Janram

aka Blind Moon aka จันทร์แรม

2004
Written by Varapon H. Phadungratna
Directed by Kirati Nak-Intanond

There’s a storm coming…a BLOOD STORM!!!

Janram is a Thai film from Niepce House, which is related to Natnalin Magazine, an art magazine from Thailan named after its founder, Natnalin Noimai, a photographer. The magazine has a heavy art bent, and the related features and enterprises on the website also trend towards the art direction. It did well enough that they started up a moving picture divsion to try to cash in on the Asian Horror craze that was sweeping the world in the early 2000s. From what I can tell, they produced only two films: Janram and Secret Room No.7, both released in 2004. Janram is heavily weighted to show visuals, visuals that have the appearance of the way fine art photographs would look in an arty black and white photoshoot. This is all well and good, but moving film is a different medium than still photography, so the correlation seems odd at times. It gives Janram a more high class feel, which strikes a stark contrast with what is actually happening in the story, with lesbian vampire schoolgirls.

Janram is based on a serialized story called Janram by Poomkamol Phadungratna that was incomplete at the time of filming. As Niepce House is a company set up by artists, the few films it made were more “artistic” than anything else. But they were also horror films, mostly so they could sell them overseas. This film is packed to the gizzards with weird stylized stuff – it has a washed out appearance most of the time, allowing for when there is blood for it to be bright bright bright red and contrast sharply with the rest of the film. Beyond that, there are random odd zooms and the camera is constantly moving like the cameraman was wearing rollerblades or something. As usual, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

The line for the midnight premiere of Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 started before Part 1 hit the theaters!

The best part of this film was the two trailers before the film. One was of a haunted bra film – yes, haunted bra film. You see, if you put on this haunted bra, a ghost would appear and your bra would glow all yellow and you would be possessed by a ghost. Apparently women trade bras often, so dozens of women wear the haunted bra, which hunts down the people who killed and raped it’s original owner. Oddly enough, the English name for this film is Haunted Bra.

There was also a Naked Weapon knockoff film complete with crappy version of the Sharon Stone Basic Instinct leg crossing scene. The budget was about $4, but it’s probably at least as good as the real Naked Weapon. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t have an English name, but goes by นางฟ้า ต้องประหาร. If it ever gets back in print I’ll snatch up a copy for thrill of it all. Thanks to ThaiWorldView for helping me figure out the title!

Vampires also double as photo-negative safe lights for darkrooms!

Janram (Jintana Aromyen) – Just your average lesbian vampire schoolgirl who slowly eats all her lovers to death, yet doesn’t seem to realize that she’s killing all of them and gets depressed when they keep dying. But that doesn’t stop her from hooking up again and again with a constant parade of young lasses. The upper class Janram lives with her creepy grandma who is always silently craddling a doll and her mother. Actress Jintana Aromyen is also in Gonggoi: The Beast and 2004’s Ghost Dormitory Ming (Maethinee Suwanjinda) – Janram’s lover who dies near the beginning of the film. Like you expect from a vampire flick, she returns very hungry and very upset that Janram has moved on to a new girl. It’s going to be a chick fight tonight! Sassy (???) – As I couldn’t figure out her name, I just called her Sassy because she’s very sassy to everyone. Sassy has always hated Ming for reasons unknown, and she has no qualms on moving in on Ming’s territory once she dies. But then Ming comes back, but Janram now likes Sassy more… I think this is actress Bussakum Apithanarak but I am not sure.

I must stay away from the audio adaptations of Warhammer novels…but Gotrek and Felix can’t be resisted!