The Gist: A vampiress in need of a therapist for herself and her fae friends bites and turns a psychiatrist who now along with his family have to adjust to his new condition.
Female Vampire Factor: The femme vamp in this film is "Vampire Goddess Victoria" (Sarah Palmer)
Outside of a hand full of scenes she is barely in the movie. She bites the doctor (in an animated scene) and has one scene were she explains the situation to the Dr
then has a final scene where she explains to the Dr.'s daughter what's wrong with him.
Final Opinion: So this was a pretty decent comedy. The bulk of the film consists of the newly turned vampire psychiatrist with the help of his very loyal wife and her dim witted Zach Galifianakis knockoff of a brother hiding his affliction from his daughter and their neighbors.
Unfortunately that gets harder and harder as his blood lust gets worse and the neighbors get more nosey.
Also throughout the film he gets unexpected visits from various monsters looking for therapy.
I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. Victoria's part in the film might as well been a cameo. Other than that the film isn't that bad.
The Gist: A female researcher is sent to an old manor in search of the missing half of an old cauldron unaware that those who live there are part of a cult who worships vampires and the daughter of the owner of the house happens to be one.
Female Vampire Factor: As mentioned the daughter of the manor Scarlet is the main vampire and is played by Florence Cady.
Throughout most of the film she comes off very normal other than being a bit snobby. The first hint that she might be a bit different is partway through the film when the researcher Izabelle has very sexual dreams about her. The most graphic being one that ends with Scarlet going full lesbian on Izabelle before fanging out and biting her.
It isn't until the end that she finally shows her true form after she realizes that Izabelle has killed her father who along with the rest of the cult were trying to sacrifice her. She then chases Izabelle around the manor for the remainder of the film trying to avenge him.
During this chase Izabelle also runs into a woman only referred to as the "Dark Lady of the Manor" who seemingly is the vampire who the cult worships.
In the end it looks like Izabelle has escaped. The dark lady burns in the sun going after her and Scarlet has fallen possibly to her death. Looks are deceiving though as one of the last scenes shows that Izabelle has herself turned (Scarlet bit her in the arm during a fight scene as she was trying to escape).
She then returns to the manor where Scarlet is shows to still be alive.
Final Opinion: Critics tore this film apart but honestly I can't disagree with them more. While the film does seemingly take forever to get to the point at no time in it was I ever bored or un-entertained. On top of that Scarlet was definitely my favorite type of vampire as she was a full on seductress who very much enjoyed haunting Izabelle to a level that I started getting some "Vampire Lovers" Camilla Karnstein vibes from her. In fact I would best describe this film as Vampire Lovers meets the Shinning. I'm going all in by giving it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5 as I found Scarlet that good being the sexy/scary chick once she got in that mode.
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.
