Film / Subspecies

Subspecies is a series of four horror movies and a fifth upcoming entry, directed by Ted Nicolau, produced by Full Moon Features and starring Anders Hove as vampire Radu Vladislas.

The series consists of

• Subspecies (1991)
• Bloodstone: Subspecies II (1993)
• Bloodlust: Subspecies III (1994)
• Bloodstorm: Subspecies IV (1998)
• Blood Rise: Subspecies V (2023)

It had a spinoff, made in 1997, called Vampire Journals.

The story involves young Michelle, who came to Romania with her friend Lilian to study its folklore and ends up involved in a war between ancient vampires for the possession of the Blood Stone, a stone which drips the blood of saints. Not related to the 1995 film Species or its sequels.

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Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Radu loves Michelle and longs to make her his. He is also a vicious monster who murdered her friends, stalks her, tries to corrupt her and killed the man she loved. To say she finds his attentions untoward is a bit of an understatement.
• Abusive Parents: Mummy is a horrid mother to Radu. She verbally berates him, exiled him from her home and has clearly spent his entire life convincing him he's a monster. A lot of his worse behavior can be laid squarely at her feet.

• Adaptational Heroism: While he's still by no means a good guy, Radu was even more of a Card-Carrying Villain in the original script for the first movie than he turned out to be in the finished product.
• Alas, Poor Villain: As of Bloodlust, Radu starts to show his more lonely, pitiful side, particularly after killing his own mother. Even his gruesome but temporary death is rather somber this time around.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Nobody likes Radu. His fellow vampires — including his father — see him as a crazed, murderous abomination; the people of Transylvania are terrified of him; his mother teeters between being abusive and overprotective; and most of his underlings that aren't fully under his thrall want him dead.
• Ambiguously Human: A variant. At birth, Radu looked very much not like a human baby, with unnaturally long nails and an Undeathly Pallor, but the knights who stole him away clipped his nails and brushed him with some sort of elixirs to make him look human and walk in daylight safely. By the time he reached adulthood, he looks mostly normal, and only starts displaying vampiric traits after an exchange of blood between him and Helena.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The vampire Ash, one of Radu's previous fledglings, portrays himself as a sophisticated aristocrat who enjoys the finer things in (un)life.
• The Artifact: The titular Subspecies do next to nothing in the series. They're really only there because Full Moon productions always have at least one stop-motion element (usually so they can sell models and action figures of them).
• Artifact Title: The 'Subspecies' title in Bloodstorm and Blood Rise, the only movies not to have the little creatures, and they're barely in the third movie as well, only showing up at the very end to show how Radu will once again cheat death. Although the title may be referring to Radu, who is, himself, a half-breed.
• Asshole Victim:
  • After spending two movies swinging between being physically abusive to her son and smothering him, it's not sad to see Radu's mother be destroyed.
  • Dr. Nicelescu gets his head chopped off shortly after handing over Michelle and Anna to Radu. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
• Ax-Crazy: Radu is insane and violent, mainly from drinking from the Bloodstone.
• Back For The Undead: Lt. Marin comes back as a vampire in Bloodstorm after apparently having been killed in Bloodlust

