Major spoilers below.

Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores’ (otherwise known as The Butcher Brothers) “The Hamiltons,” while essentially a vampire film, is a post-modern take – vampirism is treated as a disease that you are born with, and can be spread by no other means.  It shares more in common with films like “Near Dark” than more traditional interpretations.

As far as I am aware it was part of After Dark’s Horrorfest and was made in 2006, as was the sequel, “The Thompsons,” that came out six years later.

There are certain advantages to this interpretation of vampirism – they can travel during the day, and religious iconography (as far as I can tell) means absolutely nothing to them – as well as disadvantages – they appear to be no stronger than a normal human, can’t shape-shift, and they have no fangs or claws.

They also don’t sparkle, which I am thankful for.

In fact, other than a desire for blood they have nothing in common with traditional vampires, which ironically enough, is it’s biggest problem.

“The Hamiltons” plays more like a serial killer feature, which was why I was waiting for someone to connect the dots between the copious amounts of vanished people and an itinerant family.

Strangely enough, there’s no police presence in this film.  At all.  I get that that was not perhaps the story that the filmmakers were trying to tell, but even a token presence would have been appreciated because the Hamiltons were more than a little busy.

Unfortunately, it also plays for a large part of its running time like a series from the CW, with Cory Knauf (Francis Hamilton) displaying way too much angst.  In his defense, the performance makes sense in context of the film, though it wore a bit thin, which was why I was thankful for the performance of Joseph McKelheer (Wendell Hamilton) who with his twin sister Darleen (Mackenzie Firgens)  were more like traditional vampires in their embrace of their vampiric nature.