Female vampires once ruled the world. Now they are overlooked for glittering guys with big hair. It's time to point out why the female of the species should be the center of attention.
The Gist: A teacher starts acting weird and eventually starts sucking blood.
Clarification: This film lost me I won't lie. Basically it's a rework of the movie Vampire's Kiss but way less understandable and not as fun. Guy who had a traumatic experience grows up seemingly normal but then starts having weird dreams of an encounter with a mysterious female that might not be dreams but mostly involve vampire like things which eventually just leads to him becoming a serial killer. The thing that makes the film hard to follow isn't by design as stuff just kind of happens throughout to the point that I'm not entirely positive they aren't just editing mistakes.
Selling Point: There is a half naked female vampire in it Female Vampire Factor: Her name is Abigail Quintard played by Nancy Malleo.
Problem is unlike Jennifer Beals' Rachel in Vampires Kiss you rarely see her and isn't really seen as tormenting him as much as she's just a way to throw off the viewer as to whats going on.
I give the movie a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. Just watch Vampires Kiss. You'll get more out of it.
The Gist: A vampire couple worlds apart and living seperate lives comes together to support each other at their lonliest.
Clarification: This movie was universally critically praised and words were used to describe it such as "beautiful" and "artistic" not to mention it was nominated for a lot of awards at many film festivals and from many organizations I've never heard of. In other words fans of this page won't get it and probably won't like it very much. It's pretty much 2 hours of stereotypical high class indy film cliche's shoved into a horror movie that has no scare factor whatsoever. Adam (played by the Avengers Tom Hiddleston) lives in Detroit and is a tortured musician. Eve (played by Tilda Swinton) is....well...I'm not sure what she is other than a chick who looks like an albino and lives in Europe.
Both do basically nothing and have different ways of getting blood delivered to them to prevent from getting diseases because vampirism apparently isn't as fool proof as the other movies make it seem as vampires can get sick from tainted blood.
Eventually Adam contemplates suicide but a phone conversation with Eve where she decides to come to Detroit to see him rejuvenates him. After she gets there the movie is just two people talking along with the occasional sight seeing tour of abandoned buildings in Detroit.
Selling Point: If you like Academy Award style artsy films and not looking for any horror, as said before this is a highly praised one.
Female Vampire Factor: Well they are vampires but they don't drink via biting people due to drugs and diseases etc. Despite this fact when they drink from whatever they drink their blood from their fangs do come out so that's a plus.
Eve after Drinking
In the middle of the lovers reunion they get a visit from Eves little sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) who is not in any way as reserved and under control as Eve. This becomes the closest thing to horror you get out of the movie as Ava kills Adam's closest human confidant Ian after seducing him (though you don't actually see the bite).
This leads to the movies finale where Adam and Eve ditch Ava and head to Europe together (as Ian was last scene with them before his death) and the grand finally which is the only time you see Adam and Eve attack someone old school style.
So if you're into artsy moody films go for it. If you want a similar film with less art and more sexy Vampire T&A go for the film Kiss of the Damned. I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.
The Gist: When a struggling startup private dental practice needs money they subcontract to a night shift dentist who's a vampire with vampire clientel.
Clarification: The idea of a vampire dentist in a horror movie would make sense and be pretty decent if done right. I mean the guy could theoretically work nights and suck peoples blood without them knowing after he puts them to sleep, possible cause an outbreak of vampirism before moving to a different town and starting over. Do not look for that here as this is an absurdly cheep B-grade dark comedy that takes place in what seems to be an empty warehouse.
It's about as well written as your average elementary school writing assignment complete with bad fart and anatomy jokes (The two lead dentists names are "Moe Lars and Pierce Able"). The two struggling day shift dentists pretty much sexually harass every woman that comes to their office (in a G rated way) yet they still somehow have business. We won't even mention the running gag of the fact that delivery drivers always start off by saying that they couldn't find the place due to there being no sign yet the clients find it no problem.
