Vampiress Review: Salem's Lot (2004)

 

The Gist: An author named Ben Mears returns to his hometown in order to use it for inspiration to write a new horror book and ends up unraveling a plot to turn everyone in the town into vampires. 

Female Vampire Factor: The first female vampire in the film is a woman by the name of Marjorie Glick (Rebecca Gibney).  She is the mother of two young boys who were targeted and killed by Richard Straker at the order of his vampire business partner Kurt Barlow.   After their death Marjorie begins hearing their voices and we eventually see her open a door just to be attacked and killed.  After Marjorie's death protagonist Ben Mears along with Dr James Cody stake out at the coroner's office suspecting they are dealing with vampires.  They are proven right when she raises from the coroner's slab and attacks them, only sabed by Ben's cross made from taped together tongue depressors.

 

The next is Ben's attempted love interest Susan Norton (Samantha Mathis).

She's an aspiring writer that Ben meets at the coffee shop her parents own.  She heads to the creepy house that is the center of all the happenings to help solve the mystery of what happened there years ago that haunted Ben in his childhood and ends up getting captured in the process.  Once Ben kills the vampire Barlow and goes to destroy the house he is confronted by Susan where she informs him that she did solve the case exonerating Ben from the guilt of thinking he allowed one of his friends to die in the house (the kid was already dead when he got there apparently).  She gives him a nice pep talk before being staked by Ben when she vamps out at his young accomplice mark. 

Finally we have young Ruth Crockett (Penny Mcnamee)

Ruth is a rebellious young girl who has the unfortunate luck to have a really overprotective father.  She also gets enjoyment from teasing the local handicapped garbage man Dud who believes that she is his girlfriend.  Eventually she breaks his heart and tells him the truth but that becomes short lived when the vampire Barlow turns Dud curing him of his handicap and Ruth becomes his obsession.  The film ends with Dud eventually turning her and Larry finding her with Dud at the town dump where Dud lived.  Dud and the other kids who are now vampires end up eating Larry. 

Final Opinion:  Out of the two televised versions of the story this is easily the most complete version and is dramatic horror almost all the way through unlike the 1979 version that starts very soap opera like and doesn't get to the scares until almost the very end.  I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  They cram a lot of female vampires in the last hour or so.  If the story had more in the first 2 hours it would definitely get a 5 but the female vamps are basically one and done with most of the vampirism in the story being done by the kids of the town.

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Vampiress Review: Salem's Lot (1979)

 

The Gist: An author named Ben Mears comes back to his home town in order to use it for inspiration to write a horror novel and ends up uncovering a plot by a vampire to take it over. 

Female Vampire Factor:  The first female vampire in the film is a woman by the name of Marjorie Glick (Clarissa Kaye-Mason).  She is the mother of two young kids who are initially targeted by vampire Kurt Barlow and his accomplice Richard Straker.  The boys once turned appear to their friends and family at night and feed on them.  After Marjorie's death she is the first to be witnessed by anyone turning as film protagonist Ben Mears as well as his girlfriends father Dr. Bill Norton are waiting in the coroners office with her body when she raises and is attacked by her, only saved by Ben's tongue depressor created cross. 

 

The last vampiress comes in the form of Ben's love interest in the film Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) 

She's a school teacher in the small town who and as mentioned she ends up getting into a relationship with Ben.  As people in the town begin mysteriously dying and the culprit is figured out to be the residents to a creepy house in town she ends up going to confront them just to get captured.  In the final scene of the film which takes place two years after the events of the film she finds Ben (who destroyed the vampire and his house but couldn't save the town along with a young kid from the town named Mark).  She tells him that they can be together forever before fanging out but is staked by Mark before she could bite Ben. 

Final Opinion:  While this is a decent adaptation it does take awhile to get to the vampire stuff.  As this was originally a mini series watching it in one sitting is over 3 hours and the vampire stuff only takes up the last hour or so with most of the film just revolving around Ben and Susan's relationship.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  The 2004 remake is much more complete from a plot standpoint as well as much more female characters turned. 

Vampiress TV Review: "Cliffhangers"

                                                                     Season 1

"The Curse of Dracula aka Dracula 79"

Cliffhangers was a TV show that aired only 10 episodes on NBC in 1979.  The premise was a one hour program that would feature 1 episode of a short serial every 20 minutes.  One was about a crime solving journalist and one was a sci fi western hybrid.  The one I'm covering here is the horror themed serial "The Curse of Dracula"

 The premise of this short was a woman named Mary along with her boyfriend Kurt Von Helsing were hunting Dracula.  Their issue with Dracula being that Kurt is obviously of the same bloodline as Abraham Van Helsing and Mary was the daughter of one of Dracula's victims.  

They find out Dracula is a night school professor so Mary sits in on one of his lectures.  After the Class Mary confronts him about her mother and his response regarding her was more of a long lost love than that of someone he victimized. He then talks about how she reminds him of her and pretty much falls for her to the point of obsession the rest of the series. 

