Vampire Story Nightmare Fuel List Part One
NIGHTMARE FUEL LIST
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareFuel
1: The Vampiress's cold blooded slaughter of an entire family. It starts with her tricking an innocent child into letting her in...by shape-shifting into another little girl and pulling a Wounded Gazelle Gambit on the child to trick her into opening the window and then promptly yanks her outside, covers her mouth to keep her from screaming and slowly changes into her true appearance before killing her and then coldly discarding the body on the bed.
She then kills the mother by mimicking her daughter's voice to lure her away while her husband is washing his hands and purposefully leaves the body in a sleeping position to lure the father over.
She gives him just enough time to realize his wife is dead before silencing him, mocking his dead daughter and killing him as well.
Then she deliberately gets the attention of one of the sons and gives him just enough time to ask if she's his father or mother before silently killing him, then she plays head games with his brother before dropping his corpse in front of him, giving him just enough time to realize this before mocking him over it and then killing him before casually rummaging through their belongings, finding sleeping bags and using them as impromptu body bags to carry their corpses out and drives away in the car with them. Leaving no trace that she was even there in the first place.
The whole time she is chillingly efficient about it.
Furthermore, the camping equipment being stolen brings to mind Ivan Milat, an Australian serial killer, who murdered at least seven people and buried them in a forest in New South Wales. When he was finally caught, authorities found a trove of stolen camping supplies, including sleeping bags, clothes, equipment, and tents – all taken from the people he’d brutally murdered.
She also took their driving licenses, echoing the Long Island Serial Killer Joel Rifkin, whom murdered 17 prostitutes over three years in the early-'90s. After being pulled over for driving without a license plate, Rifkin confessed to his murders and led police to his house. In his bedroom was a massive haul of trophies from his victim, including panties and bras, driver's licenses, jewelry, and a library card. Oh, and he had a partially decomposed body in the trunk, which he was on his way to bury.
2: The Vampiress was in Derrick's room, feeling on him while he was undergoing something akin to sleep paralysis, a condition in which the normal REM atonia that normally prevents the body from moving during REM sleep persists after one regains consciousness. Though generally this is experienced for only a few minutes at a time, the body is generally unable to accurately perceive the passage of time, and it can feel like hours. If it's not bad enough you're in a state of panic because you can't move, the subject can also experience terrifying hallucinations. Now, imagine the person in the room, this semi-aware hallucination turning out not to be an actual hypnogogic misfire, but an actual person... and, you're on lockdown.Unlike Twilight, this is shown to be as creepy as its supposed to be and Derrick, despite brushing it off as a nightmare, is shocked to find his door unlocked and even double checks the dorm door to see if it's locked and if anybody else came in.
IN THE FLASHBACK ARC!
3: On a lighter note, according to Derrick's mom Josephina in a flashback, she once shot a Super-Villain in the junk with a souped up incendiary round that burned off away his genitals and a chunk of his surrounding flesh with 5th degree burns! This is treated comedically but OUCH!
4: The Trucks. Leaving aside the fantastic nature of the story, the idea of some random lunatics going on joyrides with trucks and trying to run you off the road is terrifying! Even worse if you have children in the car with you! The family had done nothing to these guys and they attack out of nowhere! While the adults keep their cool, for the most part, the children are shown being as terrified as you could expect in such a scenario.
5: As awesome as it was, there's something a bit scary about Leonardo Blackburn coldly blowing away the trucks and their drivers, just blasting them open and then watching them burn before he walks over to finish off the rest. Sure, they're the ones who started the fight with the Blackburns, but damn.
6: Dipping into paranoia, the reason the trucks were attacking the family? A man in the back of the same restaurant the family stopped in texted his friends ahead of time that the family was on the road and to go grab them. On top of all of this, he also informs them that a currently unknown client wanted Derrick delivered unharmed to them but the rest of the family could die. Derrick is 14 in the flashbacks and it is heavily hinted that this is the same vampire who's stalking him now. Considering the truckers have gear to capture the family and trailers full of men with guns, it leaves one wondering just who the hell these guys are, who's employing them and just how many people they've attacked.
7: The nightmare fuel continues when, as badass as it was, Leonardo calmly maneuvering around the overturned trucks and gunning down the thugs with Terminator-Esque efficiency and he coldly blasts large sizzling holes right through the men before any of them have a chance to fight back. While all this is going on, Derrick is sobbing and desperately clinging to his mom as his fear of the bad men and his dad and the screams and the blasts overwhelms him and she can just whisper kind words and hug him. Even WORSE is when Leonardo drags what he thinks are the last two members of the truckers out and he throws them to the ground. He gets ready to interrogate them when freaking snipers show up! The last two members of the trucker thugs are killed immediately, Leo barely dodges being shot himself and the rest of the family are pinned down behind the overturned bulletproof car. It is the first time in the flashback stories that we see Josephina and Leonardo genuinely afraid.
8: Leonardo taking out the snipers, while badass, involves him sniping them in return and blowing the head clean off of one of them and taking the arm off of the other, who then falls from the tree, lands on his back and is left screaming in pain and terror, both from his lost arm and from his brother dying. He's a scumbag for sure but damn!
9: Fort's monologue. Despite the goofy redneck dialogue and heavy accent, it's no less terrifying as he recites, from memory, how much pieces of people, as in their various body parts, down to their blood, the farmers have been selling to people. He then segways into describing that someone taught the farmers how to cut people up and what the best parts of people are to eat and how and why. The Blackburns, for all their badassery, are left disturbed and disgusted by this. Leonardo does manage to make some jokes at their expense but it doesn't take away from the fact that these guys are an army of black market cannibalistic human traffickers. We also get out first hints towards the identity of the person who hired the cannibals to abduct Derrick, a mysterious enigmatic criminal known only as R.
Now, think of this. Fort said that they can charge a little over a million dollars for a full grown human. Since Derrick is a young teenager, it can be assumed that he'd cost less but the price of assassinating the rest of the family would more than make up the difference. Just who the hell is this person that they'd be willing to pay that much for some random kid?