• Barbarian Longhair: Radu has long hair that fits his malevolent personality.
• Berserk Button: The one surefire way to upset Radu is bring up Stefan.
• Big Brother Bully: Radu is very much this to Stefan in the first movie.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Michelle will sure live forever, but she's a vampire so she will have to quell her killer instincts, her sister and friends are dead, she is vulnerable to sunlight and she's all alone in a foreign country with nary a way of going back to the US. At least she has the bloodstone to feed upon instead of mortals and Radu is confirmed to be dead.
  • Vampire Journals, although it's played as being more of a Downer Ending. Zachery successfully got his revenge against Ash, but was unable to save Sofia from becoming a vampire, and thus, the two are condemned to a lonely undead existence.
• Bloody Hilarious: Radu seems to think his killing of Stefan is this in Bloodstone. Bob The CIA Guy and Radu himself's deaths in Bloodlust fit the bill better.
• Breaking and Bloodsucking:
  • Subspecies has Radu break into the girls' room to feed on Lilian's cut arm; he sucks on that for a while before going for her throat, but flees when Stefan and Karl arrive. Later he somehow Offscreen Teleports from kidnapping Mara at a festival to finishing off the weakened and bed-ridden Lilian in the room.
  • The second and third movies have Radu make several attempts on killing Becky in her sleep. The first attempt fails because Radu wastes too much time creeping around with the sheets and her nightgown until the phone rings...and he just leaves rather than attempting to overpower her. For the second attempt he spies in on her room, enters via Stock Footage...and then runs away because Mel is also in the room, asleep in a chair. Radu is nothing if committed to playing this trope completely by the book.
• Bus Crash: This film series had a really cavalier attitude when it comes to getting rid of characters from previous films.
  • Stefan was the main character in the first film, who was Radu's nemesis, Michelle's love interest, and was also the one who turned Michelle into a vampire. In the opening of the second film however, he was quickly and unceremoniously killed off by Radu. There was barely any reference to Stefan in the rest of the films.
  • Michelle's sister Becky and US Embassy Mel Thompson were major supporting characters in Bloodstone and Bloodlust, who helped to fight Radu and rescue Michelle. In the opening of Bloodstorm, Becky and Mel were literally killed off in an accidental car crash while transporting the body of a sleeping Michelle, kicking off the events of the film. Their faces were not even shown (obviously, as their actors in the previous films did not reprise their roles). Other than a short moment of Michelle sobbing over their deaths, nothing was ever mentioned about them again.
  • Lt. Marin appears in Bloodstorm merely for continuity reasons; he had no major impact to the plot in that movie, and was killed off shortly after.
• Cain and Abel: Radu is the Cain, the evil elder brother to the younger and half-human Stefan. Radu indicates that even before the two engaged in a duel to the death, he had spent many centuries delighting in tormenting Stefan when he could.
• Call-Forward: Blood Rise does this at the conclusion where Radu reflects how Helena tormented him even after he had killed her, as they cut to a scene of Michelle (strongly suggested to be the reincarnation of Helena) drinking from the Bloodstone.
• Card-Carrying Villain: In the first two movies, Radu is unabashedly evil and doesn't even try to hide it in his vernacular. Some of his euphemisms for feeding (namely "desecrate") have a disturbing rapist subtext. Downplayed in the third and fourth, where he admits to being irredeemable, but it comes off more as I Am a Monster.
• Characterization Marches On: Radu was portrayed as pure evil in the first movie and for most of the second. Later he becomes a bit of a lovesick puppy who talk how much he loved his brother Stefan when he did an angry dance on Stefan's bones after murdering him, screaming "bastard" the whole time.
• The Chew Toy: Radu gets a little less intimidating when you remember he has been impaled, beheaded, staked, beaten up, escaped, set on fire, burnt in the sun, decapitated again... all within the space of like a week.
• Contrived Coincidence: In Bloodstone, the theater Michelle hides in has a glass coffin backstage. Why? Is this theater a hostel for vampires?
• Creative Sterility: In their living lives, Ash and his sister Ariel were good enough musicians to earn a royal booking, but after they were turned by Radu they not only cannot create music anymore, but any note they attempt to play is a discordant mess that causes pain
• Creepy Long Fingers: Radu's fingers are absurdly long, and creepy as hell.
• Damsel in Distress: Both Michelle and Becky rotate between this and Damsel out of Distress.
• Darker and Edgier: Blood Rise is notably lacking in much of the B-movie campiness from the first four entries, and Radu is played seriously both before and after he's turned. And whereas King Vladislas was implied to initially be a ruthless tyrant worse than even Radu, he eventually settled down after being given the Bloodstone. This was retconned, and if anything, the Bloodstone made him worse.
• Deadly Doctor: Dr. Nicelescu is actually a vampire, obsessed with obtaining the Bloodstone for himself, and is fully willing to kill both Ana and Michelle, along with Radu.
• Deader than Dead: Given Radu's tendency to survive things that kill other vampires if not outright returning from the dead the protagonists do this to him in Bloodstorm to make sure he stays dead. They cut off his head with an axe, burn his body, then stick his head on a fence to melt in the sun for good measure.
• Death by Cameo: Angus Scrimm of Phantasm is billed first in the first Subspecies movie, however he is killed in literally the first scene of the movie.
• Dhampyr: Both Stefan and Radu; Stefan is half-human, while Radu is the result of his father being magically seduced by a hag (of the D&D nonhuman variety).
• The Ditz: Lt. Marin is hopelessly stupid. He comes up with the most absurd leaps and bounds in Michelle's case. When he sees the Bloodstone and later Lilian's open grave, he puts two and two together... and deduces that Michelle was making money off of artifacts stolen from graves.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: As mentioned above, Radu's feeding on Michelle has a bunch of rape overtones: he straddles her to do the act, she feels violated and takes a Shower of Angst the next evening, and calls her sister with a tone that's often used to portray traumatized rape victims in other media.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: King Vladislas threatens Radu this way. It's mostly an empty threat, however, in that he ends up being the one destroyed.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Mel, Becky, and the girl they rescued from Radu all unceremoniously die in a car accident offscreen at the beginning of the fourth movie, due to the original actors' refusal to reprise their roles.
  • Also the case in Bloodstone for Stefan who, despite being the main character of the first movie, is swiftly killed by Radu in the opening scene.

• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: As of the second movie, the color in Michelle's face is practically gone. Probably has something to do with her being a vampire now.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Radu. Subverted in Bloodlust when he kills her to prove his love for Michelle.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Every vampire, even the most assholish ones, hates and fears Radu, seeing him as pure evil and wanting him dead.
  • Zig-zagged with Iris. She claims to be angry with Ash for killing Anton in her club because it would bring the police and get her in trouble, but she also seems genuinely disturbed by just how cruel he is.
• Eviler than Thou: Radu is regarded as an insane monster even by other evil vampires. Whereas Ash and his vampires maintain a semblance of humanity more like the sophisticated Bela Lugosi type vampires, Radu is a horror right out of the Dark Ages.
• Evil Redhead: Ash from Vampire Journals and Bloodstorm.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Radu's evil is pronounced in the hissing rasp that he speaks with. He never, ever raises it.
• Exact Words: Ash promises Zachery that he'll allow him to see Sofia if he complies with him for a period of time. What he never said is that he would trick her into walking in on him feeding on a willing victim before sealing him away.
• Expy: Professor Popescu is a pretty obvious one of Van Helsing.
• Face–Heel Turn: Radu was once was once a honorable noble solider who fought against evil. However after being used and embracing his vampire nature, he became a monster.
• Fallen Hero: Radu started off as a warrior of the Catholic Church sent to retrieve the Bloodstone from his father, whereupon he became a full-blown monster.
• Face-Revealing Turn: In the first movie, Michelle is kidnapped and put in the same cell as Mara who was kidnapped earlier. Michelle manages to free herself and Mara, but as they're trying to find a way out of the castle Mara acts erratically apparently traumatized. When Michelle tries to calm her down, Mara faces away from her, only to suddenly sprout fangs when she turns to Michelle again and growling inhumanly to Michelle's horror.
• Fertile Blood: The titular imps are tiny demon looking homunculi spawned from the blood of the vampire Radu.
• First Installment Weirdness: The first film goes by Dracula rules and depicts Radu's bite as The Virus, with Radu seemingly able to wipe out the original personalities of those he turns, with them becoming willing and eagerly evil servants, as seen with Lillian and Mara. Michelle only avoids this fate by having Stefan turn her instead after she's bitten by Radu. The later films go more by Anne Rice rules instead, with vampires retaining their original personalities and free will and even often plotting against their sires (though some do still succumb to Transhuman Treachery simply due to no longer being bound by human laws or morality).
• Foil: Stefan, to Radu. Both of them share the same father, but whereas Radu was born from a sorceress, Stefan was born of a human woman. They both feel some sort of affection for Michelle, though Stefan's was purely altruistic and he appeared to love her as a human; Radu had a childish understanding of love and only felt any real love for her once she was turned. Radu embraces his vampiric nature; Stefan tries to be as human as he can.
• Hate Sink: Ash is seldom ever shown to be anything other than a cowardly, cruel, and thoroughly unlikable character whose cruelty even disturbs the (supposedly) cold and heartless Iris. He is shown to love his sister, Ariel, but clearly not enough, given that he leaves her to die at the end of Blood Rise.
• Hidden Depths: While he has an openly contemptuous view of humans, Radu expresses some fondness for their arts and sciences. For instance, he shows particular annoyance with a bad violinist and has Michelle use her teleportation ability to lure him into his grasp.
• Hybrid Monster: Radu is some kind of half-vampire, half-hag thing.
• Hypocritical Humor: Probably unintentional. Radu taunts Stefan for pretending to be human when he sees him strolling up to the castle in the middle of the day... while he, himself, is outside.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: All of the vampires try to kill the ones who made them. Radu killed his father. Michelle tries to kill him. Ash wishes to kill Radu. Zachery killed his sire and wants to kill Ash for making her.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Radu's apparent motivation for many of his vile actions is to gain Michelle's love.
• Immediate Sequel: Bloodstone and Bloodlust, which were shot back-to-back. Subverted with Bloodstorm which was released in 1998, four years after Bloodlust.
• Immortal Immaturity: Radu is like a bratty bully who never grew up. He acts impulsively and tends to regret it after. He's prone to fits of rage when things don't go his way and he seems to view his conflict with Stefan as a big game where tormenting him is just a fun past time.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: As the series goes on, Radu becomes more and more pathetic in his efforts to win over Michelle's heart and to the point where he's almost pitiful.
• It's All About Me: Radu has a few shades of this. He believes himself to be the rightful owner of the Bloodstone, murdering both his father and his half-brother for it, and thinks he's entitled to some sort of reciprocation from Michelle for killing his entire bloodline.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In Vampire Journals, Ash forces Anton to feed on his friend, then beheads him for what he perceives as cowardice.
  • Ash tends to do this a lot. Like his promise to let Zachery see Sofia one more time? Ash makes sure to drag her over when Zachery is feeding on one of Ash's consorts, while Ash smugly notes "I have honored my obligation!"
• Kill It with Fire:
  • Radu is burn to a crisp at the end of Bloodlust when he come in contact with the sunlight.
  • In Bloodstorm, after Radu is beheaded by Anna, she makes sure to set his body on fire so he can't somehow regenerate. This also applies to her leaving his severed head out in the sun that is burnt into ashes.
• Killed Off for Real: It seems like every movie tries to kill off Radu in a horrible fashion but it didn't stick until the fourth film.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Blood Rise, Radu attacks Diana and leaves her to die after letting Ash and Ariel drink from her. However, come the climax, Diana returns as a vampire and kills Ariel, who Radu fell in love with.
• Last-Name Basis: As revealed in Blood Rise, Ash's first name is Jonathan. That doesn't stop everyone from calling him Ash, however.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Zachery◊ in Vampire Journals.
• Looks Like Orlok: Radu checks off the Badass Longcoat, the long nails and Creepy Long Fingers and unnaturally pale skin, but his father as portrayed in Blood Rise fits the bill much more.