For the remainder of the show Dracula tries to turn Mary and make her his newest bride while Kurt tries to stop him.  Our first female vampires of the series are introduced in the episode "Demons of the Dark" as it's revealed that Dracula has bitten and turned three students in his class that he uses for the remainder of the show as hench people.  One a guy named Darryl who is killed off pretty quickly actually and also a girl named Christine.

The third student Antoinette has a much larger role than the other two students as she is infatuated with Dracula to an obsessive degree and is very much jealous of the attention he gives Mary.  This results in her plotting to kill Mary behind his back in hopes that once she's gone he'll love her.  

Unlike your average "Dracula has brides already but is obsessed with someone else" stories he does actually succeed in partially turning Mary and she does get a few fang out moments where she fights the urge to bite Kurt.  Especially when they're trying to cure her through treating her with holy water once an hour that results in her losing it.  

It's during the point where she's turning that we're introduced to her mother Amanda played by soap opera legend Louise Sorel who is shown to not have died as her daughter thought but was turned into a vampire by Dracula and was in hiding while planning a way to kill Dracula herself.  She makes herself known once she sees that Dracula has targeted her daughter the same way she was and tries to help her fight her vampire urges before she completely turned. 

 
Final Opinion:  This was a fantastic Dracula based series that I have fond memories of seeing on reruns in the 90's that I can't recommend enough.  Sorel as a vampire is unforgettable and the first scene where Mary fangs out is super hot as she sees Kurts exposed neck and hears his heartbeat and begins to breath heavy as her fangs slowly start to appear before Amanda makes her first appearance also fangs blaring to stop her from feeding on him.   I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5. 

Vampires Review: "House of Frankenstain 97"

The Gist: A Detective with the help of Frankenstein's monster must save a woman from a vampire.  Unknowing to both him and the woman that she is a werewolf.

Female Vampire Factor: While the Vampire "Chrispian Grimes" does have a female henchman at a night club he owns who works as the bartender

 the only female vampire who fangs out in the film is Graces (aka the films damsel in distress) roommate Felicity played by former CSI star Jorja Fox.

In the film the vampire Grimes turns her in order to have her keep tabs on his love interest Grace. When Grimes realizes that Grace only has eyes for the detective sent to protect her he sends Felicity to finish him off.  She does not make it out of the confrontation though as she gets staked by the paranormal expert who was advising detective Coyle.

Final Opinion:  This was an NBC made for TV mini-series based on a film of the same title from 1944 which unfortunately I have not seen yet to compare.  With the above scenes being the only female vampirism in an entire mutli-part mini series this one gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  While Grace is a werewolf  there is no real transformation as werewolves in this film are shape shifters. On top of that all the above vampire scenes are very quick fang flashes. The film is more crime drama than horror overall.  Somewhat like Dark Shadows with less vampirism.

Vampiress Review: "Valmont: The Movie"

The Gist: A girl enrolls in an exclusive private university in order to investigate the death of her brother who was last seen alive as a student there.

Clarification: Originating as a series of shorts on MTV Valemont follows a girl named Sophie.  Her brother was found dead and she questions what happened to him so she enrolled in Valemont, a private school for well off kids. 

Eventually after doing a ridiculously bad job of even seemingly hiding her intentions at the school to keep people from being suspicious to an annoying degree she finds out that Valemont is a school for vampires who are coming of age.  She then learns that vampires aren't made they're born, vampirism comes out once one hits a certain age and most importantly that her brother is alive, is a vampire and is very evil. 

Female Vampire Factor: Obviously if her brother is a vampire and vampirism is hereditary surprise, surprise that means good old Sophie (Kristen Hager) finds out she too is a vampire.

The red eyes are the best that you're going to get as far as the vampire look goes with Sophie.  Her brother Eric does try to temp her to drink from her best friend but it doesn't happen.

 While most of the people in the film are vampires only two actually show fangs.  One is Sophie's brother Eric and the other is their mother who Sophie thought had died but was alive and who they get their vampirism from.  Their reunion includes mom who has no control trying to feed on her daughter.

The reason that is explained for the lack of fangs in the film is that only vampires who have an addiction to human blood develop them and the kids of Valemont are not allowed to feed on humans.  Those who lose it to their blood lust are locked in a sanitarium on campus.  

I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. The crazy vampires you never see outside of the above female seem like they would make a much better film.  As is this is pretty much just a young adult style drama with little horror elements to hang on.

Vampiress Review: "The Princess: Tears of Blood"

The Gist: A man falls in love with a vampire princess he meets in the woods moments after finding his fiance dead.

Clarification:  This is a Spanish language mini series which has a bit of a reverse Dracula vibe since for once the vampire is a female and the person that they're stalking because they're reminded of someone from their past is a guy.

Selling Point: If you ever wondered what Haddaways "What is Love" video would look like as a Spanish language mini series.  Here you go.

Female Vampire Factor: The main vampire in the film is Anastasia played by Edurne Keel.