Eventually the film then remembers that they think they need a storyline so after well over an hour of just people with different "comical" personality quirks coming into the dentist office and getting seen by dentists they decide to throw in a sort of love triangle between the vampire dentist, one of the daytime dentists (who switches to nights halfway through to help with the vampire clientele for some reason) and a blind woman. Again, elementary school writing assignment level so don't expect it to make sense or mean anything. In fact, since the movie HAS NO ENDING don't really take anything that happens in it seriously. This is literally an hour and a half of filler with no real purpose that just stops.
Female Vampire Factor: All the night clients are vampires but basically cartoony versions. Goth makeup, cheep fangs, black clothing and Dracula capes. All the female vamps (and pretty much everyone else in the film) are clients in the "waiting room" of the makeshift dentists office the film is located in.
In between the dentist scenes are various outdoor scenes of the vampires attacking the day clients which would then turn them creating more clients for the night dentist (Dr Vam Dent)
There is even kind of an awkward scene toward the end of the movie where they recycle one of the films actresses that played a vampire in an earlier scene.
Which wouldn't even be noticeable if they didn't go out of their way to tell you that's exactly what's happening.
So obviously this was a film that was made as campy as possible for the film makers amusement. Normally this type of film only works if it's more sarcastic humor. The type of comedy you see here is better used if It would have been a 10 minute comedy skit instead of an hour
and a half movie that threatens its viewing audience with a sequel when nothing happened in the one they just watched. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.
The Gist: Things get out of control when a a strange wine shop owner convinces a college student to buy a specialty wine which turns whomever drinks it into a vampire.
Clarification: This film was a pleasant surprise as I didn't have high hopes for it (especially with the 1 hour 42 minute run time and the first 50 being drawn out scenes establishing the two roommates past together.) but once it gets past that it's a damn good vampire flick.
Andrea is a girl who became goth after loosing her boyfriend and is about to get another new roommate at her college dorm as her last few end up dropping out of school. She's happy to find out that the new roommate is her childhood best friend Brandy and for the next 45 or so minutes of the film you find out that Andrea was picked on a lot when they were young and Brandy always had her back. This fact is kind of important to the film but as I said establishing this point goes on to the level that you're thinking "OK we get it already, they're friends".
Anyway Brandy's birthday is coming up so Andrea goes to a wine shop and after a longer than needed conversation about her not liking the last one, a lady (who we actually see at the beginning of the movie is a vampire that Andrea eventually kills since the movie starts with it's ending) hands him a bottle and pretty much tells him to sell it to her for whatever she can afford which he does.
Later on Brandy finds the bottle in the dorm room and without knowing what it was drinks it, gets really sick goes to the nurse and bites her (YES!) then proceeds to spend the rest of the movie biting every other character in it that was not Andrea.
Selling Point: She likes it...she really likes it. This is definitely not one of those self hating vampire films. Once Brandy turns she's a seductress and in the end just wants poor "door mat" Andrea to feel as good as she does.
Female Vampire Factor: Can't get any better than a movie about a female vampire in this category so I'll just start with the most important one which is Brandy (Lora Meins)
Vampire Brandy is evil but in a very noble sort of way. The one thing all of her victims have in common is that at some point in the movie they were mean in some way shape or form to Andrea (which goes back to the conversations at the movies beginning that established that Brandy was always the person protecting Andrea from bullies). As a matter of fact at the movies end when Brandy is explaining her motives it's really hard to see her negatively. Who wouldn't want a woman in lingerie who is so loyal that she'll take out anyone who'll even look at you wrong. She's honestly a less pushy version of Violet from True Blood.
