wings never fully developed and it took a nose dive back into its grave.

Oh, I really wanted this film to be better.

So much potential with the alternative reality and the wet gritty feel of it all. The interactions between the characters held the possibility of layers of intrigue and backstory which could have led to spin offs into other media.

But it plays like a hastily written love story wedged into an interesting world view. Just when the story seems ready to move into an action sequence, it gets all boring and at the exact moment you expect some deeper relationship exposition, it stumbles onwards to progress the action.

The acting is great (even if a number of the actors are regular players on New Zealand TV and film), cinematography and editing is OK but nothing special, and the effects are passable for the budget. As an overall look it scores well, but it is no white knuckle ride.

My immediate comparison is to a films like Night Watch/Day Watch, Blade, Dark City or Underworld. Budget aside, these other films score so much better because they seem to get the pacing right. Ultimately, I found that I struggled to sit through the whole thing. I just kept thinking of other things I could be doing ... it just didn't engage me as it should have.

I'd still recommend seeing this film as it does throw up some cool ideas and grim images. But don't expect action and adventure at every turn.

First a confession: I have a weakness for vampire films. There are just a handful that really did it for me (NEAR DARK, BRAM STOKER'S Dracula, BLOOD & DOUGHNUTS, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and a few more), but this genre still intrigues me against my better judgment. So I grabbed the opportunity to see PERFECT CREATURE that comes up with a new concept: vampires were created in genetic experiments in the Renaissance era. The new breed called themselves The Brotherhood, formed a church and put their powers into the services of mankind. They're no evil bloodsuckers - until now. Suddenly people get killed and drained. The Brotherhood sends investigator Silas (Dougray Scott) to collaborate with the local police (led by Saffron Burrows). Together they try to hunt down the killer vampire, while The Brotherhood tries to hush things up. The story takes place in a fictitious city where it always seems to rain (hello SE7EN), the aesthetics is 19th century meets the 1930s, mixed with modern technology (see: DARK CITY). All in all no bad yarn, but Dougray Scott proves again his yawn qualities, and the characters stay two-dimensional in an extend one wished it really was a comic book (where it would be told better). The ending aspires to be the beginning to sequels or a TV series, which seems doubtful. But after all there have been follow-ups to way dodgier genre films. For me it just means waiting for the next good vampire film. 5/10

In a world not unlike ours in the 50's, the human race has been coexisting for three hundred years with a genetically enhanced breed of vampires called The Brotherhood that lead the church and researches. The fragile humans are under an influenza epidemic and shortage of the vaccine has been developed by The Brothers, and the police is struggling against the black market. In this environment, Captain Lilly (Saffron Burrows) is assigned to investigate the murder of a woman in an alley of the local slums, and she finds that the murderer is a Brother. Due to the political issue, the church sends Silus (Dougray Scott) to help her, and he discloses that his brother Edgar (Leo Gregory) was infected a couple of weeks ago and killed other women, but the Brotherhood has covered-up the murders to avoid the return of prejudice against their race. Silus and Lilly succeed to arrest the insane vampire, but when Edgar escapes from the compound, he begins to infect the human race.

"Perfect Creature" is a surprisingly good, underrated and absolutely original and stylish vampire movie. The acting is great, with an excellent development of the characters and situations; and the plot is dramatic, consistent and well resolved and gives an excellent hook for a sequel. The art direction blends different styles and ages of "our world" prevailing the 50's, and together with the dark and Gothic cinematography, produce a very pleasant and entertaining feature. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Criatura Perfeita" ("Perfect Creature")

Perfect Creature is ironically far from being a perfect movie. It's one of those frustrating cases where on the page it looks a smart premise, while the visuals and atmospherics are classy and inventive. Yet it's told in such a dull and uneventful way, managing to strangle the cast's skills whilst wasting the serial killer - cum - rogue vampire promise. Then there's the thematics that are given over to exposition drivel, the science, the ethics, and tolerance and evolution, wasted as we had towards an action scene, none of which is particularly special.

It's bold attempt at steampunkish horror, but sadly it's not all it can be. 5/10

This movie is like an overly long episode of Penny Dreadful that focuses on just one sub-plot and one and a half interesting characters. If that sounds enjoyable to you, then by all means, watch this film.

The acting is great, the movie is well made, the plot is not great (a strong baseline but goes nowhere, not really), the dialogue is okay, and overall it is just feels blah. Some very cool scenes, but for the most part it was more like, "hey look at this actor give a mean monologue!" or "wow, look how well we shot this!" or "see how seamless this editing was!" or "see how ugly and grey the streets are but we used it to make it ATMOSPHERIC!" You get the idea.

They set the movie up for a sequel, but I'm not the least bit interested. However, the main actor and the actor that played his brother, I would be interested in seeing more of their work. Hopefully, in something inspired as opposed to trying to show off technical prowess.

Written and directed by Glenn Standring, Perfect Creature falls into one of those fantasy, alternate universe timelines where because of genetic engineering and the likes, humans now are living side by side with the more powerful vampires with whom have forged a truce, that is, to never feed on the blood of humans, but instead, get their dosage of plasma through religious rites of sorts.

