10 Best Vampire Movies Of The 2020s So Far

Scream Queen and all-round horror icon Barbara Crampton has been steadily working away in the genre since the mid-'80s and, despite the modest scale of its production, she brings her all to Jakob's Wife, the small-town-USA vampire flick we didn't know we needed.

Travis Stevens' movie slides us into Anne’s (Crampton) life, in which her marriage to small-town pastor Jakob (Larry Fessenden) has taken its toll. Gone are her days of living wild, replaced by the kind of suburban malaise we might expect to find in a Michael Cunningham novel. Thus, a close encounter with vampire wraith The Master (The Nun’s Bonnie Aarons) injects a new joie de vivre into her existence, going deep on Anne's struggle between her newfound, late-in-life transformation, and the expectations of those around her.

Far from being a stiff-lipped melodrama, Jakob's Wife is a romp and a half, as we witness the warts-and-all arrival of Anne's sexual and social liberation. Consistently surprising and amusing, the film never settles for the easy narrative choice - indeed, would any of us have guessed Anne's pastor husband would help her abduct a fresh corpse and string it up like a blood bag in their kitchen? Or that he would catch her masturbating at their window?

Granted, its limited budget makes itself apparent at times, but when the acting, dialogue and story are this refreshing, we can forgive these minor indiscretions.