10: The corrupt police. Police corruption and brutality is scary enough in real life and these guys completely embody it. They act perfectly nice and normal to lower the family's guard before they immediately turned on them like a lightswitch, slammed down Derrick and Tina and shoved guns to their heads, killed Fort and had a brief shootout with Leonardo in which, while he took a few of them out, he was left heavily wounded. Then when the family are forced to surrender, they take out electrified batons and begin rapidly bashing the family over the heads with them while Derrick and Tina are forced to watch. Keep in mind that Leo at least was already badly injured prior to this. It also makes you question just how morally bankrupt they are to work for a family of freaking cannibals.
11: A more minor note but Leo cauterizing his wounds, while bleeding all over the floor of a police wagon with his own blaster. Just OUCH!
12: The arrival at the farm. The family are dragged out of the wagon and held at gunpoint while the kids are held by the gang of corrupt police. One of the cops, the one whom had his nose busted by Josephina, takes the chance to lord their apparent victory over the family. When she calmly disses him he flies into a rage and begins striking her with an electrified metal baton while screaming misogynistic drivel at her. Included in this rant is sneering over the fact that the family will only leave the farm as ground beef. In other words, the police know full well who they're working for and are completely on board with it. Then when Derrick yells at him to leave his mother alone, Officer Broken Nose turns around and aims his shotgun at Derrick. Who, again, is 14. Oh and at the time was surrounded by his fellow conspirators and Broken Nose gave no indication that he cared about them being caught in the range of the shotgun. In other words, the man is basically every internet neckbeard if they were given a badge. HEY-O!
13: What happens next is both chilling and bizarre. A woman in a bunny mask and a white dress shows up out of nowhere and Broken Nose immediately starts panicking. It is then that the family notices they are completely surrounded by the farmhands wearing randomly assorted animal masks. What's seriously scary is that these guys apparently showed up out of freaking nowhere! Completely surrounding them and the corrupt police are promptly left terrified and shaking in their boots. Bunny girl doesn't raise her voice above a whisper and Broken Nose is left stammering. She grills him about making so much noise and essentially tells him to shut the hell up. After this she asks him about what happened to Fort and he lies and tells her that the Blackburns killed him and tore off his arm. Which is true. From a certain point of view. But Bunny doesn't play that. She checks his body, sniffing it like she was an animal, and then she calmly whispers to broken nose about him lying to her, as she noticed the burn wound from Leo's blast. Meaning it was shot off, not burned off. She then gives him a cut on his throat, disarms him with casual ease and throws him to the ground and snarls at him not to lie to her again. Two strikes. If he screws up again, she'll kill him. Keep in mind, his fellow conspirator officers were there watching and not one of them had the guts to stand up to her or the others.
14: Next, she stares at Derrick and walks over to sniff and rub her head against him. This is all creepy enough but then she tries to drag him off with her to do god knows what to the poor kid! He's only 'saved' because one of the other cannibals informs Bunni that they're already planning to sell him. Despite how tough she's already shown to be, Bunni actually backs down rather than fight him. Establishing a clear hierarchy of the cannibals.
15: After this, the cannibals decide to get rid of the police corpses. They plan to incinerate their uniforms and process their bodies. In other words, they're perfectly calm about chopping up and eating and selling the flesh of their own men so as not to waste them. After this is decided, the family is split up. The women of the family are taken to a guest house to await processing while Alessandro and Argos are lead away for just that. Leo meanwhile is taken away to be tortured to death before being killed as punishment for defending his family and killing the psychos. Finally, Derrick and Tina are lead away to be locked in cages to await being sold.
16: While we don't see anybody being tortured personally, we get an idea of the kind of horrific things that must've happened in the torture house. Not only are some of the cannibals casually cleaning up splattered blood on the ground from a previous victim like nothing happened but the cannibals are also singing while celebrating their recent kill! Then we get to see the inside of the torture room and not only are they still partying but the actual instruments used are right out of medieval horrors.
Before they even get to the torturing, one of the torture technicians is informed that Leo killed Forrest, which he calmly admits to. She flies into a rage and begins rapidly punching and striking him while Leo is handcuffed, held by the thugs and seemingly helpless. To his credit, Leo shrugs it off despite all of his other injuries.
Undettered by the horrors in the room, Leo then slips out of his handcuffs and kills everyone inside with his blaster guns. While certainly a moment of awesome, it reinforces the Terminator imagery of Leonardo Blackburn. What happens next is pure awesome though when, despite being tired and wounded, Leo proceeds to go one man army on the rest of the cannibals and slaughters his way out with stolen guns to conserve stamina. He goes full John Wick on everybody!
At least until Sackhead steps up to the plate.
17: Sackhead is the first official Boss Fight of the series and he doesn't disappoint. He's a big giant super strong bruiser, the kind you'd find in the usual slasher flick, but taking up to 11! (I'd say 12 but that's Uber Jason's territory. 😜 ). First of all, he's apparently bulletproof. Leo shoots him nine times, all of them hitting him squarely in the chest, but it does zilch to him! He then proceeds to smash Leo into a wall, pound him down and throw him about like a ragdoll. Despite everything we've seen from Leo, this very nearly takes him out. He falls to the ground spitting up blood and has to seriously psych himself in order to get back up. After this Leo resumes the fight. He shoots him multiple times in the head but nothing happens. After getting smacked again, Leo decides he's done with this shit and he blasts him away with his energy guns. This sends Sackhead flying and blows him open. The two sides of his body are left, well, just take a look.
Obviously thinking that the matter has been finished, Leo turns away and deals with other scrubs, then hears a squelching noise behind him and he turns around to see the freakshow actually regenerating! This particular form of regeneration, it should be noted, takes the form of a giant bulbuous fleshy mass growing out of his body, growing organs all over it and then sinking back into the body and repairing his body. Leo has had quite a long military career up to this point but he's still visibly disturbed this. It is made clear that there is only way to kill him: He'll have to overwhelm his regeneration and blow him to pieces. So he does. He powers up his guns, creating giant hand cannons and blasting Sackhead apart, splattering pieces of him everywhere. They then slowly burn away.
Despite how exhausted he is, Leonardo Blackburn still pulls him back up to his feet and gets ready to go save the rest of his family.
But if the rest of the cannibal clan are as tough as this, then the rest of the Blackburns are in for the fight of their lives.