• Love Makes You Dumb: Radu, oh so very much. You'd think he'd have learned by the third movie that trying to go after Michelle will only get him killed.
• MacGuffin: The Bloodstone, even in the sequel named after it.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: Radu has become scornful of humans and even other vampires after being around for centuries, and facing numerous betrayals. It's mostly his way of coping with his miserable and lonely existence.
• Mama Bear: Subverted with "Mummy". while Radu's mother does seem to have genuine love for her son (or at least as much as she is capable of) she is also quite cold and cruel to Radu at the same time.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Subtle, but when the high of his victory over Stefan has faded, Radu truly seems to regret murdering his brother. When his mother inquires of the "bastard boy," Radu's look is not one of triumph. When she states love is not for the likes of them, Radu protests he truly loved Stefan and wishes he hadn't killed him.
  • Radu has the same reaction too in Bloodlust, when he kills his mother. He initially seems proud of it, but then he sits down and quietly mourns her, clearly feeling the weight of his shame.
• Narcissist: Ash. More so in Vampire Journals than in Bloodstorm, but nonetheless, his sense of self-importance is absurdly inflated to the point where he insists that his children prove their devotion to him and to him alone.
• Negative Continuity: The vampires' ability to walk in the sunlight appears only in the first movie. The backstory on how Radu was sired changes a couple of times throughout the films. Radu even claims to have sired Stefan in Bloodstorm, despite Stefan explicitly being stated to be his father's spawn.
• Neutral Female: Michelle is mostly this in the sequels. She does kill Radu in Bloodstone, but as for the rest of the time...
• Not Quite Dead: Radu is seemingly killed several times, only to somehow survive. In the last they decapitate him (again) but take his head far away from his body and stick it on a post in the sunlight, which seems to do the trick.
• Obviously Evil:
  • Radu is hideous and fearsome looking, who speaks in a disturbingly raspy tone and is all fangs and claws. Nobody even tries to pretend he can be mistaken for a hero.
  • Ash is pale, clad all in black, creepy, weird and has very little by way of social skill. He's not exactly screaming "good guy."
• Off with His Head!:
  • How Radu bites it in the first and fourth movies.
  • Dr. Ion Niculescu gets his head chopped off while he's reaching for the Bloodstone.
• Once an Episode: Radu kills a family member of his with a "Forgive me *insert family relationship here*" and a man helping the main character(s) dies in each of the first three movies.
• Our Vampires Are Different: In the first movie, the vampires walk in plain sunlight.
  • Non-evil vampires can walk in sunlight such as Stefan, it also why he looks the most human unlike Radu who follows the path of evil and looks deformed. Michelle is sorta half in half. As she drinks blood from humans, she shunned by the sunlight but isn't really evil since its more of a survival thing and half the time is mostly forced on her.
  • Radu himself thanks to his mixed heritage though he is always referred to as a vampire. He can create the miniature subspecies, creatures from drops of his blood and return from deaths that would kill regular vampires. At the same time he is vulnerable to all of the conventional vampire weaknesses.
  • They are also capable of traveling faster by taking the form of their own shadow.
• Police Are Useless: The police do not believe Becky about the vampires in Bloodstone and Bloodlust. Not helped in that the closet thing to a ally she has in the police force is Lt. Marin, who is an antagonistic, incompetent moron.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In Bloodlust, Radu allows Michelle to see Becky before she gives herself up to him, without harming her at all.
  • Radu attempts to bring Michelle underground from the sun. When Michelle wants to see it one more time, Radu states instead they will wait, "until the pain starts" out of little but affection.
  • In Bloodstorm, Radu gives a homeless man a coin in exchange for his robe. This was probably the first act of genuine decency that he ever performed in the series that, unlike the above, isn't subverted shortly after.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Lt. Marin. He's hopelessly incompetent for his profession to the point where it's hilarious.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Radu is prone to throwing tantrums when things do not go his way and often seeks the approval of his mother or Michelle like a little kid.
• Put on a Bus: After Radu is done in in the first movie, Karl simply leaves and never returns for any of the sequels.
• Rasputinian Death: Radu in Bloodlust. He is shot with silver bullets, burned by the sun, falls off the roof of the castle and onto a tree, where he is impaled. Subverted in that he's resurrected shortly after. Then played straight again when he's finally Killed Off for Real in Bloodstorm by beheading and cremation.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Radu doles these out like candy to Stefan, starting when Stefan finds their father's corpse. Radu snarls how much Stefan's pain makes him sick as a "mockery of human feeling," and constantly thereafter berates Stefan for his playing at being human.
• Reincarnation Romance: In Blood Rise, Michelle is heavily hinted to be a reincarnation of Helena, Radu's true sire and someone he had fallen for. This also makes her relationship with Stefan a little more squickier than intended, as Helena was Stefan's mother.
• Retired Monster: In the comic, Radu claims that King Vladislas used to be far more evil than Radu, but softened when he met Stefan's mother.
• Rise from Your Grave: Lillian in the first film. Radu drains her enough to kill and the locals bury her. Later that night Radu soon arrives at her grave and wills her to climb out of it, showcasing her newly vamped form in the process.
• Saved by Canon: Considering Bloodstorm takes place before Vampire Journals we know Ash and Serena will not die-at lest in that movie
• Self-Made Orphan: By the third film, Radu has killed both his mother and father.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Radu in Bloodstorm refers to Stefan as his spawn, hence why Michelle is his with Stefan dead. Except Stefan was Radu's brother, something mentioned constantly in earlier films.
