Vampiress Review: The Dead Undead

The Gist: A group of college aged kids on a vacation get stuck at an abandoned hotel and end up in the middle of a battle between a group of mercenaries and a town full of zombie like vampires. 

Clarification: This starts out as a straight late night horror and then stops and becomes an action movie.  It reels you in as a regular horror at first with partying kids showing up at a creepy motel after their car breaks down. 

As the girls lay down in their room one is stalked by a vampire who drools blood on her, they freak out, two of the guys do the "We'll be right back" routine just to get eaten and all of a sudden the A-team shows up and the rest of the film is shooting and explosions starring the closest thing you can get to Jason Stathom on a medium budget.

It's explained that vampires are peaceful creatures in this film who live off of cows blood.  Unfortunately an epidemic turning vampires into feral monsters came about from drinking blood tainted with mad cow disease.  That leaves this film basically being good vampires vs feral ones.   

Selling Point: Basically this would make a slightly more entertaining episode of the not so good last season of "True Blood" (The Hep V season) but with no sex and nudity. 

Female Vampire Factor:  Due to the action film nature of this movie you aren't getting much out of this in the seduce and bite department.  In fact there are literally four women in the film and only two make it very far. 

First turned is the girl who is slobbered on by the vampire to start the film. 

Don't expect much here as her screen time post turn lasts about as long as a sneeze even though she does actually live through the film (they just kind of forget about her).

Then you have one of the mercenaries who gets turned after getting infected blood on her.

Again this doesn't last long whatsoever as she's pumped full of bullets immediately upon showing aggression.

The last surviving female (Summer) is theoretically turned into a good vampire as well but this film doesn't actually have an ending and just kind of stops so nothing comes of it.  I give the Film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  It had a ton of potential and was entertaining for the most part but the lack of a real ending kills any momentum that was built up since there is no payoff.

Vampiress Review: "Shadowland"

The Gist: A female vampire is accidentally resurrected when her burial site is disturbed by a construction crew and she roams around modern St Louis not being able to speak or remember who or what she is.

Clarification:  Also known by the title "Twilight Hunters" this is one of those films that slowly unravels itself regarding what's going on and is really confusing if you don't know anything about it going in.   Mainly because the main character doesn't know what's going on either so if you didn't know the premise you're learning about it when she does.   Basically she's a woman who was seduced and turned by a vampire in the 1800's who was then staked and buried but once her body is found in modern times and the stake is taken out she is resurrected with very little memory and goes around town trying to find things she recognizes that jogs her memory.

The main conflict in the movie comes in the form of the local police department who for whatever reason has a city wide manhunt for her for shoplifting and assault on a homeless person who tried to rape her where they shoot at her a lot.  Basically made up conflict just to have it and pad run time since there's also a vampire hunter after her who sporadically appears before becoming important in the films final moments to tie up all the loose ends.

Female Vampire Factor:  So the main vampire in the film is played by Former Miss Teen USA contestant (Missouri) Caitlin McIntosh

Since she spends the bulk of the film with amnesia and apparently blood lust is a voluntary thing she's not very vampiric at all and basically comes off as just a homeless woman wandering around which makes the fact that the entire local police department and eventually a swat team are after her even more silly.  This is amplified by the fact that even when she remembers who she is she doesn't purposely harm anyone other than the vampire hunter who is her biggest threat.

The concept is great but isn't a very logical film.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. If you like this film also check out the film She Lives By Night for a similar version of this story with a slightly better horror twist.