18: Argos and Alessandro meanwhile are lead across the farm and are greeted to a horrific sight of the cannibals carrying dismembered body parts in plastic bags. Even worse is that, again, these guys are acting eerily casual about it like it's just business as usual for them. They are lead into a building that is surprisingly modern and fancy looking. When lead into a backroom they are greeted with the horrific sight of meat butchers cutting up pieces of human meat and flesh, lowering people into meat grinders, packaging their meat, hanging their pieces from meathooks like animal carcases and even packaging eyeballs. The two men are horrified by the sight of such horrific evil. Which makes it all the more cathartic when they proceed to whip ten kinds of ass all over the place! Alessandro goes full ninja on the cannibals, flipping around them, taking them out with precise martial arts moves, disarming the gunners and shooting the other guys up before switching to blades to save ammo and slicing and dicing the butchers. Meanwhile Argos snaps his cuffs, steals the guns of the men, swats them like flies and then he smacks down the rest, albeit, his method is more raw power based than the martial arts method of Alessandro. It doesn't take them long to wipe out the butchers.
19: A more subtle form of horror, we find out the butchers had been locking people inside of a giant walk in freezer, apparently to kill them later. Alessandro and Argos barely got them out in time and they discover that not only are there plenty of pieces of people inside along with other animals but even still cold corpses piled up on the far side of the freezer!
20: Thaddeus's monologue on the nature of cannibalisim. It's a big load of pseudo-philosophical rambling but from the way he says it all, it's made clear that he's thought long and hard about his lifestyle and sees nothing wrong with it, to the point that he flat out doesn't understand why society would shun such a practice. It is honestly quite chilling to hear him discuss it.
"Have you ever considered, dear Macey, that what people call sanity, is just a prison in your minds that stops you from seeing that you're just tiny little cogs in a giant absurd machine? Certainly, men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Take cannibalism for instance. Cannibalism is a way of life, a way to survive. But what I am truly wondering, is why it is frowned upon in today's society as an act only the sick or undesirables commit. Some North American natives believe that eating the fresh remains of a killed creature will give you the strength or abilities of that creature. Eating the eyes of an eagle will give you better eyesight and eating the meat of a buffalo will make you stronger, etc. At some point, certainly, these men would've had to wonder, if you ate another man's penis, would you (assuming you're a man) grow a larger penis? Maybe if I ate a woman's breasts, I would grow larger breasts? The problem with eating the flesh of other creatures is that the proteins are slightly different. The human body has to modify these proteins before they can be used. Buffalo beef is different from human meat, so it takes time and energy to modify it so it is compatible with the human body. Eating human meat however means there is NO time wasted making the meat compatible. Instead it goes straight into our blood system and makes us grow stronger and regenerate faster. Call it a Hannibal the Lector way of thinking, but the same goes for eating the brains of another human. Eating their brain tissue will result in that brain tissue being transplanted into your own brain. It might even be possible to gain knowledge and memories, provided that knowledge and memories isn't ruined by your stomach acids during the digestion process. You are what you eat, so they say. Pigs (pork, if you want to get down the name of the meat) are genetically very similar to humans. Pigs are surprisingly smart and have practically the same skin and hair tissue that humans have. Their bone structure is really the only major difference. Which makes me wonder: Is the reason Jewish people can't eat pork because pigs will eat their own shit (which cats & dogs do too, actually), or is it because pigs are genetically similar to humans? I don't know. What I do know is that scientifically, eating other humans apparently tastes like pork, makes you live longer, makes you stronger, and if you eat their brains, makes you smarter. That is how it's been for our family for generations has it not? Ever since it started with our great, great grandfather in that time of famine. And really, what is wrong with our actions? Certainly it is a better usage ofr the wastes of humanity than just throwing them in a grave somewhere. So many people are donating their organs or replacing them with machines these days. Imagine, for but a moment, if instead of wasting dead bodies, we simply made meat from them and shipped them off to the starving? Talk about solving world hunger, hmmm?"
Oh and he's discussing all this with his youngest daughter while playing monopoly with her. There's also the implication that he and his immediate family have a Cannibalisim Superpower that fuels their super strength and regeneration and that Thaddeus is more powerful than the rest of his family!
21: Thaddeus then gets a call from 'Miss R'. Who is in all likelyhood the vampire from the opening of the story and the one who expects them to deliver Derrick to her. What's especially chilling is that she scares the absolute hell out of Thaddeus. All she does is speak to him over the phone and he is chilled to his bones. He maintains his composure well enough but is visibly shaken. We also learn from his internal monologue that she came to visit him earlier, that she came alone and despite having a few superhumans of his own, an army of minions, corrupt cops on call and snipers....Thaddeus didn't think it was remotely possible for them to beat her in a fight. Despite everything he has, The Vampiress scared him that much. We still haven't seen much from her but this speaks volumes about her power.
22: Meat Processing is essentially just another torture room but we get to see this one in full display with the chefs and meat butchers chopping up actual human meat, putting into meat processors, sorting it, packaging it, putting eyeballs in egg containers, hanging up human meat on walls and even putting some of it in the walk in freezers for storage...along with human beings. It is one of the darkest moments of the story and the villains are just treating it like another day at work.
23: The fight with Viktor. Like the last fight, he is super strong, durable and nearly unkillable with his regeneration. Both Argos and Alessandro get beaten bloody in the fight with him and they have to dish out insane damage to his body repeatedly to drop him. As in, they have to destroy and mangle his head and upper half repeatedly to finally cause enough damage to overtax his regeneration and keep him down and it still takes a lot of ammo to do so.
24: We finally The Vampiress in person. She makes her entrance to the farm by causing a lightning storm, downpour and mist to cover the farm, then she causes a blackout in the mansion, shuts the blinds despite not being physically present and closes and locks doors around the mansion. We haven't physically met her yet but just her presence in the mansion is enough to clearly unnerve Thaddeus. After telling his family members and henchmen to stay where they are and not accompany him, he navigates through his mansion in the dark before eventually finding his way to the den where The Vampiress lights a fire in the fireplace. Then she pours herself a cup of wine. That is, she pours wine into a teacup and sips it while speaking with him. A bit goofy certainly but it means that she was navigating around the mansion and grabbing things without anyone noticing her. Thaddeus Brannon, the strongest of his super powered family, is clearly scared and on edge despite how polite she's being.