  • A really weird case in Vampire Journals where the film strongly indicates the first vampire Zachary kills onscreen was his Master and Zachary uses masculine pronouns to describe his maker. Except the film later shows in flashback he was turned by Ash's seductive female fledgling Serena, who Zachary killed in the past. Making a case of the film retconning itself halfway through.
  • They're everywhere in Blood Rise. Most egregiously, Radu's father is portrayed as an insane, monstrous beast and a vicious tyrant, even after he acquired the Bloodstone, despite the first movie making it clear that it was the Bloodstone that pacified him. It's heavily implied that Stefan is a Child by Rape instead of the consensual offspring he was suggested to be in the first movie, which, additionally, makes Stefan weeping over the body of his father and wanting to avenge him look extremely awkward.
• Sissy Villain: There is no reason on earth that anyone should ever be intimidated by the wimpy Ash.
• Stalker with a Crush: Radu is a textbook example. Not only does he follow Michelle around Romania, he tries to turn her against her own sister so she'll have nobody else to turn to but him when she embraces her vampirism.
• The Starscream: Ash in Vampire Journals has the dubious distinction of having two subordinates who want him dead – Iris (who runs the nightclub) and Cassandra (his oldest vampire childe). Ash himself aspires to be this to Radu in Bloodstorm, and Serena to Ash (briefly, before changing her mind to try and convince him to destroy Radu).
• Start of Darkness: Blood Rise shows this for Radu. He was once a human crusader who was tasked with destroying monsters. His final mission takes him to his father's castle, where he rescues Helena and Stefan, his half-brother, and learns of his true heritage. While on the way back to civilization, he is seduced and turned by Helena and both her and his half-brother are kidnapped back by his father.
• Stupid Evil: Ash insists on being as much of a prick as he can be, abducting Sofia — who has friends that know she was there — and eventually turning her, and killing Anton's lawyer, Walter, both of which would certainly bring attention to his club. Iris calls him out on this, but is also seemingly genuinely disturbed by his heartless and cruel murder of Anton.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Stefan in Bloodstone, Radu's mother in Bloodlust, Becky, Mel, Random Victim Girl, Lt. Marin (sort of) & Radu in Bloodstorm.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Bob from Bloodstone is one for Karl the custodian from the first movie.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Michelle, at least in the first movie. Karl and Stefan warn her not to go outside when a vampiric Lillian is calling out to her. She doesn't heed their warnings, despite knowing full well that Lillian died.
  • Lt. Marin, although he's more just dumb in general.
  • Radu. Time and time again, he continues to try and win Michelle over, all while pressuring her to reject her humanity. This always results in him being killed.
  • Stefan, when he tries to confront Radu while walking about in broad daylight.
• Tragic Monster: At the end of the day, Radu is just a sad, unloved creature who has been rejected by both vampires and humans, and has likely embraced his evil nature because of his ostracization. He hides behind a mask of contempt for humanity when ultimately, he seeks love and companionship.
  Radu: There is not enough forgiveness in the universe for all I've done.
• Transhuman Treachery: Mara and Lillian in the first movie after they're turned into vampires. They become completely subservient to Radu and help capture Michelle to become his latest servant, even pinning her down on the bed and laughing as he prepares to bite her. Michelle, after she's turned, flip flops on this trope through the series.
• Trivial Title: The series is named after a small race of creatures who barely factor into the movies. Possibly subverted in that Radu could be considered a subspecies of vampire.
• Undead Barefooter: Radu claims two of Michelle's friends, Mara and Lillian. Mara is initially buried in clothing before she resurrects but Lillian is dressed in a tattered gown as Radu slowly drains her with no shoes. When he captures Michelle with intent to turn her as well, he dresses all three girls in white gowns with no footwear.
• The Un-Favourite: Radu. By both parents.
• Undeathly Pallor: All of the vampires, from the second film onward, but especially Radu.
• Vampires Are Rich: Radu inherits a fortune in treasure upon killing his father and his other fledgling Ash has built another fortune in Budapest over the centuries.
• Vampire Monarch: Radu's father was the vampire king for the local vampires around Romania and forbid the killing of humans. He banished Radu for refusing to obey this edict. The opening of the first film has the king old and dying with Radu returning to finish him off.
• Vampires Own Night Clubs: Ash, apparently, owns some sort of night club, which seems to be his main source of income.
• Vegetarian Vampire: Entirely possible with the Bloodstone, a relic which, hence the name, produces an unlimited supply of ethically-sourced, conflict-free, blood.
• Villain Ball: If Ash had just kept his word to Zachery without strings, it's highly likely Zachery would've felt compelled to leave Ash in peace. Instead, Ash provoking him and attempting open treachery ends up getting him and his entire bloodline massacred.
• Villain Has a Point: A rare villain-to-villain example. Radu's mother is absolutely right that if he refuses to destroy Michelle, then she'll just continue to act like his master.
• Villainous BSoD: At his moment of greatest triumph, Radu kills his mother and is the undisputed master of the undead and the Bloodstone. His reaction is to sink back on his throne and whisper "now I have it all," realizing how alone he truly is and have to live with the guilt of knowing he has killed his entire family.
• Villainous Crush: Radu for Michelle. He seeks her affection, and would even killing his beloved mother to prove his love for her.
• Villainous Rescue: In Bloodstorm, Radu comes to the hospital where Michelle is being held to save her from Dr. Nicelescu. As usual, his intentions aren't altruistic.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Karl from the first movie disappears afterwards and we never get any confirmation what happened to him. When Professor Popescu, Mel and Becky go to visit him, he is nowhere to be seen but he is never confirmed to be dead either.
  • Radu's subspecies form at the end of Bloodlust. However, come to the next sequel, they are nowhere to be seen. Likewise, only their shadows are seen in Blood Rise.

