The Vampiress Episode: "Poltergeist: the Legacy"

"Darkness Falls"

Season 3

Episode 1

"Light of Day"

Season 3

Episode 2

Poltergeist: the Legacy was a Showtime original series which aired from 1996 to 1999 (switching networks twice during it's run to Sci Fi & USA).  The series was about a group of researchers who collected artifacts that often had mystical powers.  In other words just an updated version of Friday the 13th: The Series. 

The first two episodes of the last season of the series to air on Showtime were vampire related.  Even though the episodes have different titles they are actually two parts of the same story hence the title referring to a single night (the sun going down in part one and coming back up in part 2).  

As the story begins in the episode "Darkness Falls" Alex (played by Tommy Chongs daughter Robbi Chong) takes a trip to New Orleans (where half the population is vampires if you go by most TV and films).  While there she runs into an old college friend named Justine (Sarah Strange).  As Alex vents about her professional and life frustrations Justine informs her that she has changed for the better and can help make her life better as well and that's when we're shown that Justine is a vampire and takes the first bite.

Eventually Alex goes back to Legacy and starts to fall ill.  At this point she just pretty much becomes Lucy Westenra from Dracula.  No one knows what's wrong with her but she gets sicker by the day because every night Justine flies into her window and takes more blood.

This leads to Alex becoming a half vampire with the only thing left to make her a full vampire is to make her first kill and legacy member Nick becomes her target.

This episode ends with Justine getting a stake through the stomach and Alex going off with another master vampire.

In "Ray of Light" we pick up with Alex being taken by the master vampire who wants to make her one of his brood.  This episode is basically just a search and rescue episode.  Meaning it is less about the vampires and more about the members of Legacy going to find Alex. Because of this most of the vampires are just background characters.

At the end of the episode the master vampire kidnaps Nick so that Alex can finish the job and become a full vamp which she almost does.

 But as always in these kinds of episodes she is then reminded that she's human and not like that.

Followed by her snapping out of it and killing the master vampire herself via decapitation which releases her from the vampire curse.

So basically its a movie split into two parts and has a very "Forever Knight" feel to it.  I enjoyed "Darkness Falls" much more than I did "Ray of Light" but it is a very recommendable story as a whole none the less. 

Vampiress Review: "Hot Vampire Nights"

The Gist: A Vampiress calls into a late night radio show to share her stories of seducing woman.

Clarification: Not much to this film.  Just your run of the mill scene based lesbian softcore porn.  The radio call in segments act as no more than lead ins to the sex scenes which all consists of a woman doing something sexy by herself then the vampire showing up having sex with her then biting her at the end. The DVD does have a different cover. The odd thing on it is that the cover on the DVD actually features the stars of the film Titanic 2000/Sexy Disaster Movie.

Selling Point: If you like lesbian sex, you get an hour of it.

Female Vampire Factor: Former Playboy cover girl Shelly Jones plays the vampire in this film..

Basically the film is lots of scenes of her posing in sexy lingerie with wind blowing against her when she appears to her victims.  As far as biting goes, no fangs.  Just a very quick bite that signals the end of the scene where they go back to the radio show portion of the film.

This becomes no big deal considering the one time you do get to see fangs in the film which is after Mina (the vampire) turns the radio hostess (Anita Hayes), they are your cheap plastic fangs you get as a gag gifts around Halloween.

As a Vampire film it is totally lacking but pretty good as a Cinemax style softcore film so I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.

Vampiress Review: "Vampyros Lesbos"

The Gist: A woman becomes the target of a sexy lesbian vampire who wants her as a companion

Clarification:  Probably one of Jess Francos most well known films.  Vampyros Lesbos is more or less a really sexy lesbian version of Dracula.  The character "Linda Westinghouse" is pretty much just Mina, Countess Carody is Dracula, Agra is Renfield and so on.

Selling Point: Everything about Soledad Miranda

Female Vampire Factor: Many of Jess Franco's vampire films don't have fangs but in most cases that can be forgiven as he gets the seductress part of the vampire so right.  If you want to see Soledad Miranda with fangs she does have them in his version of Count Dracula but this is by far the superior film.  

Soledad Miranda (Countess Nadine Carody)

 Countess Carody's chosen profession in this film is that she is a performance artist who does nude vampire stage acts which probably makes her at least some inspiration for the character Regine Dandridge in Fright Night 2.

 Once she gets to you she has a psychic bond to you and can communicate with you subconsciously.  This results in anyone she takes a liking to eventually going crazy.  By the films end she has turned Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Stromburg) who doesn't want any part of the curse.  Linda is eventually told that in order to free herself she must kill the Countess which she does by draining her of her blood then shoving a sharp object through her eye.  It was pretty sexy up until the last part.

It's a great film from an artistic standpoint.  Miranda's role here made her stand out as probably one of the greatest female vampires in films of all time.  Sadly she would die in a car accident just a few weeks after this film premiered in August of 1970.  This becomes all the more tragic since she was originally scheduled to take the role Lina Romay had in the film Female Vampires (Erotikill).  That means we would have eventually got a film of Soledad Miranda in nothing but over the knee boots and a cloak sexing people to death (Not that Romay did a bad job by any means).  This film gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5 with only the lack of fangs really hurting it.