25: The Vampiress herself, given a name as Miss Morganstern, is suitably chilling. She is polite and well dressed and calm but there is something about her that is off when you are looking closer. Her skin is extremely pale, her eyes are blazing red and she has an aura about her that just makes you feel fear. Another aspect is that whenever Thaddeus wants to make a move during their conversation, he actually has to wait for her permission to do so. She even trolls Thaddeus's men by keeping them from opening the door before she finally lets them out while also letting the others inside. The worst part is that she knew ahead of time that Viktor was already dead and neglected to inform him about this just so that she could enjoy his screams when he discovered the body.
26: While The Blackburn women are undeniably badass in how they fight back and wipe out the thugs despite how heavily outnumbered they are, there are still a few moments that are rather chilling. 1: Michelle bites two of a thugs fingers off when he makes the mistake of getting a bit too close to her face with his hands, then she spits them out into another man's eyes and proceeds to wipe out everyone in the room and the two guys outside of it. Leading too. 2: Michelle cold bloodly executing one of them. As in she stomps on his chest and blows his head off point blank with a shotgun. 3: One of the thugs Michelle took down gets a rather dark death scene. While most of them got shot, this unlucky sob gets his throat punched in by Michelle, leading him to dying. 4: Michelle later shoves one of the bodies out to throw at the thugs to distract them. 5: Josephina piling up bodies of the thugs she took down and then hiding under another one to distract the others before shooting them down from surprise.
The message is clear: Do NOT Fuck With The Blackburns!
27: Derrick and Tina's fight, as awesome as it was, is still quite creepy in that it is two young kids, aged 14 each, against three fully grown adults who are armed with knives, an axe and a shovel while the kids have barely anything they can use as weapons. The kids manage to win but they're completely exhausted afterwords and Derrick is forced to kill a man in self defense. When Tina asks what happened to him later, Derrick can only stammer out that he's down and 'out'.
28: Even the villains are starting to have breakdowns over the Mook Horror Shows the Blackburns are leaving in their wake. The reactions to the deaths in the torture house and the meat processing house reinforce this, with one particular man falling to his knees in horror and despair when he realizes that ONE man, Leonardo Blackburn, wiped out so many of their comrades.
29: There is something utterly chilling about Miss Morganstern's utter lack of empathy over the death of Thaddeus's son and the way she casually dismisses it and demeans him at the same time, further driving home the point that she is not human. Then again, one could say that this is just Karma kicking Thaddeus in the ass.
30: It turns out that Gloria was wounded in the earlier gunfight in the Guest House. In order to save her life, Josephina and Michelle scramble for supplies and perform an impromptu surgery on her, clean her wounds, get the bullet out with tweezers and then sew up her wound and bandage her up. Let me say that again: Josephina had to perform a field surgery, in awful conditions, on her own sister using equipment they scrambled together. Without anesthetic. Meaning she was awake the entire time.
While the author is, obviously, not a doctor, here's an idea of what it's like to sew up a wound.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Stich-Yourself-Shut-Sugery-at-home/
Yeah, nasty stuff. In a bit of reality ensues, they acknowledge that this is basically a bandage while they wait for their reinforcements and an ambulance.
It's no wonder that Josephina breaks down crying afterwords.
31: Leo and Alessandro reuniting with their kids is undoubtedly heartwarming, but there is definitely something terrifying about realizing the situation they were in and that his son was forced to actually kill a man in self-defense. Derrick breaks down crying when his dad realizes this and Tina has to be lead away by Alessandro for a minute while Leo hugs his son and comforts him.
32: A horrific moment comes up when Thaddeus is having an emotional break down over his sons deaths. While this would be awful enough, we pan over to Miss Morganstern, who is laughing like a little kid over all of the horrific events she has brought about for both families.
33: The dinner scene where The Brannons ravenously devour whole piles of human body parts to power up their regenerative abilities prior to the battle with The Blackburns. There's not a lot of detail in it but what we get is disgustingly disturbing.
34: Thaddeus's rousing speech to his men detailing how they plant to torture and dismember The Blackburns while forcing Derrick to watch all of it happen in front of his eyes before handing him over to Miss Morganstern.
35: When The Brannons break into the house to finish the Blackburns off they are instead greeted by a pile of corpses of the farmhands laying in the middle of the floor. Even Thaddeus and his sons are briefly taken aback by this! This is followed up with Leonardo blasting off a chunk of his head and a few more thugs behind him. Because of his regenerative abilities, this doesn't immediately kill Thaddeus. Meaning he's left awake and aware in unspeakable agony with half of his head missing! Leo then blows off another chunk of his head before the rest of the family joins in with their bombs. The henchmen are mowed down and three of the Brannons are forced to run away. After this, Thaddeus regenerates the upper half of his head with his speech broken and garbled. Meaning again he was awake and aware the entire time his head was growing his brain back.
One can only imagine the pain he was in.
This also paints a darker picture of the earlier fights and the pain the other two Brannons must've had to fight through after getting blown open or decapitated respectively!
36: Leo gives us another fun instance of this when he blasts off Diablos' feet with a well placed shot and then he shoots his head off before doing it all over again with Dread. Two of the strongest of the Brannon Family. Neutralized by Leonardo. This speaks volumes about how powerful he is.
37: The battle as a whole is a long and bloody warzone. Limbs and heads are shot off, people take some bloody injuries and wounds, the Blackburns get some nasty injuries of their own, a man gets his upper half obliterated along with a chunk of the house, the list goes on. It's a warzone and both sides just keep on coming despite the injuries they keep taking. It all culminates in the Blackburns being triumphant, the Guest House being littered with corpses, and then the whole thing being consumed with flames.
38: Derrick VS Thaddeus. Derrick, a 14yo kid, is beaten and battered by a nearly unstoppable metahuman, gets his arm crushed in a vice grip and is backed into a corner. How does he get out of it? By whipping out the flamethrower lighter he got earlier and absolutely torching Thaddeus! While undeniably badass, it's tragic and scary to think that a kid was pushed to such extremes to survive against him.
39: Thaddeus's death against Ramona. Despite spending the entire fight proving to be a physical powerhouse, he is absolutely no match for her, gets ripped apart like he's made of tissue paper and then he is frozen, shattered and melted by the vampire. This is just a glimpse into how powerful she is and in just how much danger Derrick really is.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NightmareFuel
1: The Vampiress's cold blooded slaughter of an entire family. It starts with her tricking an innocent child into letting her in...by shape-shifting into another little girl and pulling a Wounded Gazelle Gambit on the child to trick her into opening the window and then promptly yanks her outside, covers her mouth to keep her from screaming and slowly changes into her true appearance before killing her and then coldly discarding the body on the bed.
