Sanguinem by Michael Ferguson, Shea Hardy, Jacob Kaplan, and Jeff Overholser
Tagline: You are what you eat.
Genre: Vampire Western
Logline: In an Old Western style desert, vampires live underground and take on the characteristics of the animal they feed from. A young reptile vampire has her family taken from her by a group of vampires that go against the status quo in order to gain power. She goes on a journey to fight them and get her brother back, dodging vampire hunters all the way.
Synopsis: Odella is a reptile vampire, and her brother Silas is proclaimed dead by her underground vampire community. They say he was murdered by a group of anti-traditionalist vampires called The Wake. She doesn’t believe this, as multiple vampires have gone missing, and goes to the desert surface to find him.
She meets a friendly scientist, a jaded merchant, and an experienced leader of the monster hunters on her journey. This leader is named Lee and takes an odd interest in her, and not just because of her thirst for blood. He begins hunting her after he finds out this thirst however.
On the run from Lee’s group of monster hunters, she finds The Wake’s hideout, the Dagrun Lake, and discovers her brother is an active member of the group. They are found by Lee’s group, and they begin to fight The Wake. Odella uses this time to escape and confront her parents about Silas’ faked death. Her father reveals that he, as a member of the council ruling the catacombs, was secretly interested in The Wake and faked Silas’ death so that he could join their group in peace. Since the council didn’t wish to start a war, Odella rallies a militia to fight The Wake for good.
The Wake, the monster hunters, and the vampire militia face off at a prominent human settlement in the West. The monster hunters unleash a plague during the fight and instead of dropping like flies, most of the vampires turn into mutated mindless beasts that are overcome with bloodlust. Odella, some vampires, and the humans manage to escape but are unsure of what to do next. The Wake has been quelled for now but these hollow beasts are left to their own devices, and have their sights set on the human settlements to the South.