‘Half’ Takes Vampires on a Bloody, Full-Throttle Road Trip of Revenge [TIFF Review]

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to watch an entire film about the sibling assassins from The Raid 2, but as vampires? Me neither. But if that sounds cool, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what Indian filmmaker Samjad delivers with his sophomore feature, Half. It’s a lean, mean curry western blending the style of Sergio Leone with the utter brutality of something like this year’s The Furious, all baked under the scorching sun and drenched in gore.

Yeah, it’s a bloody blast.

Penned by Samjad and Praveen Viswanath, the film follows twins Ethan (Ranjith Sajeev) and Ivy (Aiswarya Raj), half-vampires thanks to their parents’ interspecies relationship. With a new job waiting for Ivy, the siblings set out across the Rajasthan desert. There, they encounter a ruthless band of highway thieves who viciously murder them and leave their bodies to rot. Or so they thought. Because once night falls, their vampiric ability heals the twins. Now, resurrected and pissed off, they hunt down the marauders who wronged them, intent on delivering the same brutality tenfold.

Half isn’t a film that overcomplicates itself. In fact, it’s about as simple as it gets. What Samjad unleashes is a pure, blood-soaked revenge tale fueled by unfiltered rage. Akin to Mad Max: Fury Road, once the film hits the gas about twenty minutes in, it never lets up. It’s a road movie with vampires where the destination is vengeance. There isn’t an ounce of fat on the bones. No time for rest stops, unless you count the twins pulling over briefly to bring furious pain down on one of the poor bastards who made the unfortunate mistake of messing with them. Hell, the twins barely even speak to each other, and not just because Ivy is mute. The filmmaker doesn’t spend too much time developing this story, because the violence is the story. And oh my, is there a lot of it.

Remember when I mentioned the siblings from The Raid 2? Well, that’s probably not a coincidence. That’s because Very Tri Yulisman handles the action choreography…the same choreographer behind the mind-blowing stunts of and . Yulisman’s talents shine on screen as we witness the twins kick, punch, and stab their way through mobs of well-deserving killers. To highlight the vampire theme, Ethan and Ivy turn anything they can into a stake, flipping the traditional vampire-killing weapon on their many foes. The two even utilize the body parts of their enemies, shoving the elbow bone of one man’s decapitated arm into his own face.