She then kills the mother by mimicking her daughter's voice to lure her away while her husband is washing his hands and purposefully leaves the body in a sleeping position to lure the father over.
She gives him just enough time to realize his wife is dead before silencing him, mocking his dead daughter and killing him as well.
Then she deliberately gets the attention of one of the sons and gives him just enough time to ask if she's his father or mother before silently killing him, then she plays head games with his brother before dropping his corpse in front of him, giving him just enough time to realize this before mocking him over it and then killing him before casually rummaging through their belongings, finding sleeping bags and using them as impromptu body bags to carry their corpses out and drives away in the car with them. Leaving no trace that she was even there in the first place.
The whole time she is chillingly efficient about it.
Furthermore, the camping equipment being stolen brings to mind Ivan Milat, an Australian serial killer, who murdered at least seven people and buried them in a forest in New South Wales. When he was finally caught, authorities found a trove of stolen camping supplies, including sleeping bags, clothes, equipment, and tents – all taken from the people he’d brutally murdered.
She also took their driving licenses, echoing the Long Island Serial Killer Joel Rifkin, whom murdered 17 prostitutes over three years in the early-'90s. After being pulled over for driving without a license plate, Rifkin confessed to his murders and led police to his house. In his bedroom was a massive haul of trophies from his victim, including panties and bras, driver's licenses, jewelry, and a library card. Oh, and he had a partially decomposed body in the trunk, which he was on his way to bury.
2: The Vampiress was in Derrick's room, feeling on him while he was undergoing something akin to sleep paralysis, a condition in which the normal REM atonia that normally prevents the body from moving during REM sleep persists after one regains consciousness. Though generally this is experienced for only a few minutes at a time, the body is generally unable to accurately perceive the passage of time, and it can feel like hours. If it's not bad enough you're in a state of panic because you can't move, the subject can also experience terrifying hallucinations. Now, imagine the person in the room, this semi-aware hallucination turning out not to be an actual hypnogogic misfire, but an actual person... and, you're on lockdown.Unlike Twilight, this is shown to be as creepy as its supposed to be and Derrick, despite brushing it off as a nightmare, is shocked to find his door unlocked and even double checks the dorm door to see if it's locked and if anybody else came in.
IN THE FLASHBACK ARC!
3: On a lighter note, according to Derrick's mom Josephina in a flashback, she once shot a Super-Villain in the junk with a souped up incendiary round that burned off away his genitals and a chunk of his surrounding flesh with 5th degree burns! This is treated comedically but OUCH!
4: The Trucks. Leaving aside the fantastic nature of the story, the idea of some random lunatics going on joyrides with trucks and trying to run you off the road is terrifying! Even worse if you have children in the car with you! The family had done nothing to these guys and they attack out of nowhere! While the adults keep their cool, for the most part, the children are shown being as terrified as you could expect in such a scenario.
5: As awesome as it was, there's something a bit scary about Leonardo Blackburn coldly blowing away the trucks and their drivers, just blasting them open and then watching them burn before he walks over to finish off the rest. Sure, they're the ones who started the fight with the Blackburns, but damn.
6: Dipping into paranoia, the reason the trucks were attacking the family? A man in the back of the same restaurant the family stopped in texted his friends ahead of time that the family was on the road and to go grab them. On top of all of this, he also informs them that a currently unknown client wanted Derrick delivered unharmed to them but the rest of the family could die. Derrick is 14 in the flashbacks and it is heavily hinted that this is the same vampire who's stalking him now. Considering the truckers have gear to capture the family and trailers full of men with guns, it leaves one wondering just who the hell these guys are, who's employing them and just how many people they've attacked.
7: The nightmare fuel continues when, as badass as it was, Leonardo calmly maneuvering around the overturned trucks and gunning down the thugs with Terminator-Esque efficiency and he coldly blasts large sizzling holes right through the men before any of them have a chance to fight back. While all this is going on, Derrick is sobbing and desperately clinging to his mom as his fear of the bad men and his dad and the screams and the blasts overwhelms him and she can just whisper kind words and hug him. Even WORSE is when Leonardo drags what he thinks are the last two members of the truckers out and he throws them to the ground. He gets ready to interrogate them when freaking snipers show up! The last two members of the trucker thugs are killed immediately, Leo barely dodges being shot himself and the rest of the family are pinned down behind the overturned bulletproof car. It is the first time in the flashback stories that we see Josephina and Leonardo genuinely afraid.
8: Leonardo taking out the snipers, while badass, involves him sniping them in return and blowing the head clean off of one of them and taking the arm off of the other, who then falls from the tree, lands on his back and is left screaming in pain and terror, both from his lost arm and from his brother dying. He's a scumbag for sure but damn!
9: Fort's monologue. Despite the goofy redneck dialogue and heavy accent, it's no less terrifying as he recites, from memory, how much pieces of people, as in their various body parts, down to their blood, the farmers have been selling to people. He then segways into describing that someone taught the farmers how to cut people up and what the best parts of people are to eat and how and why. The Blackburns, for all their badassery, are left disturbed and disgusted by this. Leonardo does manage to make some jokes at their expense but it doesn't take away from the fact that these guys are an army of black market cannibalistic human traffickers. We also get out first hints towards the identity of the person who hired the cannibals to abduct Derrick, a mysterious enigmatic criminal known only as R.
Now, think of this. Fort said that they can charge a little over a million dollars for a full grown human. Since Derrick is a young teenager, it can be assumed that he'd cost less but the price of assassinating the rest of the family would more than make up the difference. Just who the hell is this person that they'd be willing to pay that much for some random kid?
10: The corrupt police. Police corruption and brutality is scary enough in real life and these guys completely embody it. They act perfectly nice and normal to lower the family's guard before they immediately turned on them like a lightswitch, slammed down Derrick and Tina and shoved guns to their heads, killed Fort and had a brief shootout with Leonardo in which, while he took a few of them out, he was left heavily wounded. Then when the family are forced to surrender, they take out electrified batons and begin rapidly bashing the family over the heads with them while Derrick and Tina are forced to watch. Keep in mind that Leo at least was already badly injured prior to this. It also makes you question just how morally bankrupt they are to work for a family of freaking cannibals.
