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.

The Sexy Female Vamps of "Death Valley"

Death Valley is an American television series which aired on MTV for 1 season in 2011.  The premise was a combination of Reno 911 and pretty much any zombie killing video game created in the last decade.  The story followed a group of cops labled the UTF (Undead Task Force) who's main purpose is the control of any supernatural threat to human life (specifically Vampires, Zombie's and Werewolves all of which have been proven to be real and are a part of everyday life).  The cops of the group were all followed by a camera crew for a news documentary who (unlike shows like this) were often reoccurring characters themselves and part of the show.

The show combined several comedic, action and dramatic elements sometimes parodying other shows in the genre.  Sometimes the sudden change in tone made it hard to enjoy and halfway through the season the show seemed to take a more episodic formula (with ongoing storylines that continued from week to week instead of the more Reno 911esque formula of the cops dealing with different situations on each episode with the obsurdity of the case being the shows main selling point which the show started out being). 

The show was cancelled after it's first season leaving behind a cliffhanger story involving a weird alien creature killing one of the head vampires and Captain Dashells niece Natalie (played by Courtney Halverson) being turned into a vampire.  It's one of those things where you wish TV producers had the fore-site to make two episodes (one cliffhanger and one finale finale) in case the network they're on doesn't renew.  In this day where reality shows rule the world, episodic TV rarely lasts past one season.    

Vampiress Cast

Melissa Paulo (Sofia: Episode 1 "Pilot")

Sofia was the shows first introduction to the vampire hooker trade.  This is when female vampires exchange sex for the blood of horny "johns".  Apparently she is a repeat offender and this time around it results in her bodyguard (who I assume was waiting in the bathroom to attack the poor guy who thought he was going to get some) getting staked by the UTF.  This leads to big trouble for her among her social circles leading to her getting murdered in a hotel bathroom in the following episode.

 Azure Parsons (Aurora: Episode 3, "Blood Vessels")

In an episode that revolves around zombies and vampires attacking blood mobiles around the valley the actress who has a striking resemblance to Drew Barrymore from "Scream" plays a nurse who takes blood at a blood mobile. We find out she's a vampire in the last scene of the episode after taking blood from Captain Dashell where she takes the full blood pack to the back of the van and drinks it  What better coverup for a vampire right?  Aurora makes her return in the season/series finale "Peace in the Valley" (episode 12) where she is the night nurse who takes care of officer Johnson.  Being the womanizer he is having a sexy flirty nurse was the easiest way to get to him. Aurora's placement in the hospital (along with 3 other vampire nurses) was part of a plot to turn all the patients into vampires through IV's infected with vampire blood.

 Kenzie Dalton (Claire: Episode 6 "The Hottest Day of the Year")

Claire is the guest of honor in what's called a "turning party" on this episode.  That is where a young girl is chosen to be turned into a vampire.  This happens as part of the ongoing storyline where officer Kirsten Landry is tailing captain Dashells niece who is getting caught up in the fang banger scene.  Bonus: One of the vamps that helps turn her is former Big Brother contestant and lingerie football league player Jen Johnson.

Tania Raymonde (Officer Carla Rinaldi: Episode 8, "Vampire Hookers")

In this episode the undead task force comes together to crack down on the problem of guys soliciting vampire hookers for sex in exchange for their blood.  As part of the operation officer Rinaldi goes undercover as a vampire hooker.  Seeing her looking sexy results in her partner getting real jealous. (who can blame him, she looks great in the getup).  The two have tons of sexual chemistry throughout the series but it is eventually revealed a few episodes later that Rinaldi is a lesbian. (the two still almost hook up but that is yet another cliffhanger that will forever be unrealized due to the shows cancellation). 

Yet another decent show with tons of potential that doesn't get realized all the way through.  It just might have been that it didn't find it's nitch until too late.  My guess is more along the lines of it being the right show on the wrong network.  If a show like "Blue Mountain State" could survive for 3 seasons on Spike TV, this show could have done just as well there if not better.