The crime thriller The Lake Vampire (El vampiro del lago) is based on the novel “A Vampire in Maracaibo” by Venezuelan author Norberto José Olivar – in turn inspired by the real-life case of Zacarías Ortega, one of Venezuela’s most notorious serial killers known for drinking the blood of his victims. The Lake Vampire is the debut feature by Carl Zitelmann and will open in theaters on Friday, September 27 at the Laemmle Glendale in Los Angeles, followed by a VOD release later this fall.

Desperate to find a subject for his next novel, Ernesto Navarro follows the tracks of a mysterious killer who decapitates his victims without leaving a trace. The investigation leads him to Jeremías Morales, a retired police detective who came across a similar story back in the 1970s. Morales was in charge of the strange case of Zacarías Ortega, a man obsessed with drinking blood and becoming immortal. Without realizing it, Navarro is dragged into a perverse game that began many years earlier and from which Morales has never been able to escape.

Ortega, a man accused of practicing witchcraft, used to drug his victims then cut their throats and drink their blood. In 1975, when Ortega was captured and detained, he confessed he committed all his crimes to honor an alleged pact with the devil, who made him immortal. True to the spirit of the book, the stirring thriller The Lake Vampire moves between facts and superstition, and signals an auspicious debut by Zitelmann.