11: A more minor note but Leo cauterizing his wounds, while bleeding all over the floor of a police wagon with his own blaster. Just OUCH!
12: The arrival at the farm. The family are dragged out of the wagon and held at gunpoint while the kids are held by the gang of corrupt police. One of the cops, the one whom had his nose busted by Josephina, takes the chance to lord their apparent victory over the family. When she calmly disses him he flies into a rage and begins striking her with an electrified metal baton while screaming misogynistic drivel at her. Included in this rant is sneering over the fact that the family will only leave the farm as ground beef. In other words, the police know full well who they're working for and are completely on board with it. Then when Derrick yells at him to leave his mother alone, Officer Broken Nose turns around and aims his shotgun at Derrick. Who, again, is 14. Oh and at the time was surrounded by his fellow conspirators and Broken Nose gave no indication that he cared about them being caught in the range of the shotgun. In other words, the man is basically every internet neckbeard if they were given a badge. HEY-O!
13: What happens next is both chilling and bizarre. A woman in a bunny mask and a white dress shows up out of nowhere and Broken Nose immediately starts panicking. It is then that the family notices they are completely surrounded by the farmhands wearing randomly assorted animal masks. What's seriously scary is that these guys apparently showed up out of freaking nowhere! Completely surrounding them and the corrupt police are promptly left terrified and shaking in their boots. Bunny girl doesn't raise her voice above a whisper and Broken Nose is left stammering. She grills him about making so much noise and essentially tells him to shut the hell up. After this she asks him about what happened to Fort and he lies and tells her that the Blackburns killed him and tore off his arm. Which is true. From a certain point of view. But Bunny doesn't play that. She checks his body, sniffing it like she was an animal, and then she calmly whispers to broken nose about him lying to her, as she noticed the burn wound from Leo's blast. Meaning it was shot off, not burned off. She then gives him a cut on his throat, disarms him with casual ease and throws him to the ground and snarls at him not to lie to her again. Two strikes. If he screws up again, she'll kill him. Keep in mind, his fellow conspirator officers were there watching and not one of them had the guts to stand up to her or the others.
14: Next, she stares at Derrick and walks over to sniff and rub her head against him. This is all creepy enough but then she tries to drag him off with her to do god knows what to the poor kid! He's only 'saved' because one of the other cannibals informs Bunni that they're already planning to sell him. Despite how tough she's already shown to be, Bunni actually backs down rather than fight him. Establishing a clear hierarchy of the cannibals.
15: After this, the cannibals decide to get rid of the police corpses. They plan to incinerate their uniforms and process their bodies. In other words, they're perfectly calm about chopping up and eating and selling the flesh of their own men so as not to waste them. After this is decided, the family is split up. The women of the family are taken to a guest house to await processing while Alessandro and Argos are lead away for just that. Leo meanwhile is taken away to be tortured to death before being killed as punishment for defending his family and killing the psychos. Finally, Derrick and Tina are lead away to be locked in cages to await being sold.
16: While we don't see anybody being tortured personally, we get an idea of the kind of horrific things that must've happened in the torture house. Not only are some of the cannibals casually cleaning up splattered blood on the ground from a previous victim like nothing happened but the cannibals are also singing while celebrating their recent kill! Then we get to see the inside of the torture room and not only are they still partying but the actual instruments used are right out of medieval horrors.
The psychopaths laughed and dragged him into the torture room.
Leo's eyes narrowed at the sight of the bloodstained room. He noticed
several torture devices including: A pair shaped instrument, consisting
of four leaves that slowly separated from each other as the torturer
turned the screw at the top, a rack, an iron chair, a judas cradle and
bloodstained shackles, nooses and meathooks attached to the walls.
Before they even get to the torturing, one of the torture technicians is informed that Leo killed Forrest, which he calmly admits to. She flies into a rage and begins rapidly punching and striking him while Leo is handcuffed, held by the thugs and seemingly helpless. To his credit, Leo shrugs it off despite all of his other injuries.
Undettered by the horrors in the room, Leo then slips out of his handcuffs and kills everyone inside with his blaster guns. While certainly a moment of awesome, it reinforces the Terminator imagery of Leonardo Blackburn. What happens next is pure awesome though when, despite being tired and wounded, Leo proceeds to go one man army on the rest of the cannibals and slaughters his way out with stolen guns to conserve stamina. He goes full John Wick on everybody!
At least until Sackhead steps up to the plate.
17: Sackhead is the first official Boss Fight of the series and he doesn't disappoint. He's a big giant super strong bruiser, the kind you'd find in the usual slasher flick, but taking up to 11! (I'd say 12 but that's Uber Jason's territory. 😜 ). First of all, he's apparently bulletproof. Leo shoots him nine times, all of them hitting him squarely in the chest, but it does zilch to him! He then proceeds to smash Leo into a wall, pound him down and throw him about like a ragdoll. Despite everything we've seen from Leo, this very nearly takes him out. He falls to the ground spitting up blood and has to seriously psych himself in order to get back up. After this Leo resumes the fight. He shoots him multiple times in the head but nothing happens. After getting smacked again, Leo decides he's done with this shit and he blasts him away with his energy guns. This sends Sackhead flying and blows him open. The two sides of his body are left, well, just take a look.
Obviously thinking that the matter has been finished, Leo turns away and deals with other scrubs, then hears a squelching noise behind him and he turns around to see the freakshow actually regenerating! This particular form of regeneration, it should be noted, takes the form of a giant bulbuous fleshy mass growing out of his body, growing organs all over it and then sinking back into the body and repairing his body. Leo has had quite a long military career up to this point but he's still visibly disturbed this. It is made clear that there is only way to kill him: He'll have to overwhelm his regeneration and blow him to pieces. So he does. He powers up his guns, creating giant hand cannons and blasting Sackhead apart, splattering pieces of him everywhere. They then slowly burn away.
Despite how exhausted he is, Leonardo Blackburn still pulls him back up to his feet and gets ready to go save the rest of his family.
But if the rest of the cannibal clan are as tough as this, then the rest of the Blackburns are in for the fight of their lives.
