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 group of vacationers find a guy at a cemetery who ends up being a vampire who shifted into the body of a man who turns out to be the corpse of one of the vacationers dead brother.
Female Vampire Factor: The main vampire in the film Ramos/Ryan is in a highlander like battle with another vampire named Kronin who was trained with him. Kronin killed their master and wants to kill him out of jealousy. The group Ramos/Ryan stays with decides they want to help by being turned after that vampire kills several members. This includes the ex girlfriend of the host body Michelle
and his host bodies sister Carry.
Unfortunately this pretty much gets wasted on a quick fight scene so you don't get much vampirism out of them once they're turned.
On top of that the transformation itself gets used more for light comedy.
Final Opinion: This film suffers from the same general plot point issues as most straight to DVD films but unlike most the characters are actually entertainingly likeable when they go through their forced tension. Otherwise the film is just basically T&A where most scenes are just an excuse to show guys abs and girls in their bra and panties. In other words if National Lampoon or American Pie decided to make an action horror film this would be it. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.
The Gist: A genetically created vampire assassin is sent by a secret society to assassinate other vampires.
Clarification: Not exactly an original story considering the 1998 film "Razor Blade Smile" pretty much had the same story but a rated "R" version. The way the story plays out makes this film more along the lines of "Kill Bill" in which the main assassin spends the bulk of the film picking off targets one by one than any horror film.
Selling Point: The film has a lot of action with very little slow down. Female Vampire Factor: The Vampire Assassin Rebecca is played by Claudia Coulter
Unlike Razor Blade Smile where the vampire assassin does do vampiric things like seducing and feeding on humans the one in this film only shows her fangs in anger and doesn't feed on anyone and mostly gets her blood from glasses (thew there is one dream sequence with an almost bite).
There are other female vamps in the film but with the exception of one very large woman who is targeted.
The rest get very little screen time and are mostly seen in flashbacks.
I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. I'd definitely choose the aforementioned Razor Blade Smile if I had to chose even though this film isn't terrible.
The Gist: Two guys setting up a pre-wedding guys night out for their friend in Vegas accidentally end up a part of a powerful vampires experiment in order to walk in the sun.
Clarification: A vampire named Sylvian wants to run for Governor of Nevada but in order to do that he needs a serum created that allows him to walk in daylight. Witnesses to the testing (which involved three female vampires being exposed to sunlight which failed) report it to police who investigate. While this is going on a guys friends take him to Vegas for a final guys night out before he gets married just to end up at a strip club owned by the main vampire and he just so happens to have the blood type needed to complete the serum. What makes matters worse is the nosey girlfriend of the guy throwing the bachelor party has planted a GPS tracker on them and follow them to the club putting them in danger as well.
Selling Point: Basically you have an all star cast of B grade Cinemax level porn stars and vampire "B" movie actors in a "higher than a normal budget that you'd normally see them in" PG film.
Female Vampire Factor: Only two of the female main characters in the film doesn't sport fangs at some point in the film with that being the female detective played by GiGi Erneta and the doctor creating the serum played by Delia Sheppard. Other than that the other three main females of the film are vampires by the films end. The first being Sylvians right hand, a stripper named Shayla aka Cinderella played by Melissa Brasselle.
She only appears sporadically in the film mostly interacting with Sylvain and her main purpose is eye candy more than as a true character important to the plot.
Then you have the girlfriends of the bachelor party goers Nikki and Rachel.
They end up sneaking into the vampire bar to catch their boyfriends actually having fun and put a stop to it but end up getting caught. Nikki played by Brandi Rackley who was the worse of the two girlfriends in the "paranoid bitchiness" department gets turned immediately and has no issues transitioning into a bloodthirsty killer and turning on her friends.
Rachel (Sonya Joy Sims) on the other hand is more "naggy" than anything so she doesn't transition whatsoever. The above video is where Nikki tries to get Rachel to feed for the first time which she doesn't. Rachel only fangs out briefly one time when her fiance comes to rescue her but never does again and is human again by the films finale through the death of the main vampire. The film also has multiple vampire strippers that get super limited fang time as well who are used to capture the guys but those are one off appearances.
Not a terrible film though pretty corny as most horror films with Tony Todd are. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5. Despite a strip club setting not a T&A vampire film whatsoever and actually takes itself seriously. If you want to get a T&A Brandi Rackley film check out Twilight Vamps where she's the main vampire.
The Gist: After a Vampire apocalypse a vampire hunter and a young kid look to drive to Canada to get away from the vampires and find civilization.
Clarification: If you've seen Zombieland or The Walking Dead, you've pretty much got the point of this film as it's the exact same premise. Two people heading north running into different people, taking them in and dealing with different obstacles on the way other than just the vampires such as cannibals and homicidal religious nuts.
Selling Point: If you like those shows you'll like this movie. It's a very good knockoff with an extremely well written and done story.
Female Vampire Factor: This is where all the compliments stop. Since it is a zombie movie knockoff the vampires are nothing more than zombies with fangs. Generally they're all decayed and deformed though there is a couple of exceptions.
At around the 47 minute mark of the film one does get extended time. During the scene the young kid goes searching through what was thought to be an abandoned house and sees a girl sleeping under the bed. She then reveals herself to be a vampire which took him by surprises as unlike the rest she still looked human. This scene deals with the apprentice vampire hunter learning to make a kill on something that still looks human and the conflict it causes.
