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 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.
The Gist: A female reporter stumbles on a hidden sanctuary for children who were turned into vampires.
Clarification: Originally titled "Limbo" the film is about a colony called Limbo. The residents of the colony are vampires who were turned as children. They are taken care of by a nurse who raises them as strict Catholics. Thing is the nurse has a plan to use her children to feed on humans as a method of ridding the world of sinners. The children aren't exactly safe as there is a group of slayers who know about them and want to destroy them.
There's also a side story of the woman finding out that her childhood love is one of the residents of the sanctuary and their struggling over their feelings for one another even though he hasn't aged since he was a child and she has. Don't worry it's just as cringe worthy as it sounds.
Female Vampire Factor: Well yeah there's a bunch of them but since they're all little kids the Vampire Beauty Rating is a 1 out of 5.
It is implied that the woman who finds Limbo is turned and they fake her death to allow her to stay there at the end of the film but we don't actually see it. The kids themselves with the exception of "the count" act just like regular kids unless they are threatened in which case they basically attack like piranha.
Film isn't bad, definitely more drama than horror as the vampires are characters you're supposed to sympathize with instead of fear which is a change of pace from most movies where child vampires are downright the scariest kind.
The Gist: A group of travelers headed to their new place of employment are detoured to a small town where the inhabitants intend on eating them.
Clarification: This film is your basic unlucky tourist somewhere in Europe story. The film starts with a group traveling on a bus. Each being hired by a rich family to work for them. During the trip the bus driver has a heart attack and dies so they drive to the next closest town to spend the night. During the day the town seems abandoned but by sun down everyone is out and about. Unfortunately for the travelers the town is full of cannibals and vampires.
Female Vampire Factor: The countess of the town is the only real vampire in this film. By that meaning she's the only one with fangs.
The rest of the town I would describe more as cannibals as it is established that they do butcher and serve human flesh as food. The only time you see them do anything really old school vampiric is a scene where the countess after sleeping with one of the tourists bites him and throws him to awating tourists who swarm him.
Despite the name and other than a few scenes this film is a lot more gruesome than sexy. It's pretty dark tone wise to say the least and probably a little ahead of its time as far as storytelling goes. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.
The Gist: After being turned into a vampire by a woman after a one night stand a man seeks out the vampire who turned him.
Clarification: So this is one of those "guy down on his luck thanks to a broken relationship finally gets out of the house just for the first woman to give him the time of day to be a vampire who turns him" film. After that the bulk of it is the guy (Jonathon) recruiting his friends and trying to find the woman who bit him for revenge. Along the way he meets a gothic vampire named Christian who takes him under his wing resulting in finding out that both he and Gloria (the vampire that turned him) are pawns in a game of one upsmanship between two more powerful vampires.
Selling Point: It's a more action filled horror soap opera similar to an Anne Rice flick.
Female Vampire Factor: The main vampire who starts the ball rolling is Gloria (Wanda Rovira)
You eventually found she bit the guy (Jonathon) because she was in love with him and lonely and the movie especially towards the end takes a very soap opera like turn. This is also the only point where you really see her especially during the end cat fight.
You have a few others. A blonde in particular who gets quite a bit of screen time but is never actually named in the film.
She is credited as "Vanesa" and played by Brenda Robles. The only thing we learn about her in the film is she is the main antagonists woman and her and Gloria don't get along leading to the above mentioned cat fight.
As per usual with this type of film you do get plenty of background vampires as well but the above two are the only ones where you won't miss them if you blink. It's a decent film even if it is riddled with cliches out of an Ann Rice book. Warning, it is a Spanish language film so you either need to know Spanish or get a copy with subtitles if you do take a look. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.
The Gist: A curse makes it so when a young girl turns 21 a group of female vampires will come for her to make her one of them and her father calls on the Luchadore Sampson to protect her from that happening.
Clarification: Sampson aka El Santo was a very popular Luchadore (pro wrestler) in Mexico so they made a bunch of movies where he basically is a super hero.
Generally the films are the equivalent to pro wrestling versions of a Jackie Chan film, in other words he single handedly beats up hordes and hordes of unnamed henchman using professional wrestling moves in repetitive fight scenes. Since obviously they won't show a man beating on women the vampire women have weird looking male henchman.
Selling Point: Vampire Women is in the title so pretty much all you need at this point.
Female Vampire Factor: Well there are a bunch in the film but the only one to get real screen time would be the head vampire of the group "Tandra" played by Ofelia Montesco
She is your basic vampire stereotype complete with dark eye makeup, leggy gown with cloak and haunting voice.
Then you have the Vampire Queen Thorina (Lorena Velazquez)
Basically the two spend the bulk of the film stalking the house the girl who is supposed to join them lives in doing lots of staring.
The film is cheesy with lots of dialogue overly describing the backstory of the plot throughout. This is both good and bad since it comes off like a 60's/70's style Japanese cartoon in execution but in turn the film gets straight to the action. One positive is that this was the only vampire film rifted on the 80's/90's show Mystery Science Theater 3000 so if you're looking for further entertainment with it you always have that option. Unfortunately there isn't much fanging out in the film with the most vampiric thing that happens in it being them turning into rubber looking bats in nearly every scene they appear. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.
