He wants to expand her mind, he says, and has a drug with which to do just that. It was used by many of the great artists and is the sap of a tree know as stigoï. Now, the pronunciation seemed off but I suspect that the name as written here is what they aimed for. The sap is melted on a spoon and the vapour breathed in, he says, opening the doors of perception (as Huxley might have said). One goes in and one stays out, he explains, thus he will not do the drug and I want to break here and look at one of the problems with the film… the acting…
Oldham is stagy but works as Renfield – his character is meant to be like that (another character calls him Shakespeare at one point). The other acting not so good and I just didn’t buy Farooqui as Sai. Perhaps, however, the fault did not lie with her but with script and direction. You can image it… So, Sarah, you play Sai an artist and she takes this drug she has never heard of, offered by a man she has met that night… What’s my motivation… he likes your work and gets it… okay, is that enough, am I a habitual drug user… don’t know, the script doesn’t say... These characters are not developed and have no motivation, no wonder the actors struggled… Back to the film…
When she takes the drug her face goes grey and she seems to choke. Renfield leaves the apartment, not watching over her. She finds herself in a strange place, wearing a red dress (those passing over wear red, the vampire (s) wear white). Incubus takes the form of Royce, though it is a Royce with black eyes and pointed teeth. They come together and he bites. The rising sun (in our world) seems to pierce the dream and she awakens.
The next day she paints a new, darker, picture. Royce comes in as do the bickering Eric and Kirra. Sai tells them about the drug, after Eric finds the twig, and they are doubtful but Eric decides to give it a go. He ends up in the dream place and is approached by three vampiric women – reminiscent of the brides from Dracula, of course – in the real world he is becoming physically violent to Kirra. He is snapped out of the dream but, when it happens, he breaks a branch in the dream world and the sap filled branch materialises in his hand in the real world (unseen by the others). Now, that would have given me pause to thought but obviously not Eric who is content to have a shed load of this drug in his hand.