The Gist: Jesus is resurrected to save lesbians from vampires.
Clarification: If Troma puts it's seal of approval on it, you know it's going to be good. Hold on, this wasn't a Troma film? Like someone purposely decided to make a film that could be mistaken as a Troma vampire film even though Troma vampire films are awful? Well whatever works.
The biggest mind blowing fact about this film is that it states on wikipedia that the budget here was $100,000. Obviously none of it went toward the actual production value of the film so I'm guessing this is just actor salary and location permits maybe? Anyway vampires are attacking and turning lesbians, Jesus Christ is sent to save them with his vampire hunting and martial arts skills, he gets help from various religious themed side characters and an overweight interpretation of Lucha Libre action hero El Santo.
Oh and did I mention that this film has musical numbers in it too?
Selling Point: At least Maria Moulton is decent eye candy as Jesus's fighting partner Mary Magnom
Female Vampire Factor: Well considering the lesbian vampire theme there are quite a few of them. Only one gets any real screen time.
Otherwise the rest are just eventual stake fodder for the fight scenes.
Basically this is if the movie John Carpenters Vampires was a rock opera like Jesus Christ Superstar. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. Not something I can recommend as a must see but it does apparently have a cult following so some people are into it.
The Gist: A group of friends invite a mysterious trio of girls to a party not knowing that they are a group of vampires passing through town.
Clarification: Originally a youtube web series, once finished it was re-released as a full length film. In it three vampires come to a town to get away from presumably hunters. After attending a party thrown by some of the local guys one of the vampires Ranai who is very innocent and childlike falls for a sad lonely guy resulting in a conflict in which she has to choose between her human love interest and her vampire sisters who are killing his friends.
Biggest Complaint: Low film quality. Much of the film is barely visible as there is little to no lighting in outdoor night scenes or scenes in large rooms in which the only light they use is regular house lamps which happens when it comes to videos like this filmed on older digital camcorders.
Female Vampire Factor: First we have Renai, the cute innocent vamp who spends the whole film/series like a love sick puppy and seems to still have human emotion.
Then you have Lenore. The girl who turned Renai and treats her very much like a little sister. She's the voice of reason in most situations between the girls though still a bloodthirsty vampire.
Finally you have the leader Svetlana. She's a cold blooded killer and only sees humans as food. She does not approve of the relationship between Renai and the human Ben.
There was also a girl named Lex who was recruited to help hunt the vampires who nearly turned but nothing came of it. Also Bens best friend Rachel gets turned toward the end but again, don't really get to see much of her as a vampire (which means every female in the film is a vampire at some point). I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. If this wasn't such a low budget amateur production the story is actually a very good and well written one to the point that it would be an easy 5 out of 5 with better production. It's a shame that this film is much better written than a lot of the movies I've seen that have way bigger budgets used to produce complete garbage. I would absolutely love to see Sonny Fernandez attempt to get some type of financial backing to redo this film.
The Gist: A collection of short stories held together by a storyline that they are horror films found through computer hacking.
Clarification: This film comes off more like an episode of an off the wall adult swim series than a collection of horror movies. Each film is separated by random b-roll of a woman at a computer followed by clips of random things. A good majority of the films run time is padded with the random clips with the actual film probably not even totaling all together an hour in length.
The movie has 10 short films in it:
- Death Kiss
- Mind of the Monster
- Lust of Dracula
- Princess Baby meets Frankenstein
- Princess Baby and Frankenstein meet Billy the Kid
- Death of the Monster
- The Adventures of Jesse James Jr.
- To Dance for a Vampire
- Return to Earth: Princess Baby vs Gefullte
- Blood Love
Biggest Complaint: The bulk of these films aren't even horror. They're really weird Sci-Fi films that come off as just different sections of the same film involving a woman dressed as an anime style space woman named Princess Baby.
Female Vampire Factor: In "Death Kiss" a vampire kidnaps a woman while she's on a date with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend then learns kung fu to seek out revenge. When he finds the vampire he finds her along with him as a vampire as well.
In "To Dance for a Vampire" a vampire saves a stripper who is a reincarnation of his former lover from her stalker ex boyfriend and takes her back to his home where he bites her in an effort to turn her. She doesn't actually turn but there is a very quick scene of her in one of her previous lives with fangs.
Two of the other films in this collection also deal with vampires but no females. "Lust of Dracula" is just Dracula seducing and biting a woman and "Blood Love" is a vampire almost turning a woman but changing his mind at the last second.
I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. Can't say I recommend viewing this one but the one positive is the film with the most female fangs is the first one so 15 minutes is the most you'd have to put up with if that's all you're watching for.
