Vampiress Review: "Bram Stoker's Van Helsing"

The Gist: After the woman he is in love with falls ill a man seeks the help of a doctor who informs him that the illness is due to her being the victim of a vampire. 

Female Vampire Factor:  The female vampire in this film is Lucy (Charlie Bond)

Final Opinion: Long story short this is the Dracula story but only focused on the portion revolving Lucy's illness, death and resurrection as a vampire with the final portion of the film being when Dr. Van Helsing and Aurther finally slay her. 

It's a pretty interesting concept focusing on what is normally a portion of the story that's considered an afterthought, but it does add some things to it with Lucy's turn lasting longer than one night and her even getting Arthur under her spell and using him to find victims for her.   I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5 just based on the concept being completely focused on the female vampire and not Dracula at all.  It's not a very seductive portrayal like many other versions have Lucy but it's very fang friendly. 

Vampiress Review: "Renfield the Un-dead"

The Gist: Renfield of the Dracula novel who is now a vampire himself sets out to stop Mina Harker and her son Quincys attempt to resurrect Dracula in modern times USA.

Female Vampire Factor: First thing to mention is the film attempts to retell the Dracula story midway through so every vampire in that is revisited in a way.  As it's explained Renfield is fed on by Dracula's Brides before he's sent back to England.

Then through a quick montage flashback you're shown Lucy Westenra's affair with Mina followed by her vampire transformation.

As far as the films main plot goes one of the films main antagonists is a turned Mina Harker

Her along with her son Quincy are going around an American town biting and turning people.  Renfield is then going behind them, staking the victims and chopping their heads off to prevent them from turning.  This leads to the local police believing Renfield is a serial killer and calling him "The Butcher".  One of Quincy Harkers victims who does get to turn before she's quickly offed via decapitation is a female police officer.

In the film the main female protagonist is a coroner named Dr Bonnie Johnson.  Basically it's explained that all the main male characters in the film (Quincy Harker, the main police officer on the vampire case Detective Paul Cranston and Renfield) have a thing for her.  Pretty much every vampire including Mina gets to bite her at least once. 

So it's pretty much obvious early on that she does become a vampire herself by the end of the movie

After attempting to seduce Detective Cranston "Lucy" style he stakes her as she goes in for the bite.

There are also a few others that Quincy turns that get their heart ripped out about 30 seconds after they're introduced heading into the films big ending fight scene between the vampires.

and the final female vamp is shown in the movies end when a now insane Detective Cranston is broken out of an asylum by what seems to be a vampire Lucy Westenra.  The film prior to the end credits then announces a future film called "Renfield II: Lucy the Un-dead" which since this film was made in 2010 I'm pretty confident isn't happening.

Final Opinion:  I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  Yes there seems to be a lot of female vampirism in the movie from this review and if this was a standard length film this would be a lot but the run time of this film is nearly 2 hours.

This is one of those films that would go from nearly unwatchable to somewhat enjoyable if only someone would have gone through and edited out the vast amounts of pointless scenes that do nothing to forward the plot or make characters you're supposed to be sympathizing with seem annoying. For example the whole movie is supposed to be a story from a comic book being read by a woman that Quincy picked up from a bar so you have to wait a good 5 minutes before the actual movie starts.  On top of that it's a good 20 minutes before we're even told who Mina and Quincy are even though they're introduced in the first 5 and they're the films main villains.  Instead its a lot of random dialogue between the cops on the case that don't connect the vampires to the Butcher case because Renfield himself isn't introduced until afterword and his initial introduction has no connection at the time to Mina and Quincy.  Because of that the films plot isn't truly explained until 25 minutes in then the film takes roughly a thirty minute break to tell you the story of Dracula before finally restarting at around the 1 hour and ten minute mark.