Then you have the Vamp that turned her Carmilla (Vanessa Leinani)
She's only actually seen in 4 scenes in the film. The first is the very beginning of the film where they show her eventual demise. The second being when she sells Andrea the wine. The third when she appears in Brandy's dream after Brandy drinks the tainted wine and the last being the above clip when she tries to drink from Andrea. The last two scenes are pretty hot actually with her seducing the two girls. The main thing you get about Carmilla (an obvious tribute to legendary vampire seductress "Carmilla Karnstein") is that she was targeting Andrea to be the one to turn the whole time. Otherwise her role is pretty much forgotten and you never actually see anything that leads up to the battle between the two that starts the movie.
This movie has pretty high rewatchability (especially if you just start at the 45 minute mark) and two hot seductive vampires. Vampire Beauty rating of 5 out of 5. Could the overall movie have been better?...sure but as far as these low budget films go this is definitely well above average storytelling for a vampire film.
The Gist: A down in the dumps guy who lives with his sister finds himself neck deep in trouble when he becomes the object of a female vampires affections.
Clarification: Ok...see the gist. Had the makers of this film just gone with that and kept with it despite how amateurish the whole thing is the movie would have been enjoyable. Unfortunately this film falls into pretty much every "do not do" that amateur film makers find themselves in.
From a storytelling perspective it has serious A.D.D. The movie starts out from the point of view of the main character Jude typing out his life story and narrating. Once the movie gets going this is never visited again. Then the sound is almost non existent with the background music drowning out the dialogue in most scenes not that the night time scenes are bright enough to see anyway. After that you have the unexplained randomly thrown in side stories. Apparently there is some type of vampire government that the main vamp Anastasia is a part of that she has to ask permission in order to be able to turn Jude which she asks for in a ridiculously long and drawn out scene that constantly goes back and fourth from a stationary camera to a camera that is literally a guy walking around a room constantly (IE shakey and unwatchable without motion sickness).also she has bad blood with another vampire in the group "Delilah" but there is never any explanation as to why that is (other than the fact that amateur film makers love having people argue on camera for some reason).
Speaking of which you then have the awkward relationship between Jude and his sister where they basically argue for no reason about stuff no normal brother and sister would argue about which just makes him out to be socially awkward and her a nagging bitch. In other words there are no likable characters in this film to get an emotional investment in one way or the other.
Finally in odd side story world you have the story of Jude's sisters best friend Amy who all of a sudden always knew that Judes new girl was a vampire because she's been stalking them for awhile because she wanted to be turned but this is only found out just before she's killed mid film despite Amy meeting Anastatia MUCH earlier in the film when she comes to pick up Jude for their first date giving her the ability to give both her best friend and Jude a warning to stay away from her (which she doesn't).
All of this could probably be forgiven if it weren't for the fact that the films ending just screamed "we got lost in our own story and have no clue how to end it so we'll just roll credits here". This happens when you add 92 sub plots to a movie whose main story could have and should have carried it. I had the same complaint for the movie "Kiss of the Damned" but that was forgivable since the entire movie before that looked good. Not so much in this case.
Selling Point: There is nudity...that's a plus.
Female Vampire Factor: So you have your main vampire Anastasia (Danielle Paccione).
Then you have the vamp who hates her Delilah (Kaitlin Chadwick)
Finally you have random naked vampire chick that shows up whenever Jude is about to or has encountered Anastasia who is known in the credits as "Vampire Succubus" (Michelle Trasattie)
No real explanation of her purpose . You see her twice and both times it ends with her climbing on top of Jude and as she gets close he wakes up from being asleep.
I give this a Vampire Beauty rating of 2 out of 5. As I said the story idea was there and they seemed to drop the ball. The writer/director of the film probably should have watched Fright Night 2 or Vampires Kiss as an inspiration on how to pull this type of film off. Anastasia should have been the main antagonist of the film using Judes depression over his last relationship against him and haunting him at every available moment (no backstory of why she's doing it would then be needed because the reason would be she's evil). Jude would be the movies pawn that you feel sorry for and the further he falls into Anastasias trap the more he changes as a person and alienates his family. That would leave Judes sister as the would be hero of the film fighting the evil female vampire for her brothers soul because she loves him. Now was that difficult?