Which serves as an intriguing premises to begin with, except that it had so much going for it, that it failed to capitalize on the wealth of its potential, instead choosing to coast through the expected until a finale made up of standard fare, with too many plot elements than it could handle, with mistrust between the two species of homo sapiens, an influenza virus, and a murderous vampire hell bent on creating havoc by unleashing his own brand of justice to the world.

With movies like Underworld and various other genre incarnations that dwell on super- beings, Perfect Creature at best was on par in terms of the visuals, where the filmmakers have created a stunningly looking dark city, which seemed like a cross between Victorian England, except for the vehicles such as zeppelins which crowd the sky. Special effects was rudimentary, and you can feel the lack of slickness in the movements of the vampires, not so much as they couldn't fly, but their essence of speed wasn't properly brought across, and looked quite clunky.

The story, bared down to the basics, is about how human detective Lilly (Saffron Burrows) has to team up with a high ranking vampire / priest (yes, you read that right) called Brother Silus (Dougray Scott, who walks really stiff here and nary breaks into a smile), despite her and her team's discrimination against the vampire race. And their common adversary Edgar (Leo Gregory) happens to be a researcher of sorts gone renegade, and with blood relations to Silus, puts a dampener on so called conflict of interest.

As an action-fantasy piece, don't expect any award winning acting here, because what thrills are the set action pieces in claustrophobic spaces within dark and dank apartment blocks. However, unlike its contemporary peers, there aren't any fancy gadgets, weapons or moves to wow you, well, maybe perhaps the cool stunt gun that Silus carries which fires off projectile rounds to immobilize his kind. And of course something tells you it's not quite right when the mid-point action sequence trounces the finale which had a distinct lack of excitement.

But on the whole, for its mood, settings, and imaginative spin on the vampire genre, Perfect Creature does deserve a watch.

poorly executed.

Perfect creature is a clear example of a reasonable that generates a sub par script (I'm thinking shortland street which is New Zealand's stock doctor soap which has been meandering across our airwaves thrilling pubescent girls with ever worsening for the last fifteen years) and not enough money to cover even that as a result the effects are TV quality at best, the acting is slow paced and wooden and the general tone is New Zealand morbid ie there is no emotion other than general peevishness and....

Ahhh I grow weary.

I've already given it more time than it deserves.

I don't understand the poor rating this movie has. There is so much crap being made that people seem to love, and when something really good and original comes along people don't care about it. This movie touches on the theme of vampires, but it's not your ordinary vampire movie. It's a vampire movie with a twist. It is set in what looks like a somewhat futuristic "Jack the ripper era London" type of environment. This is beautifully done. Movies that come to mind are Sherlock Holmes, Bram Stokers Dracula and Wolfman. If you like those movies, you should find this movie interesting. You don't have to be a vampire buff to like this movie since it's not really a vampire movie, as much as it is a Sherlock Holmes type of suspense thriller where the murderer just happens to be a vampire. This movie is high-end quality filmmaking. It looks far more expensive than what the budget would suggest. The casting and acting is superb. The cinematography, editing, directing, visual effects...everything is superbly done. The story in this movie is even interesting and could have opened up to a number of sequels if this movie wasn't so poorly received (for reasons I don't understand). Anyone who found Sherlock Holmes interesting are advised to give this movie a chance.

My boyfriend and I were looking for a good horror movie to watch on Halloween, one problem, we've seen pretty much every good horror movie there is to see. But we came across Perfect Creature and the cover looked very cool and the story seemed to be interesting. We watched this when it was storming out and turned off all the lights; but I kept falling asleep during the film, we would start it over and then I would look up and my boyfriend was asleep. I was thinking maybe I was tired and just needed to give this movie another chance, but when I watched it the next day, I still really couldn't keep awake. I got through the movie, but I was still I wasn't really into it. The story was good, but the pacing was slow and it seemed to be more of a vampire soap opera than a scary story. I'm fine with drama's, but this one was just not making much sense.

From what I've gathered it was about the vampires that are actually called The Brotherhood and they live peacefully with the humans, in fact, they actually provide the humans with cures for illnesses and the humans provide them with blood. But one vampire, Edgar, is about to change that and decides that he should feed on whoever. He teases his brother, Silos, who is in love with a mortal that he saves from Edgar, and how he craves her. But Silos knows that he must keep it together and stop Edgar from destroying the relationships between man and The Brotherhood.

Perfect Creature isn't paced well at all and could have been just a little more exciting. There wasn't anything wrong with the acting, I think the story just needed to move faster. Because the story had extreme potential, I thought it was very original, it just needed a little extra something. So I wouldn't really recommend this film, it is pretty boring in my opinion, I'm surprised that it has a 5.5 rating, but I'm guessing some users are seeing something that I didn't.