Another fault with the film is that it's a definite "yell at the screen" movie as the writing makes pretty much every human character a complete idiot.  From a photographer that has no baring on the plot yet for unexplained reasons is always at the scene of the vampire murders and is standing in plain view taking flash pictures with nothing bad happening to him as a result to the coroner who explains "dead guy with machete stuck in chest and clearly looks like a monster getting up when large knife is pulled from chest and walking away as "he must be on some type of drugs". You do get that feeling of the person who wrote it never really had a conversation with a real person so this is how they think human interaction would go.

In the end if a directors cut would be made this film could work.  Otherwise sitting through the full two hours was a definite chore.

Vampiress Review: "Capulina contra los Vampiros"

The Gist: A fool takes the job as a caretaker for an estate overrun by vampires and unknowingly helps to resurrect Dracula.

Female Vampire Factor: Rossy Mendoza plays the mistress of the house.

She uses Capulina to take the spear out of Dracula that was keeping him dead.  Once he does, he is fair game and she along with Dracula proceed to try to feed on him.

Also in the mansion are several other vampire brides who are brought to life once Dracula is resurrected.  They don't get much screen time outside of a few chase scenes though.

Final Opinion: This film is a Spanish language slapstick comedy which is part of a 1970's franchise featuring the character Capulina who's a bumbling fool character.  To say it's corny is a bit of an understatement.  We're talking "Three Stooges" level absurd.  The vampires in the film are dealt with by having their fangs removed and instead of killing them Capulina kind of adopts them and feeds them milk out of baby bottles now that they can't bite people (before waking up realizing the thing may or may not have been a dream).  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  The female vampires are great, you just have to sit through a ton of corny slap stick to get to it.

Vampiress TV Review: Dracula (2020)

The Gist: The story of the Transylvania count from the time he meets Jonathon Harker in the 1800's and has a confrontation with a vampire hunting nun to him arriving in modern day England.

Female Vampire Factor:  Despite the fact that this is loosely based on the Bram Stoker novel this three episode mini series adaptation severely lacks any female vampirism as that seems to be the portion where the most liberties are taken. 

The only real female vampire moment is during the portion in episode one where Jonathon Harker inadvertently finds and gets attacked by one of Dracula's brides.

Outside of that in Episode 3 which takes place in modern times Dracula does meet Lucy Westenra who he feeds on and she eventually dies. 

Unfortunately she chose to be cremated resulting in her being a charred mess when she comes back as a vampire.

Final Opinion:  This gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  The first two episodes which take place in the 1890s are pretty entertaining but also rely heavily on sarcasm and graphic imagery.  The final episode just kind of falls flat even though there was a lot of potential.

Vampiress Review: "Vampire Dracula Comes to Kobe: Evil Makes a Woman Beautiful (吸血鬼ドラキュラ 神戸に現る)

The Gist: Dracula goes to Kobe Japan and falls for a woman who looks like his slain vampire bride.

Female Vampire Factor:  Our first taste comes in the form of a dream the main love interest of the film has that ends up bring a flashback to a previous life where she marrys Dracula just to be slain by vampire hunters.

From there in present day Kobe people are mysteriously dying.  What makes it even more mysterious is their bodies cannot be destroyed.  Eventually they all come back to life at the same time and march out of the morgue.

This results in more people being turned

Basically from there the vampires are just used as background characters for the wedding between Dracula and the woman he's infatuated with Eriko who are used to keep the films protagonist Mitsuo away from them.

Final Opinion: This is a made for TV film from 1979 so it's a bit cheesy.   I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  This story has been told what feels like a million times even by the point this film is made and nothing about this version really stands out from the others and it definitely doesn't compare to the Hammer Horror films that were still big during this time period. 

Vampiress Review: "Queen Dracula"

The Gist:  A Vampiress takes control of a man in order to get her hands on an inheritance left to his daughters.

Female Vampire Factor:  There are four in total.  One who is killed in the first 5 minutes of the film to establish the role of the vampire hunter. 