The 1991 prequel comics:

• Adaptational Ugliness: Radu looks like a noseless, demonic Murdoc Niccals here. Not that he was all that attractive in the movies.
• Adaptational Villainy: He was already pretty evil in the first movie, but Radu is just that much more monstrous here.
• Bad Boss: Radu drains his commander of blood just so he can be strong enough to fight Stefan.
• Bed Trick: A demoness kills the vampire king's wife and assumes her form to seduce the vampire king and give birth to a vampiric half-breed.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Radu is a monster and proud of it. He considers any insults to his demonic heritage as a compliment.
• Continuity Snarl: While it was written before the sequels, the backstory for Radu — as well as his personality — are vastly different here. In the movies, he was the offspring of the vampire king and a hag, whereas here, he's the spawn of a demoness who pulled a Bed Trick on the vampire king by taking the shape of his wife, who she had killed.
• Darker and Edgier: The comics are not quite in the same ballpark as the films, which are fairly standard B-movie fare, and Radu is considerably more evil (and uglier) than he was in either the first movie, let alone the sequels.
• Hellish Horse: Brimstone, Radu's steed.
• Ms. Fanservice: Mariah is shown naked more than a few times, both from the front and the rear.
• Villains Want Mercy: Stefan resolves to grant Radu a painful death by placing a giant cross on his body. As he's prepared to behead him, Radu begs for mercy. Ironically, he told Stefan that mercy was for the weak just before.

