Vampiress Review: Beyond the Rave

The Gist: A Soldier goes to find his missing girlfriend before heading off to war just to find that she is at a secret rave and has caught the eye of the vampire hosting it. 

Female Vampire Factor:  There are 4 in the film but only three have a significant role.  The main vampire Melech has two vampire hench women who lurk in the background jealous of the soldier Ed's girlfriend getting the attention from him.

They get a couple of fang moments once the vampire portion of the film starts.

Then you have the vampiress Lilith.

She gets revealed as sad and lonely and just looking for the right human to love which ends up being the soldier Ed's best friend Necro.  She gets super depressed when she reveals that she's a vampire and he gets scared.

The fourth vampire is just a background character during a rave scene who we see bite one of the party goers after retracting from the ceiling.

The significance of her is she is played by Sadie Frost who is probably best known to readers of this blog as Lucy from the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film "Bram Stokers Dracula".

 

Final Opinion:  So, this film is infamously the last vampire film made by Hammer Horror.  For those not aware the studio with the help of former star Ingrid Pitt (who is in this film in a deleted scene) attempted to make a comeback and this film was its attempt to embrace the digital area.  It was original launched in 20 separate chapters uploaded to MYSPACE (yeah remember that).  

 From a story standpoint it's not bad.  As mentioned, a guy has to save his girlfriend from a rave run by vampires.  It's eventually revealed that the Raven is just a ploy to trap humans so the vampires can kill, drain and store their blood for a long boat trip they plan on taking and the soldiers girlfriend Jen along with his best friend Necro end up catching the eye of the head vampire and one of this females who plan on turning them both and taking them along. My biggest complaint is the way the film is broken up and with how dark it is at times it's hard to really know what's going on a lot of the time. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  Considering the complete lack of female vampires in Hammers last official vampire films in the late 70's this is a definite step up from that but not quite what I would call a true Hammer experience and instead more of a lesser version of the film Lost Boys the Thirst that was heavily inspired by this that would come out two years later. 

Vampiress Review: I Woke Up a Vampire

The Gist:  An adopted girl goes on a journey to find out about her birth parents after discovering on her 13th birthday that she is a damphere after growing fangs and superpowers. 

Female Vampire Factor:  The show revolves around a young girl named Carnie played by Kaileen Chang. 

 Despite the title she is only a half vampire and seemingly has all the positives (flying, super strength, super speed) and none of the negatives (bloodlust) so basically, she's a superhero which ends up being a plot device as in season 2 her friend ends up becoming a successful comic book writer by creating a vampire comic book character based around her

The only other vampire in the series is the Shapeshifter played by Charlotte Legault.  (SPOILERS AHEAD)

In the shows first season she is the big bad of the show.  Clearly with me mentioning she's the only other vampire on it you can put two and two together in that she ends up being revealed as Carnie's birth mother.  There is a further twist that really doesn't make much sense in season 2 but I won't totally ruin the show here. 

Clarification:  So the show only has two seasons as of this writing and it doesn't seem likely a third will happen.  Season 1 revolves around Carnie getting the hang of her powers while avoiding a hunter and also trying to go out for the school play which ironically is also a vampire story.

By that seasons end it all kind of works out, she ends up befriending the hunter once he realizes he's been working for the bad guys the whole time and she finds out her newest friend also has a secret in that she's a werewolf so she has kind of a crew she can be her vampire self around. 

Season 2 Carnie starts high school and that's when her backstory opens up and she finally meets the shape shifter face to face. 

 The show starts very slow coming off as a cutesy kid show before the good stuff happens and it does actually get good from a TVG standard.  I won't say season 1 is skippable but the vampire plot at times takes a back seat to stuff like the school play. 

The shows second season takes a much more dramatic turn as she then deals with high school, her hormones, her wanting to date, her and her friends drifting apart because of it and of course her search for her birth mother due to her beginning to want to separate herself from humanity including her adopted family.  

Overall, I give the show a Vampire Beauty Rating 4 out of 5.  If you have a kid, this is one of those shows you won't actually be totally bored watching with them and if you don't have a kid season 2 is actually functional as a decent teen drama. 

Where to Watch

  

Vampiress Film Review: Blood Run

    

The Gist: A woman goes about her stressful daily life while trying to hide her symptoms of a disease that turns women into vampires who attack 

 Clarification:  This is one of my favorite user submissions but not because of the video itself.  As I watched it, I felt this was more of a teaser trailer than a short film.  As if there was a lot going on than what was shown.  After a quick conversation with producer and star Chantelle Tibbs I was proven right and would LOVE to see her full idea realized.  In this short we see a flash of the life of the character Camille.  She has a potential boyfriend that wants to protect her, she has an issue with her ex and she's sick with a disorder that is turning women feral.  

Ms. Tibbs then pointed me to her short story she based this off of called "The Turning Point".  There I got to learn how rocky Camille's relationship with her ex was as he was very abusive to her (understatement) when they were together.  That info explained why the scene with her and her sister played out the way it did with her internal rage being justified.  

"The Turning Point" also goes into detail as to how Camille contracted the disease as we learn that the women who contract it aren't exactly as feral as it would seem, and they aren't getting it randomly but they in fact seem to be organized and are getting turned the old fashion way. 

If you want to support her art, she can be found on YouTube @spastaproductions.  I'm very much hoping that as some point her full vision can be realized.  

 

Vampiress TV Review: Lexx

"Vlad"
Season 4
Episode 8 (2001) 

Lexx is a series of about three space travelers on a ship that is basically a giant insect traveling to different worlds. In reality though this being a sci fi program in the late 90's/early 2000's the real premise is to put sexy clothing on a hot female and then give her reasons to run around.  The hot female of the show Xev is played by Xenia Seeberg.

In this episode which is the second part of a two-part story arch involving the crew going to Earth and visiting Transylvania, crew member Stan gets hypnotized into inviting three witches on to the Lexx who then steal Kai's Proto blood and uses it to resurrect a vampire named Vlad. 

Vlad played by the late former Bond girl Minna Aaltonen then proceeds to turn two out of the three crewmates via biting them as her saliva has hypnotic powers. 

In the end we find out that Xev is actually immune to Vlad's bite and tricks her into letting her guard down so she can attack her and push her into a cryochamber freezing her. 

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Vampiress After Dark Review: Primal Fetish.com

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