3/10

I actually went into this film with fairly high hopes, in spite of the fact that there hasn't been a really decent vampire movie in ages, and naturally came out disappointed. What we have here is another 'original' yet uninteresting take on the vampire myth. I'm guessing the influence came from Underworld as the film features organised vampires in a contemporary setting. The main problem with this film is that it's messy and much of it doesn't make sense. The plot has something to do with a world in which humans and vampires live together in harmony. But then one vampire decides to create a war...etc etc. The film is stylishly shot and features some action sequences, but since the story is all over the place; much of the film doesn't make sense, and this is a big problem as the story really isn't interesting enough for most people to try and work out what is supposed to be happening - me included. What you end up with therefore is a bunch of 'cool' people with fangs kicking and punching each other while talking about things changing (or whatever). Overall, I can't say I was impressed with this original take on the vampire myth, and I'd rather filmmakers stop being original and make a vampire flick that's actually good, like they used to.

It is so hard to see originality in horror, even for someone with as little experience in the genre as I have, but here is a new one for me. Vampires and humans in mutual cooperation. Humans generously give blood at the Vampire church and the Vampires protect the humans, who are coming out of a massive flu epidemic.

But, one of the head Vampires (Leo Gregory) is trying to breed new ones. There hasn't been a Vampire born in 70 years because there are no females. Unfortunately, as often occurs in horror films, something goes wrong and the scientist vampire is infected.

The lovely Saffron Burrows (Troy, The Galíndez File) is a cop who joins with the brother of the scientist (Dougray Scott), himself destined to lead the Church, to find the infected Vampire.

Seems easy enough, but there is more to the story and that is what makes it interesting and makes for some enjoyable Vampire horror.

No pun intended with the summary line by the way. But it's a shame to see a really good idea going to waste! It begins with the main actor for me, who seems to have no facial expressions at all ... This might be intended, because after all he's a vampire. But even so, there should be some, I think.

The action is executed nicely, but the story doesn't move accordingly or has the usual bumps. So while the "Brothers" could remind some people of Blade, it never achieves to come near that movie. And the comparison doesn't help, on the contrary, it just shows you how much lesser of a movie this one is!

While not reaching the heights it could have, "PERFECT CREATURE" is certainly an intriguing little film that throws up a lot of fascinating twists on the well-worn vampire genre.

The alternate world created (which feels like a mix of OLIVER TWIST and DUNE) is wonderful, and a lot of care and attention has gone into making this environment seem believable and convincing.

A capable cast do their best (when was the last time Dougray Scott actually smiled in a film?), bringing an effective melancholy to their characters that the script unfortunately lacks. If the characters were as well-constructed as the setting, the movie would have had more dramatic impact.

At a scant 90 minutes (and I hear it is being chopped down for it's U.S release), writer/director Glenn Standring could have spent more time opening up this eye-popping world and its history. At least it doesn't make the same mistake as UNDERWORLD, another vampire film that gave us its backstory in 2 minutes, but then still managed to go for a yawn-inducing two hours.

PERFECT CREATURE may prove a hard sell, as there is very little in the way of action, gore, and over-the-top CGI set-pieces. But the very fact that director Standring has made a film that doesn't easily fit into a particular category or formula, shows that a genuine attempt has been made to give us something different. He comes so close to succeeding.

Very good,original vampire action movie ...

I'm very impressed. one more proof that there can be a good original action movie outside of Hollywood. This should be playing in the theaters. Has a dark, depressed "batman city" feel, contains an original storyline and enough action to satisfy action buffs like me. Special effects are pretty good, do not get in the way of the storyline. I'm surprised how well this relatively unknown cast performed, the leads blended with their roles seamlessly. Definitely looking forward to a sequel.

Way better then most of the late Hollywood stuff out there...

This is an absolutely original script with a fresh point of view. Given the current craze over The Twilight Saga, the elements of the vampire-human relationship in Perfect Creature almost seems to be a futuristic sequel. I like the overall atmosphere of the film, the story intrigued and involved me completely. When it ended I was definitely wanting a next chapter. I really enjoyed the performances of all the cast and felt that they developed complexity and depth in their characters that perhaps the script itself did not sufficiently support. I felt the actors had more to offer, but the dialogue and scenes sometimes limited their ability to express it. The casting was definitely spot on. The visuals worked extremely well and gave the film a really polished feel. Would like to have seen the relationships between Silas and Lilly and between Silas and Edgar given a little more screen time to let us in on the interpersonal qualities of each. After reading the plot synopsis here on IMDb, I realized that the lack of film time for the main characters' relationships likely resulted from an effort to include too many of the details of the story. I still found it enjoyable. Would like to see more from this writer-director.

I have to admit that I only watched half the movie, that's how it failed to connect with any interest I might have in watching DOUGRAY SCOTT assume a vampire role. Scott's idea of the vampire look is one of dull incomprehension, sniffing the air like a dog and walking through the role like a zombie with nowhere to go.

He's at a big disadvantage here because the script and direction leave a lot to be desired. Normally, he's a good enough actor to look as though he has command of a role but this character completely misses any kind of strong interpretation.

On the other hand, LEO GREGORY does a fine, snarling job (he can scowl like nobody else I've seen), a more vicious specimen than his brother. The story starts out effectively and looks as though it's going to have the potential of being a vampire story with a twist--but then gets bogged down into one dull scene after another until finally, as a viewer, I had enough.

Whether it picks up steam after sagging toward the middle, I'll never know. And I'll never find out because I don't intend to revisit it.