FEMPYRA

Produced and Edited by Dave Castiglione
Written and Directed by Dawn Murphy

Fempyra - Dawn Murphy
Tracer - Debbie D
Layolsid - Pamela Sutch
Dexter & Revil - David Lee

Dawn Murphy's FEMPYRA is a testament to her resourcefulness as a micro-budget filmmaker. The lady put a great deal of effort into the production. From building the sets to creating the make-up, she did it all. The gal's a one-woman bulldog of a production company.

The title character Fempyra is the Queen of a world ruled by female vampires. Recently exposed to the planet Earth, the vampires find human blood to be fatally toxic. To survive, the vampires must purify the human blood before they can drink of it. To complicate matters, there's a growing faction within the kingdom, led by the traitorous Layolsid, who believe that human blood is perfectly fit for mass consumption and that the queen just wants to keep the humans for her own private feeding stock.

The roots for the FEMPYRA stem from Dawn's time working for the fetish video company WAVE Productions, but the plot is grounded in pure sci-fi pulp from the golden days of the movie serial. The only things really missing are all the cliffhangers of chapters 2-14. Without the middle act, a great deal of character motivation and interaction is lost. There's plenty of political build up, but none of the pay off between the scenes.

The corner stone of the film lies within the characters and their relationships. While they are cartoon-ish in nature, Murphy is able to bestow upon each one a third dimension of depth. This is especially true in her title role as Fempyra, a woman who is stone enough to put to death her closest consorts, but would trade the power to spend time with her lover Revil.

In all fairness, it should be mentioned that FEMPYRA qualifies as a Work-In-Progress. Over the past few years, Dawn has sunk a great deal of time and energy into getting the project off the ground. She knows there's still more to be done and, that given the opportunity, FEMPYRA can grow into something truly fun on all levels.

Joining Dawn in FEMPYRA are Pamela Sutch, Debbie D, and David Lee (pulling the Peter Sellers-like stunt of playing multiple characters). You can even spot WAVE's Gary Whitson in a small cameo. Together they help gel a project that is just shy of finding a second act of cohesiveness.

Sharkey Video