18: Argos and Alessandro meanwhile are lead across the farm and are greeted to a horrific sight of the cannibals carrying dismembered body parts in plastic bags. Even worse is that, again, these guys are acting eerily casual about it like it's just business as usual for them. They are lead into a building that is surprisingly modern and fancy looking. When lead into a backroom they are greeted with the horrific sight of meat butchers cutting up pieces of human meat and flesh, lowering people into meat grinders, packaging their meat, hanging their pieces from meathooks like animal carcases and even packaging eyeballs. The two men are horrified by the sight of such horrific evil. Which makes it all the more cathartic when they proceed to whip ten kinds of ass all over the place! Alessandro goes full ninja on the cannibals, flipping around them, taking them out with precise martial arts moves, disarming the gunners and shooting the other guys up before switching to blades to save ammo and slicing and dicing the butchers. Meanwhile Argos snaps his cuffs, steals the guns of the men, swats them like flies and then he smacks down the rest, albeit, his method is more raw power based than the martial arts method of Alessandro. It doesn't take them long to wipe out the butchers.
19: A more subtle form of horror, we find out the butchers had been locking people inside of a giant walk in freezer, apparently to kill them later. Alessandro and Argos barely got them out in time and they discover that not only are there plenty of pieces of people inside along with other animals but even still cold corpses piled up on the far side of the freezer!
20: Thaddeus's monologue on the nature of cannibalisim. It's a big load of pseudo-philosophical rambling but from the way he says it all, it's made clear that he's thought long and hard about his lifestyle and sees nothing wrong with it, to the point that he flat out doesn't understand why society would shun such a practice. It is honestly quite chilling to hear him discuss it.
"Have you ever considered, dear Macey, that what people call sanity, is just a prison in your minds that stops you from seeing that you're just tiny little cogs in a giant absurd machine? Certainly, men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Take cannibalism for instance. Cannibalism is a way of life, a way to survive. But what I am truly wondering, is why it is frowned upon in today's society as an act only the sick or undesirables commit. Some North American natives believe that eating the fresh remains of a killed creature will give you the strength or abilities of that creature. Eating the eyes of an eagle will give you better eyesight and eating the meat of a buffalo will make you stronger, etc. At some point, certainly, these men would've had to wonder, if you ate another man's penis, would you (assuming you're a man) grow a larger penis? Maybe if I ate a woman's breasts, I would grow larger breasts? The problem with eating the flesh of other creatures is that the proteins are slightly different. The human body has to modify these proteins before they can be used. Buffalo beef is different from human meat, so it takes time and energy to modify it so it is compatible with the human body. Eating human meat however means there is NO time wasted making the meat compatible. Instead it goes straight into our blood system and makes us grow stronger and regenerate faster. Call it a Hannibal the Lector way of thinking, but the same goes for eating the brains of another human. Eating their brain tissue will result in that brain tissue being transplanted into your own brain. It might even be possible to gain knowledge and memories, provided that knowledge and memories isn't ruined by your stomach acids during the digestion process. You are what you eat, so they say. Pigs (pork, if you want to get down the name of the meat) are genetically very similar to humans. Pigs are surprisingly smart and have practically the same skin and hair tissue that humans have. Their bone structure is really the only major difference. Which makes me wonder: Is the reason Jewish people can't eat pork because pigs will eat their own shit (which cats & dogs do too, actually), or is it because pigs are genetically similar to humans? I don't know. What I do know is that scientifically, eating other humans apparently tastes like pork, makes you live longer, makes you stronger, and if you eat their brains, makes you smarter. That is how it's been for our family for generations has it not? Ever since it started with our great, great grandfather in that time of famine. And really, what is wrong with our actions? Certainly it is a better usage ofr the wastes of humanity than just throwing them in a grave somewhere. So many people are donating their organs or replacing them with machines these days. Imagine, for but a moment, if instead of wasting dead bodies, we simply made meat from them and shipped them off to the starving? Talk about solving world hunger, hmmm?"
Oh and he's discussing all this with his youngest daughter while playing monopoly with her. There's also the implication that he and his immediate family have a Cannibalisim Superpower that fuels their super strength and regeneration and that Thaddeus is more powerful than the rest of his family!
21: Thaddeus then gets a call from 'Miss R'. Who is in all likelyhood the vampire from the opening of the story and the one who expects them to deliver Derrick to her. What's especially chilling is that she scares the absolute hell out of Thaddeus. All she does is speak to him over the phone and he is chilled to his bones. He maintains his composure well enough but is visibly shaken. We also learn from his internal monologue that she came to visit him earlier, that she came alone and despite having a few superhumans of his own, an army of minions, corrupt cops on call and snipers....Thaddeus didn't think it was remotely possible for them to beat her in a fight. Despite everything he has, The Vampiress scared him that much. We still haven't seen much from her but this speaks volumes about her power.
22: Meat Processing is essentially just another torture room but we get to see this one in full display with the chefs and meat butchers chopping up actual human meat, putting into meat processors, sorting it, packaging it, putting eyeballs in egg containers, hanging up human meat on walls and even putting some of it in the walk in freezers for storage...along with human beings. It is one of the darkest moments of the story and the villains are just treating it like another day at work.
23: The fight with Viktor. Like the last fight, he is super strong, durable and nearly unkillable with his regeneration. Both Argos and Alessandro get beaten bloody in the fight with him and they have to dish out insane damage to his body repeatedly to drop him. As in, they have to destroy and mangle his head and upper half repeatedly to finally cause enough damage to overtax his regeneration and keep him down and it still takes a lot of ammo to do so.
24: We finally The Vampiress in person. She makes her entrance to the farm by causing a lightning storm, downpour and mist to cover the farm, then she causes a blackout in the mansion, shuts the blinds despite not being physically present and closes and locks doors around the mansion. We haven't physically met her yet but just her presence in the mansion is enough to clearly unnerve Thaddeus. After telling his family members and henchmen to stay where they are and not accompany him, he navigates through his mansion in the dark before eventually finding his way to the den where The Vampiress lights a fire in the fireplace. Then she pours herself a cup of wine. That is, she pours wine into a teacup and sips it while speaking with him. A bit goofy certainly but it means that she was navigating around the mansion and grabbing things without anyone noticing her. Thaddeus Brannon, the strongest of his super powered family, is clearly scared and on edge despite how polite she's being.