After the beginning vampire scene you're immediately thrown into a "taming of the shrew" knockoff where men are trying to marry one of two daughters in an effort to get money.  One daughter who works at a store wants love while the other dresses and acts like a lesbian in an effort to keep men away and won't let anyone near her little sister. 

As far as the vampire portions the father in the film gets a postcard from someone in "Transylvania" and immediately heads there.  Apparently he gets there by car and everyone has a southern US accent so we're just going to pretend this isn't the Transylvania in Europe so I'm just going to assume he went to a small rural town called Transylvania,  Maybe Transylvania University in Kentucky?  There he's met by a group of vampires who want to attack him but they're called off by the Vampire Queen by her basically killing one of them.

 From their the vampire Queen "Dee" seduces Jonathon using her sexiest 1960's robot voice (emotion?  who needs emotion?) while doing the old "appearing as whatever the guys fantasies are" routine used in Tales from the Crypt presents Bordello of Blood. 

After a little arm feeding Jonathon is now under Dee's spell and he brings her back to live with him and the girls.  They don't take well to the new arrangement especially Lucy (the fake lesbian) who attacks Dee and is put in an asylum.  It's then up to Mina (the younger daughter) and a vampire hunter to save her dad from the vampire in his life.

Final Opinion: So the bulk of the movie is really bad green screen work revolving around this absolutely horribly acted story of guys trying to date these girls.  When I say bad green screen work I mean almost every background in this film outside of the first 10 minutes is green screen. 

I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1.5 out of 5.  If this film was not as horrible as it is I'd give it a solid 2 because Dee is attractive and toward the end she even age shifts and younger Dee is also very attractive even if she looks nothing like modern Dee and doesn't have the southern accent that modern and older Dee does.

With that being said I can't emphasize enough how bad this film actually is which is very disappointing as the story that it's supposed to tell would be pretty interesting if done right.  I do recommend watching it if you're into comically bad movies though as it is laughable so it is enjoyable at least for that purpose.

Vampiress Review: "Dreaming Dracula"

The Gist: A girl attempting to learn the story of Dracula falls asleep and dreams she is in the story.

Clarification: Basically it's just the Dracula story but in German. 

Selling Point: see below

Female Vampire Factor: Since it is the Dracula story you get your Lucy seducing Quincy and fanging out for the first time scene.

Then your Lucy rises from the dead and gets staked scene.

But the real selling point of this film is the use of Dracula's brides because on top of your standard scenes of them attacking Jonathon Harker but being stopped by Dracula and your end scene of them being destroyed.... 

They actually do get some individual screen time. One haunts Harker during his carriage ride to the castle as he's writing to Mina.

One repeatedly seduces Harker and bites him to prevent him from escaping the castle.

and one runs seductive interference allowing Dracula to get to Lucy by detracting and biting the men guarding her.

For that the film gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  More brides is never a bad thing in my opinion.  This is one Mina fang out scene from a 5.

Vampiress Review: "Dracula 2012 (Aur Ek Dracula)"

The Gist: It's Dracula but in India instead of England and modern

Clarification: They're pretty true to the source material.  It's a Bollywood movie so it's extremely long and there are musical numbers.   Also the Christianity aspect has been removed and replaced with Hindu as is in most cases of vampire films in India.

Biggest Complaint: No turn for Meena in this one.  She goes temporarily evil but no fangs.

Female Vampire Factor: It's your standard fair for a Dracula story.  I do have to say, Dracula's 2nd female victim Taara in the film is seriously hot (Shraddha Das).

Towards the beginning of the film there's also a musical number featuring a number of female vampires.

If you know your Dracula then you know the other female vamp.  Lucy (Priya Nambiar) gets turned and you have your scene when she goes after a child.

Without Meena fanging out the bride scene is the best vampire scene in the film that only has a few scenes with female vampires.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  The three scenes in the film are good but you have to sit through a nearly two and a half hour film to see them.