The Gist: The caretaker of an abandoned home tells stories about the previous tenants to someone interested in buying it.
Clarification: Pretty much a similar plot as "The House that Dripped Blood" you get three stories in this film. The first deals with a guy getting out of prison after murding a bunch of party goers in the house and being haunted by them and the third being a cop using supernatural abilities to find a serial killer. The reason it's being reviewed here is the second story.
Selling Point: Not bad by Troma standards.......but still Troma.
Female Vampire Factor: This would be story number two. A guy goes into an abandoned house after being stood up by his girlfriend because he hears a female voice calling his name. It ends up being a woman in black lingerie (nothing suspicious about that right?)
Anyway she's ready to go and he's already horny from earlier in the day so he's easy prey resulting in her fanging out, biting him and turning him.
The guys little sister and brother end up going to the place to rescue him but ends up being confronted by the woman and is attacked by the now vampiric version of him as well. By stories end the woman is dead and the little sister now takes care of her vampiric brother.
As I said the film is decent by Troma standards but that isn't very high. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.
The Gist: A small town girl moves to the big city and struggles until she meets and falls for a vampire.
Clarification: It's a Troma film and a low end one at that which means it looks and feels like 80's porn but without the sex. The bulk of the film is just the girl Viola going through her growing pains of moving to the big city and being used by different people. The vampire stuff is literally just the end of the film.
Basically the film starts with her picking her parents up from the airport. They found out she got married and wanted to meet her new husband but she pitches a hissy fit about it. They park after arguing and she eventually changes her mind and gives them her entire story from arriving to the city up to that point (so the film is a flashback). During this she gets manipulated into getting a crappy apartment, makes friends with her neighbor who steals from her and gets her into trouble, joins a religious cult that takes her for her money and gets a job from a guy who rapes her. Eventually she meets a vampire who she falls for and he helps her get revenge against everyone who wronged her.
Selling Point: nope
Female Vampire Factor: I think Viola (Rachel Golden) becomes one. Toward the end it does show her approaching her old boss in a first person view as if she bites him but they don't show the bite. No fangs either.
I always groan when I pop in a new movie to review and that Troma opening starts because I know that means whatever comes after it is going to be painful to watch. This one was especially bad and no real payoff. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.
The Gist: A group of three aliens land on earth in order to steal the life force of sexually aroused men.
Clarification: So this is the true definition of false advertising as there are no vampires in this film. The aliens in this film use a contraption that goes on men's heads after they're aroused that seems to melt them into shriveled husks. The bulk of the movie is quirky style comedy, especially scenes that deal with the head detective involved with finding out what's going on with the aliens victims. This is a positive as most "B" films from this era go with the goofy slapstick stuff. Unlike those films that feel like they're trying too hard this one will make you laugh. Well it will if you can last passed the awful alien parts.
Selling Point: It has full frontal nudity during a time where that was considered a big deal outside of porn. Also as mentioned it does have some legit funny moments.
Female Vampire Factor: So this movie goes by your B grade movie rule of threes
Two of the women, a blonde named "Arylai" (J.J. North, far right) and a brunette named "Omay" (former penthouse pet Leslie Glass, center) are pretty straight forward characters with not much substance to them. They're hot and all business. Then you have "Shirly" (Theresa Lynn, far left).
She's your stereotypical dumb blond (though she's a red head in the film) thrown in for comic relief and pretty much the most entertaining thing you'll find in the film from the alien standpoint. She obviously didn't put much effort into studying human behavior as she does things like tell alien jokes to humans not to mention her idea of seducing is "Do you want a blowjob?"
The twist of the film is the character "Shampay" (Michelle Bauer) who ends up being one of the aliens as well though you never see her interact with the other aliens of the film till after the reveal. She spends the bulk of the film seducing the lead detective on the case as a distraction from finding out about the other girls. If you want to see her as an actual vampire check out my reviews of the films "Beverly Hills Vamps" and "Morgana".
Outside of the the small bits of comedy it's a dud of a movie especially if you were expecting actual vampires and not aliens using a Polaroid instant camera of death (watch it and you'll understand why I called it that). This film gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.
The Gist: A cop spends his life hunting down his former partner and the vampire that turned him into one of the undead before they resurrect some type of demon.
Clarification: The story itself is actually very good and probably would work under the right circumstances. The movie itself on the other hand is terrible. I would complain about the A.D.D. the film has progressing through multiple story lines and flashbacks randomly but it really doesn't matter since the movie is so dimly lit you really don't know what's going on anyway especially since most of the flashbacks are in black and white as well as being dimly lit. Much of this is just cliche's from other films. The cop looking for his partner and vampire that turned him is straight out of John Carpenters Vampires. The vampire using a girls room mate in order to get to the girl is Dracula 2000 and the priest training the teenage girl to fight vampires is basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you edit those films together you would get a much better looking version of this.
