Great performances from Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden headline a bloody good vampire film in Jakob’s Wife, the sophomore film by director Travis Stevens that is equal parts gory and poignant.

It is something that happens in all marriages: once in a while, you despise certain things your wife/husband does. It could be how they stack the dishwasher, chew their food, or snore while you try to sleep. The annoyance is as grating as fingers down a chalkboard. Soon those vows of “better or worse” are tested unlike anytime before.

This is exactly where we find Anne (Barbara Crampton). For 30 years she has been the dutiful wife to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden), but something has changed. Once a free spirit in her youth, Anne has come to realise the mousy preacher’s wife she has become is no longer satisfactory, nor is her marriage to Jakob. He is a good man and pastor, yet he has become a slob, and a domineering one at that.

Proving that God works in mysterious ways, Anne is attacked by a vampire, in turn becoming a creature of the night herself. It is a transformation that surprisingly brings a new sense of freedom and power to a woman desperately seeking a second chance at life, which she has now found through death.

The most interesting aspect of Jakob’s Wife is the age of its protagonists. The vampire movie usually deals with youthful characters and their struggle with immortality, resulting in tales both violent and titillating. Director and screenwriter Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor), along with screenwriters Kathy Charles (Castle Freak) and Mark Steensland (The Special) hade made a film that is as much about late-life crisis as it is about vampirism.

As we all get older, time becomes a commodity more precious as the years pass. For Anne, opportunities have waned, regrets piled, and resentments grown, especially towards her husband, for which she has become servitude. Horror screen legend Barbara Crampton plays the part with equal parts weathered wisdom, cheeky confidence, and a seductive sexuality that even at 61 years of age is still putting butts in seats.

Fessenden is equally good as the kind-hearted yet domineering husband, who decades into his marriage has begun to take his wife for granted. The masterstroke of casting indie filmmaker and actor Larry Fessenden in the role works gangbusters, embodying the character with a humanity whose foibles are understandable.

Jakob’s Wife is very much a vampire film. It hits those tropes like a stake through the heart, and it is suitably over the top in its fountains of gory bloodshed. Yet the performances of Crampton and Fessenden, along with the story of marriage tested by an undead supernatural force, places it on a different plateau than the usual vampire moves that lack bite.