What’s worse than being a disenchanted 18-year-old? Try being a disenchanted 18-year-old forever. While on a summer trip to LA, Laurel (Nicole Maines from TV’s Supergirl), a transgender teenage girl hungering for a relaxed getaway in the shimmery City of Angels, has barely settled in before she butts heads with a quartet of queer feminist vampires. Led by the glamorous, silver-tongued, bubble gum-popping Duke (Diana Hopper, Goliath), the bloodsucking clique takes Laurel under their bat wings, furthering their hellbent mission of ridding the streets of predatory men.

What begins as a burgeoning romance soon devolves into a series of threats and shifting alliances, even before a band of flamethrower-wielding vampire hunters crashes the party. With a supercharged soundtrack of scuzzy riot grrrl and dreamy synth pop (including an appearance by LA outfit Death Valley Girls), writer-director Brad Michael Elmore’s defiantly postmodern and gleefully rambunctious spin on the vampire genre is like The Lost Boys meets Ginger Snaps, with enough spurting arteries, crunching bones, and wicked wit to keep you laughing through the screams.

— JESSE KNIGHT