Selling Point: There is a really really dark girl on girl sex and biting scene.
Female Vampire Factor: This is the worst part. Not only do they exist in this movie but the two in it are very sexy but you can't even see them. First you have Alexandra aka "Xan" (Toni Martin).
She is the one who turns Jacob into a vampire but despite this she seems to take orders from him throughout the film. Then you have Claudia (Mary Morales)
Roommate to the cops daughter Victoria, she gets left behind at the vampire run night club "the meat market" and Xan decides to take her for herself.
This film really does get worse as it progresses both in terribly acted fight scenes and in lack of visibility. Don't get me started on the ending...actually wait.. I can't because there isn't one. The film just cuts to the credits during a fight scene. This one gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. Had there just been light it would have gotten a 3 just because the female vampires are great but all you get is silhouettes.
The Gist: An innocent bystander gets stuck in a civil war between the last remaining female vampires in existence over his blood.
Clarification: So despite the title this is not your USA Up All Night throwback film filled with scantily clad slutty women doing bimbo like things to unsuspecting guys. In fact the film takes itself very seriously as an action film. So much so that the vampire aspect is barely needed. Basically it's told from the perspective of the character Quinn (the innocent bystander) as if it's a flashback of some sort though by the end it just comes off as regular narration. He's attacked by a women who injects him with something. It ends up being some type of cure for vampirism that is also lethal to some vampires and makes him a target for a brood of female vampires as well as a group of vampire hunters. It then turns out that the woman who attacked him was the sister of a member of that brood who then joins him and the rest of the movie is her helping him to escape the large group hunting him.
Selling Point: Every Female in the film is a vampire
Female Vampire Factor: As mentioned the vampire factor is there but it's not really a vampire movie as much as it is a survival action film. In this movies universe there are no male vampires and female vampires are practically immortal as only the males have the issues seen in vampire folklore (stake through the heart, sunlight, garlic etc) but also only males can create more vampires.
As far as the vampires themselves the main protagonist vampire "Karel" (Jenna Lisonbee) is basically nothing more than a carbon copy of Selene from Underworld (this film has a lot of similarities to that film just with chainsaws and in the daytime as a matter of fact) and does nothing vampiric.
If it weren't for the chainsaw gimmick which lets be honest isn't needed and really makes no sense as why would a creature that is immortal A. need a weapon and B. use one that is going to waste the one thing that it requires to live, the three antagonist vampires...
would be the reason to watch. Even so they do flash fangs a few times here in there but very little biting as like I said they're in more action scenes than anything else. In fact, the above screen caps are the best fang flashes of the three characters and the movie is about an hour and twenty two minutes long. For that it gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.
The Gist: A group of friends decide to check out the brand new strip club in town unbeknownst to them it is run by a group of vampires who use it to lure in victims.
Clarification: So, if this story sounds familiar it's because it's been done about a million times before especially in low budget "B" movies like this. While it's not the worst of them it's still pretty bad. Luckily, it's a watchable bad as the corniness of the film is slightly entertaining if you're attracted to that kind of film (IE you were the type to watch USA Up All Night level or local TV ghoul host type cheesy movies.)
The first thing you will notice about the film is that it's extremely low budget. I'm talking the film has 3 locations, an apartment, the outside of some type of warehouse and the inside of the warehouse which is made to somewhat resemble a strip club by way of decorations that look like they were stolen from a high school home coming celebration which is OK since they don't actually strip anyway.
The second thing that you will notice is it does suffer from that low-budget film cliche of just trying way too hard by adding film cliche after film cliche. You've got three vampire strippers; they don't need any reason as to why they're doing what they're doing other than they're three vampire strippers yet for whatever reason every murder they commit outside the main plot has some type of justification to it. A good example is the below scene where the worst vampire hunter in the world admits to stalking the women for years without doing a thing when he was supposed to be avenging his brother and when he finally gets the opportunity acts like he has absolutely no clue how to handle vampires. By the way just so you know he's a vampire hunter he's wearing a long leather coat and a hat when you first see him.
Selling Point: The third thing you will notice about the film which is a positive is that all three of the vampires have different styles of fangs from each other though it's a much more radical difference then we saw in Dracula 2000 who also had different fangs for each female turned. Oh yeah and they're hot.
Female Vampire Factor: Well as mentioned there are 3 and there is a lot of biting scenes though they tend to resort to "B" movie gore more times than not.
The blonde "Serena" (Monika Wild) is the biggest monster of the crew often being the one doing the killing.