Though in the beginning she seems like an obsessed woman looking for love, as the series goes on your learn of her tragic back story and that her desire for Sebastian is not about looking for a companion.

SPOILER ALERT

Eventually we learn that Sebastian comes from a long line of vampire hunters and after he kills the vampire who turns Anastasia to protect her she tells him the truth that she really wants him to kill her as she no longer wants to be a vampire.  He being so in love with her kills himself instead not wanting to live without her.

This leaves her to go find the next in the blood line and start all over again (stalking a toddler in a park who has the mark of the chosen one making her the ultimate cougar).

I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  Not an all around bad series and plenty of fang flashing from the female standpoint.

Vampiress Review: "Count Dracula"

The Gist: A mini series produced for the British Broadcasting Corporation based on the Bram Stoker novel.

Clarification: Same story just spread out to last nearly 3 hours to be shown over a number of days on television.  Since this was made for television in the 1970's it is a very PG adaptation replacing many of the more sexual aspects of the story with edgy camera tricks (for the time) and lots of random visions.  The acting is very soap opera like.

Selling Point:  Probably one of my favorite performances of vampire Lucy

Female Vampire Factor: First you have the brides (Susie Hickford, Belinda Meuldijk and Sue Vanner)

Thanks to the made for TV movie aspect of this film the role of the brides has been pretty much scaled down to where they are there but not really significant.  No sexuality involved in their scene with Jonathon Harker (it's more playful teasing) and they only show fang briefly during that scene and a subsequent scene where Jonathon finds them in their coffins.  There vampire side is not visited at all again after that.

  The one thing that sets this film apart is that once Dracula first trades blood with his victims they immediately grow fangs that stay out so both Lucy (Susan Penhaligon) and Mina (Judi Bowker) both have fangs without having to die.

Mina's fangs showing

Mina never even really hints at ever vamping out in the film but as mentioned above Lucy's time in the film is downright primal after meeting Dracula.  The scene in which she first vamps out when everyone comes to her deathbed is especially unique in this film compared to others with her taunting Quincy down to flicking her tongue at him.

This versions Lucy also growls A LOT.  In both the above scene and especially after she finally passes away and rises from her grave she is very animalistic.  Basically this makes the movie for me almost making up for the flaws (IE lack of vampirism) everywhere else.

To be honest the film is hard to watch in one sitting (though it wasn't meant to be) just due to the amount of detail they put into every aspect of every scene to pad the run time (meaning it takes what seams like forever to get to the good stuff) but vampire Lucy is enough for a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5. 

The Female Vamps of the 30 Days of Night Franchise

30 Days of Night is a film franchise based on a set of comic books of the same name.  Arguably a precursor to the popularity of later franchises such as The Strain and the Walking Dead.  Much like those franchises it falls under the survival horror genre but unlike those it was never turned into a television series.  The franchise consists of 4 parts,  The original film 30 Days of Night (2007), An online mini series prequel "Blood Trails" (2007), an online mini series sequel "Dust to Dust" (2008) and a full length straight to DVD sequel "Dark Days" (2010).

30 Days of Night (2007)

In my opinion the franchise starts off kind of rough and gets better as it goes.   The 30 Days of Night the film refers to is a period in Alaska where the sun does not appear for 30 days.   In this film a town in Alaska gets over run by Vampires during this time and the towns people attempt to survive for that period.  This film comes off much like your modern zombie flick with the vampires pretty much being nameless somewhat faceless monsters.  Only a select few communicate but they're basically just out for blood and nothing more.

30 Days of Night "Blood Trails" (2007)

This is when we get more in depth as the story telling aspect from this point on makes the series a lot more enjoyable.  Possibly since this is almost ripped directly from the comic so there is more character development this time around.  This series leads up to the vampires getting onto the ship that takes them to Alaska.  This also includes a main female character getting turned in Jenny (Dani Owens)

30 Days of Night "Dust to Dust" (2008)

Also a mini series this acts as a sequel to "Blood Trail" but takes place after the original film.  In it a disgruntled cop and the vampire hunter from "Blood Trail" go looking for the cops sister Sara (Mimi Michaels), a prison nurse who is attacked and turned into a vampire.   This would be the only part of the franchise which revolves completely around a female vampire.

30 Days of Night "Dark Days"

In the finally of the franchise one of the survivors of the original film Stella goes around doing lectures about what happened in Alaska attempting to expose the vampires existence to the world though no one believes her.  She is eventually confronted by a group of people who have also encountered them that are now hunting the vampires.   Their goal is to take out the vampire Queen Lillith (Mia Kirschner). At this point Kirschner and fangs pretty much go hand and hand considering having them in Dracula: The Series and the Vampire Diaries. 

Since this movie takes place in main land big city the vamps are a lot better looking than the ones in the first.  Still Feral at least there's some hot ones.  Especially a blonde who shows up quite a bit toward the end.

The films ending kind of annoys me after everything she goes through but as long as you don't mind a bit of gore I found it very enjoyable.  More so than the original by quite a bit.