Samjad's 'Half': Vampire Twins Wage Brutal Revenge — SkimNews
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- Half, directed by Samjad, premiered in TIFF's Midnight Madness strand earlier this year and is now screening at the Sitges Film Festival, with international sales handled by Best Friend Forever and Fragrant Nature Film Creations
- The film follows twin vampires Ethan and Ivy (Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj), introduced via a title card reading 'Born of mortal dust and vampire blood, the twins walk in darkness,' across a dystopian Indian future
- Midhun Mukundan scored the lean 96-minute film with what the reviewer calls an 'urgent techno-bhangra beat'
- The revenge sequences are choreographed by Very Tri Yulisman and likened by the reviewer to S.S. Rajamouli's RRR 'at 200mph,' after a graphic set-piece in which a family of four is murdered and stripped for parts
- Ivy is deaf and non-verbal, while sunlight remains the twins' only weakness, with the review noting their superhuman abilities are 'vulnerable' to both factors
- The reviewer's summary line: 'If you only see one gory Malayalam neo-noir spaghetti western vampire beat-'em up in your life, make it this one'
Why it matters: Samjad has now cleared two of the genre circuit's biggest stages — TIFF's Midnight Madness and Sitges — in a single festival season, with a 96-minute lean cut and Very Tri Yulisman's credited fight choreography; whether Best Friend Forever or Fragrant Nature Film Creations can convert that momentum into international distribution will determine if this cult find travels beyond festivals.
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