"Treasure" (Elina Madison) is the leader. There is a sub plot of her falling for one of the lead guys but the whole "your friends are killing my friends in my apartment" thing gets in the way of any relationship between the two.
The third girl "Monique" (Allison Beal) is just kind of there to growl a lot.
So in the end you have an over thought, poorly acted film about strippers who don't strip that has hot women with fangs but also logicless sub plots. I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. For a better attempt I would recommend pretty much any Fred Olen Ray film (yep this is that bad) but especially "Twilight Vamps".
The Gist: A small town sheriff tells the story of how his town was over run by vampires.
Clarification: Ok first let me say I laughed as I typed "The gist". Second I have a pretty sick sense of humor so let me explain how this works. This blog has been used for the over 3 years I've been doing it to review every vampire movie, TV show etc I can get my hands on which sometimes means watching complete crap for the sake of coming on here and telling you, the reader, that it is complete crap or best case scenario that it's complete crap but there's a hot vampire doing something sexy with examples so you can decide if it's something you want to see in spite of being complete crap(which has resulted in me getting on a few movie producers "don't send a Christmas card" list BTW while others have actually gone as far as quoting me in ads and helping sponsor this site after I reviewed their work hence the ads on the side). In that time I've developed a bit of a system where there's two kinds of awful movies. Those types are...
Painfully Awful: A movie so terrible that watching it actually hurts. These films are usually watched over the course of a week as to not drive me to a Joker level of insanity. Best example of that would be "Shower of Blood".
Hilariously Awful: A movie so terrible that if the producer of the film actual understood how terrible the film was and decided to promote it as a film parody they'd be considered a genius (If you've ever seen Tommy Wisaeu's "The Room" it's that kind of terrible).
Selling Point: This film had literally everything great about a good comedy parody but the thing was they did it with the intent of this being a legit ACTION/HORROR FILM. This includes but is not limited to
- An extended scene of cops discussing why they're wearing jeans with their uniforms
You guys didn't own any black dress pants to wear for this film either eh?
- Scenes of people having conversations that we could probably hear for ourselves if they didn't have some guy narrating over them talking TELLING US WHAT THEY'RE SAYING!
In this scene Santa is concerned while Mrs Clause is angry with him.
- Non existent film framing letting us know they might not really be where they say they are.
When we're done killing vampires everyone come back to the "police station" for ICE CREAM!
"Sir, don't you think we'd be more efficient if 911 calls weren't being forwarded to my CELL PHONE!"
- Hot lady I'm pretty sure just walked by the park the movie was being shot in and in order to get her phone number they gave her a part in the movie where she basically mimed doing stuff which had absolutely no connection to the story whatsoever which I guess is ok because she completely disappears from the film after her scene.
She was a cop, she was blond and she probably died I guess...yeah we'll say her character died, that works.
- Not as hot but still kinda cute lady who probably did the same thing who's character seemed to know she was important to the plot of the film though the watching audience had never seen her before who tragically died during her first scene which would be a surprise and really sad had we known who she was.
Dedicated to the memory of "Brown haired girl with stick" you left us too soon
- Perve logic
I just got in a fight with a vampire and there's hundreds more. Let me find the nearest creek to randomly pose in my undewear.
- And horribly random editing including fighting scenes LOOPING to make them longer as well as objects being spliced in the scenes (I guess to prove it is what they say it is.)
Ha vampire you thought this was contact solution but it's really HOLY WATER...SEE, IT SAYS RIGHT HERE!
Female Vampire Factor: I don't even know why you've made it this far. That should have sold you the movie right there but if you're still looking for chicks with fangs then yes, they're here in abundance, chicks with fangs, $13 scarecrow subtle glow fangs.
Oh and you can tell the "important to the plot" vampires from the "peon" vampires because the peon ones wear really bad makeup
and the "important ones" (IE will get their face on camera) don't
As far as the main characters go producer Carl Merritt pretty much gives you all their good fangy scenes for free on Youtube.
This clip set includes the head vampire not so ironically named "Vampra" (Amanda Fire) and her minions
This clip set includes (SPOILER ALERT) officer "Layla" (Manda Webster) with her regulation EMT half shirt, underwear and knee high boots that she wears on duty.
The only one they don't give away is SPOILER ALERT officer Marcia Lewis (Sherri Foxx) who also gets turned.
It gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5 with only the cruddy film quality keeping it from a solid 5. If you get the DVD you also get some decent pictures of Nikki Irene (who plays a random vampire in the film but her one scene gets a lot of screen time) with fangs posing as well so there's a bonus. If I haven't sold you on this film either you don't have a sense of humor like mine or you like really good movies.