The 2018 sequel comics:

• The Atoner: Michelle has become this, and works in a hospital to redeem herself for the people she had hurt to sate her hunger.
• Back from the Dead:
  • A variant. The original Radu was, for all intents and purposes, completely destroyed after the events of Bloodstorm. However, the subspecies creatures all matured into different aspects of his personality, and when each one is destroyed, they all merge with the body of the sole survivor, effectively bringing back the original Radu.
  • Seemingly played straight with Radu's mother, who shows up in the very last panel, telling Radu to forget about the Bloodstone.
• Berserk Button: Even the Good Radu snaps furiously when Michelle mentions Stefan, prompting Michelle to note that sibling rivalry never ends even when you kill your brother.
• Driven to Suicide: The original Radu starts to return in the body of Good!Radu after all his brothers have been slain, and he chooses to jump off a cliff and into the water rather than continue to be a threat to Michelle. Subverted, in that he survives his attempt.
• Faux Affably Evil: The first of the Radu brothers that Michelle encounters is impeccably dressed in a suit and tie and tries to charm her into handing over the Bloodstone.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The one Radu brother who represents the good side of Radu is actually a pretty nice guy. He doesn't even seem to be interested in feeding on humans, instead opting for draining a deer that he comes across in he woods. Though he does get irrationally angry over Michelle mentioning Stefan's name.
• Heel–Face Turn: Again, a variant. One of the Radu brothers seeks to atone for his mistreatment of Michelle in the past, and allies himself with her to kill the other aspects of him. He even tries to kill himself when he realizes that the original Radu is back.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Ash and Serena are killed off abruptly by the most evil of the Radu brothers.
• Took a Level in Badass: Michelle has become a much more competent fighter over the years since she last encountered Radu. She manages to put up a decent battle with the brothers and even kills some of them.

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