I give the film a Vampire Beauty rating of 2 out of 5 (the only reason it doesn't get a 1 is the above scene is very good). If you're in it for sexy bite scenes from female vampires, steer clear. If you're in it for a great vampire movie I highly suggest this one.
The Gist: A cop with a fear of blood must face his fear as what starts as a sting operation against a counterfeiter ends up being a war with vampires.
Clarification: Basically this is just an exhibition for star Ron Halls martial arts skills. If you've ever seen a Jackie Chan movie that's about the level of plot development you're going to get here. Hall as cop Derek Washington gets attacked by 700 people (one at a time obviously) and is then taunted by the movies vampire antagonist Gustoff Slovak (Mel Novak) in long drawn out speeches in which he really doesn't say anything of value ever but makes him seem more "villainy". In other words it's like watching Blade but without that high budget getting in the way.
Selling Point: The cheese factor on this one makes it mildly entertaining. For example Slovak unlike other vampires I assume can be hurt by bullets so in order to keep from getting injured by them he flaps his Dracula like cloak around like he's punching them out of the air.
Female Vampire Factor: As I mentioned in the clarification this is basically just a martial arts exhibition so anyone who isn't the character Slovak is just a moving punching bag. That means there are no female vamp main characters or quite frankly any that get quality screen time other than to establish who is about to get killed next.
With that I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. After all they are pretty hot for the 3 to 5 seconds they're on camera before a stick gets put in their chest.
The Gist: A realtors life is in danger when a vampire becomes obsessed with his wife.
Clarification: So it's the same general Dracula story but told in modern day Los Angeles thus adding the thing most people were complaining about regarding the original Bram Stoker novel and that was hispanic gang members (ok not really). Basically Vladimir Sarkany (aka Dracula) wants a building really bad. He kills the first realtor for not being able to get the deal done (but the chick doesn't even know that you can use a key to open a car door instead of just the fob so she probably deserved it) and so the job goes to Jonathon Harker.
Harker is married to a british hotty named Lina who wants a family but for some reason he clams up when she reiterates this point to him after he tells her they might be coming into some big money. His main excuse was that he doesn't think he could be a good husband (kinda of late for that since they're already married) or father. Is this important to the plot?....not really but the movie wants you to know this anyway.
Sad thing is he is 100% right about this fact. When he brings the papers to Dracula's house for him to sign he notices a painting on the wall that looks exactly like his wife (it really doesn't but we'll just go with the movie and pretend it does). Instead of getting freaked out about a strange guy having a painting of his wife on his wall he gets excited and starts showing Drac cell phone pics of his lady love basically just to show the stalker "here's where you can find her" and even goes on to say he should meet her. Even after a guy sneaks into Harkers car and explains how Sarkany killed his wife Harker brushes it off and still brings Lina to meet him and apparently forgets about the crazy guys "he's a vampire and bit my wife" story even after they wake up and Lina has bite marks all over her and is really sick.
Selling Point/Female Vampire Factor: So this is basically one of those does she or doesn't she turn films so consider this a SPOILER (well because it is).
The object of Dracula's desire in this film is Lina Harker played by the lovely Victoria Summer
Now after her bite she falls ill and we go into watch mode with her as she develops sensitivity to sunlight and just becomes an all around introvert. It all seems normal until Jonathan catches her eating the family dog.
Harker being the complete moron he is after this point isn't convinced anything is majorly wrong and asks Lina's doctor whether her virus has dog eating as a side effect (remember, he's already been warned about vampires so there's really no excuse at this point). Eventually he starts to put two and two together with help and contacts Van Helsing (who he's referred to by the guy in his car from earlier) but by that point Sarkany already has Lina and the two go to save her.
Long story short, Drac kills Van Helsing and Lina and Jonathon kill Drac leaving a feeling of total disappointment until the films closing scene.
Lina has now taken over Sarkany's life and even lives in his old house. I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5. Very good attempt at a modern Dracula film (and above average by straight to DVD standards) but the Standard barer in this genre is still Wes Cravens Dracula 2000.
So here it is. I've been covering this film since the project was announced last October and now we have our first trailer.
The straight to DVD movie which has a tentative release date of October 1st in the United States has been subject to a lot of speculation as all reports of the plot left a major grey area as far as what the premise could be. Was it a direct remake of the 1988 sequal starring Julie Carmen? Was it a straight to DVD reboot of the franchise or was it a retelling of the original story with a twist? Well by what this trailer gives us the answer to all those questions is YES.
So seemingly we are pretending Collin Farrell never happened (which for many of us isn't hard to do). Gerri Dandridge is now a MILFY college professor who is a lesbian version of the killer playboy Chris Sarandon played in 1985 and like Carmen is going to use her sex appeal to pretty much get what she wants (and from reports that answer is still Charlies girlfriend "Amy"). If this is true then we can pretty much assume that Sacha Parkinson (Amy) will be dawning the fangs for a brief moment in this film as well (as this trailer hints that the film follows the layout of the 1985 film pretty accurately with Charlie, Ed and Amy running for their lives together the majority of it).
So this brings the question. Does this trailer give you enough that you're willing to give this franchise one more shot?
