‘Bogieville’ is a Disappointing yet Mildly Amusing Vampire Film: A Review
Trailer park vampires in the American South, but made in England.

Table of Contents
What is Bogieville About?

Bogieville follows a down-on-their-luck couple as they take a job at a rundown trailer park, only to find that the trailers house a bunch of vicious vampires.
Times are tough for Ham and his girlfriend Jody. They both lose their jobs, and after hitting the road in search of new work and a new home, they hit someone on the road. They find blood and clothing on their truck, but no body. While searching the area, they come across a trailer park and its caretaker, Crawford.
Crawford offers them a job, but he’s really grooming them to take over his position as the overseer of a nest of vampires. Meanwhile, back in the city, the local sheriff suspects Ham of being involved in a violent murder. With vampires on one side, and law enforcement on the other, Ham is going to make some difficult decisions about his life.
Bogieville was directed by Sean Cronin (co-director of Drained) and written by Henry P. Gravelle. Arifin Putra and Eloise Lovell Anderson star as Ham and Jody respectively. Also featured are Jonathan Hansler, Angela Dixon, Daniel P Lewis, Sarina Taylor, Poppie Jae Hughes, Julian Gamm, and Sean Cronin.
Bogieville Review

I was looking forward to Bogieville. Sure, the trailer looks cheesy, but I like cheesy movies. Plus, the director is Sean Cronin, and I really enjoyed Drained which he co-directed. After watching Bogieville, I won’t say that I hated it, but I was disappointed. It’s not at all what I was hoping for. That said, I did find some parts that I had fun with.

First of all, I knew going into the movie that it is set in the American South, but it was filmed in England (in Surrey according to CBS17). But even if I didn’t know that beforehand, its origin is made abundantly clear just by watching the movie. From an opening shot of a gas station (or rather, petrol station) from a company I don’t know to exist in the USA and with prices listed in pence, to the bizarre collection of pseudo-Southern accents, Bogieville was definitely not made where the story is set. That’s perfectly fine. Lots of movies shoot in places other than where they’re set. But lots of movies also do a much better job of making the world feel believable.

Honestly though, listening to the variety of “Southern” accents was one of the biggest joys I had while watching Bogieville. Some are occasionally okay, but others are barely hanging on. The best is when a character’s accent changes mid sentence, sometimes multiple times. I’m not trying to make fun. I know speaking with an accent other than your own isn’t easy, and trying to hold onto something like a thick Southern accent throughout lots of dialogue has to take a lot of concentration if you’re not familiar with it. I’m just saying that all the mixed accents were fun to listen to.

The inconsistencies do make me wonder why the filmmakers chose to set the movie in the American South though. I tried determining exactly where it’s supposed to be. The patch on the sheriff’s sleeve says “Garrison County,” but as far as I know, no such county exists in the United States. I also tried looking at license plates, but they’re inconsistent. One license plate says Georgia though, so I’m going with that (even though that particular plate is way too wide to be a real USA plate). But again, why the South? There’s nothing in the story that specifically ties it to the area so much that it couldn’t be slightly modified and transposed to England. I don’t think Bogieville is supposed to be a comedy, but the choice of location makes it comical.

There are good parts of Bogieville though. For instance, the vampires have a great look. They remind me of the vamps in 30 Days of Night (2007) with their mouths full of thin, sharp teeth and their predominantly black eyes when they get ready to strike. The poster-girl vampire, the pigtailed Lily, also looks pretty awesome with her white eyes. Sadly, there wasn’t as much vampire action as I was hoping for.

Bogieville is a low-budget indie movie, so I understand that there probably wasn’t enough money to put everything on screen that the filmmakers wanted. But it was a little frustrating how many times a scene would build up to some sort of action or vampire attack, and then the movie would cut away. There are many shots of vampires baring their fangs with blood dripping, but there are very few shots of actual vampire bites. Almost all the actual gore is either shown in the aftermath, or not at all.

With the vampire action limited, Bogieville felt very slow at times. There are more plot threads than are necessary for the story, and they’re all quite talky (too talky, which slows the movie down). We learn the backstory of the caretaker and why he wants Ham and Jody to take over for him, we follow Ham and Jody’s indecision about what they should do, we get the sheriff’s investigation as he is gradually convinced that there are vampires lurking nearby, and we even get an underdeveloped sub-plot about a feud between the trailer park vampires. Some of the story needed trimming, because the movie’s 108-minute run time definitely drags.
Bogieville Rating and Recommendation

Star Rating: 2 out of 5
Bogieville could have been so much better. More than anything, it needed more action. The story is okay, but it’s not interesting enough to be carried by vampires who, although creepy looking, have their actions neutered by frequent cutaways. Bogieville is only recommended for fans of slower-paced vampire movies, and for people who enjoy bizarre “Southern” accents.
Bogieville is currently streaming on TVOD platforms including Amazon Prime Video.