25: The Vampiress herself, given a name as Miss Morganstern, is suitably chilling. She is polite and well dressed and calm but there is something about her that is off when you are looking closer. Her skin is extremely pale, her eyes are blazing red and she has an aura about her that just makes you feel fear. Another aspect is that whenever Thaddeus wants to make a move during their conversation, he actually has to wait for her permission to do so. She even trolls Thaddeus's men by keeping them from opening the door before she finally lets them out while also letting the others inside. The worst part is that she knew ahead of time that Viktor was already dead and neglected to inform him about this just so that she could enjoy his screams when he discovered the body.
26: While The Blackburn women are undeniably badass in how they fight back and wipe out the thugs despite how heavily outnumbered they are, there are still a few moments that are rather chilling. 1: Michelle bites two of a thugs fingers off when he makes the mistake of getting a bit too close to her face with his hands, then she spits them out into another man's eyes and proceeds to wipe out everyone in the room and the two guys outside of it. Leading too. 2: Michelle cold bloodly executing one of them. As in she stomps on his chest and blows his head off point blank with a shotgun. 3: One of the thugs Michelle took down gets a rather dark death scene. While most of them got shot, this unlucky sob gets his throat punched in by Michelle, leading him to dying. 4: Michelle later shoves one of the bodies out to throw at the thugs to distract them. 5: Josephina piling up bodies of the thugs she took down and then hiding under another one to distract the others before shooting them down from surprise.
The message is clear: Do NOT Fuck With The Blackburns!
27: Derrick and Tina's fight, as awesome as it was, is still quite creepy in that it is two young kids, aged 14 each, against three fully grown adults who are armed with knives, an axe and a shovel while the kids have barely anything they can use as weapons. The kids manage to win but they're completely exhausted afterwords and Derrick is forced to kill a man in self defense. When Tina asks what happened to him later, Derrick can only stammer out that he's down and 'out'.
28: Even the villains are starting to have breakdowns over the Mook Horror Shows the Blackburns are leaving in their wake. The reactions to the deaths in the torture house and the meat processing house reinforce this, with one particular man falling to his knees in horror and despair when he realizes that ONE man, Leonardo Blackburn, wiped out so many of their comrades.
29: There is something utterly chilling about Miss Morganstern's utter lack of empathy over the death of Thaddeus's son and the way she casually dismisses it and demeans him at the same time, further driving home the point that she is not human. Then again, one could say that this is just Karma kicking Thaddeus in the ass.
30: It turns out that Gloria was wounded in the earlier gunfight in the Guest House. In order to save her life, Josephina and Michelle scramble for supplies and perform an impromptu surgery on her, clean her wounds, get the bullet out with tweezers and then sew up her wound and bandage her up. Let me say that again: Josephina had to perform a field surgery, in awful conditions, on her own sister using equipment they scrambled together. Without anesthetic. Meaning she was awake the entire time.
While the author is, obviously, not a doctor, here's an idea of what it's like to sew up a wound.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Stich-Yourself-Shut-Sugery-at-home/
Yeah, nasty stuff. In a bit of reality ensues, they acknowledge that this is basically a bandage while they wait for their reinforcements and an ambulance.
It's no wonder that Josephina breaks down crying afterwords.
31: Leo and Alessandro reuniting with their kids is undoubtedly heartwarming, but there is definitely something terrifying about realizing the situation they were in and that his son was forced to actually kill a man in self-defense. Derrick breaks down crying when his dad realizes this and Tina has to be lead away by Alessandro for a minute while Leo hugs his son and comforts him.
32: A horrific moment comes up when Thaddeus is having an emotional break down over his sons deaths. While this would be awful enough, we pan over to Miss Morganstern, who is laughing like a little kid over all of the horrific events she has brought about for both families.
33: The dinner scene where The Brannons ravenously devour whole piles of human body parts to power up their regenerative abilities prior to the battle with The Blackburns. There's not a lot of detail in it but what we get is disgustingly disturbing.
34: Thaddeus's rousing speech to his men detailing how they plant to torture and dismember The Blackburns while forcing Derrick to watch all of it happen in front of his eyes before handing him over to Miss Morganstern.
35: When The Brannons break into the house to finish the Blackburns off they are instead greeted by a pile of corpses of the farmhands laying in the middle of the floor. Even Thaddeus and his sons are briefly taken aback by this! This is followed up with Leonardo blasting off a chunk of his head and a few more thugs behind him. Because of his regenerative abilities, this doesn't immediately kill Thaddeus. Meaning he's left awake and aware in unspeakable agony with half of his head missing! Leo then blows off another chunk of his head before the rest of the family joins in with their bombs. The henchmen are mowed down and three of the Brannons are forced to run away. After this, Thaddeus regenerates the upper half of his head with his speech broken and garbled. Meaning again he was awake and aware the entire time his head was growing his brain back.
One can only imagine the pain he was in.
This also paints a darker picture of the earlier fights and the pain the other two Brannons must've had to fight through after getting blown open or decapitated respectively!
36: Leo gives us another fun instance of this when he blasts off Diablos' feet with a well placed shot and then he shoots his head off before doing it all over again with Dread. Two of the strongest of the Brannon Family. Neutralized by Leonardo. This speaks volumes about how powerful he is.
37: The battle as a whole is a long and bloody warzone. Limbs and heads are shot off, people take some bloody injuries and wounds, the Blackburns get some nasty injuries of their own, a man gets his upper half obliterated along with a chunk of the house, the list goes on. It's a warzone and both sides just keep on coming despite the injuries they keep taking. It all culminates in the Blackburns being triumphant, the Guest House being littered with corpses, and then the whole thing being consumed with flames.
38: Derrick VS Thaddeus. Derrick, a 14yo kid, is beaten and battered by a nearly unstoppable metahuman, gets his arm crushed in a vice grip and is backed into a corner. How does he get out of it? By whipping out the flamethrower lighter he got earlier and absolutely torching Thaddeus! While undeniably badass, it's tragic and scary to think that a kid was pushed to such extremes to survive against him.
39: Thaddeus's death against Ramona. Despite spending the entire fight proving to be a physical powerhouse, he is absolutely no match for her, gets ripped apart like he's made of tissue paper and then he is frozen, shattered and melted by the vampire. This is just a glimpse into how powerful she is and in just how much danger Derrick really is.
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