Travel Advisory: Town not on the map? DON'T STOP THERE!

The Vampires' Night Orgy (1974)
Starring: Jack Taylor, Dianik Zurakowska, Jose Guardiola, Charo Soriano, Fernando Romero, Sarita Gil, and Helga Line
Director: Leon Klimovsky
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After the driver of their bus dies of a heart attack, a collection of domestic workers on their way to new jobs at the castle of a wealthy Eastern European recluse detour to a village off the highway in a shadow-shrouded valley. Although it is not on the map, the citizens seem friendly enough, particularly the Countess who owns the entire settlement (Line). But that's only until the sun sets, at which time the outsiders become what's for dinner.

"The Vampire's Night Orgy" is one of those movies that is entertaining and scary almost despite itself. The characters are universally bland and ill-defined;--except for the "hero" who first noticed the heroine while peeping on her as she undresses, and who continues to secretly watch her even after they've met... and who ultimately decides to save his own skin over that of a little girl who may or may not still be alive; the script is a jumble of barely explained and completely unexplained events--the town is home to vampires but it is also home to some sort of spirit that looks like a little boy spirit and that seems to be at odds with the vampires, and then there's the cop-out ending to the film; the soundtrack is one of the most inappropriate and badly done I've come across, with Musak-style easy listening tunes playing as a vampire attack happens; and, finally, the acting is sub-par, be it on the part of the original cast or the voice actors doing the dubbing.

However, the film's pacing is perfect and clever staging and editing of scenes, plus decent cinematography go a long way to make up for the crummy actors. (Out of all the performers, only Jose Guardiola and Helga Line are any good... probably because they were called on to play parts like ones they've done before where they are called upon to seem friendly yet still carry a mysterious and undefinable sinister air about them.)

Also, despite the fact that one of the story's secrets is given away in the title--there's going to be an abundance of vampires showing up at some points, and what better place than a town where the sun never shines and that isn't on the map?--the way the vampires are deployed as the film unfolds is handled very well. For someone who's watched as many vampire movies as I have, it was particularly refreshing to have a scene where a vampire woman is chasing a half naked man around the bedroom instead of the other way around. It's a little thing, but it's one of the many quirks of this film that makes it fun.

Another thing that's well-handled is the use of children in the film. Often-times, children are annoying in horror movies, either because the child actors aren't any good or because their use in the plot is predictable. While the screenwriters Gabriel Burgos and Antonio Fos must not be parents, must not have had siblings, and must have been raised by wolves with the way they portray children and parenting in this film, they did manage to create a very horrific graveyard sequence build around the mysterious ghost/demon child and the young daughter of one of the traveling domestic workers. As the scene unfolded, I grew increasingly apprehensive for the girl, because I thought I knew where it was going... even if I was equally certain that there was no way the filmmakers were going to dispatch a child in the way it looked like they were going to. And yet they did! It almost makes up for the fact that earlier in the picture, the girl witnesses a man being brutally mutilated yet says nothing to any of the adults. (I'm not going to go into details about the graveyard scene involving the little girl... it has to be experienced.)

The touches of black humor throughout the film are also adeptly done, especially those revolving around the meals served at the inn while the characters are staying there. I can't offer any details without spoiling the movie, but it'll make you think twice about eating any "local delicacy" while traveling ever again.

The strengths of "The Vampires' Night Orgy" almost make up for its weaknesses. If a little more effort had been put into giving it a decent ending, I would probably have given it a Six or Seven Rating. It's well worth checking out, especially if you're looking for a vampire movie to round out a Bad Movie Night that can be seen by young teens.

'From Dusk Till Dawn' is one of Tarantino & Rodriguez's best

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Starring: George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, Ernest Liu, Salma Hayek, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, and Cheech Marin
Directors: Robert Rodriguez
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Professional criminals Seth Gecko (Clooney) and Richard Gecko (Tarantino) take a family hostage (including Keitel, Lewis, and Liu) and flee to Mexico following a robbery gone bad. Here, they take temporary refuge in an isolated strip club until they can meet up with their contact. But the club harbors are dark secret, and the Gecko Brothers and their hostages must work together if they are to survive the night.

There are a rare few movies that take as sharp, surprising, and, frankly, genre-hopping plot turns as "From Dusk Till Dawn" and not lose control and explode into a fiery wreckage. Even fewer do it as effectively as is done here, as, for the most part, they have no re-watch value, because the main point of the film is the sudden change in plot direction and once you've experienced it, there's no reason to go back.

But "From Dusk Till Dawn" is so jam-packed with action and grim humor that it's worth coming back to every few years; you will either find something in it that you missed the first time around, or there is simply so much going on that you only remembered the highlights.

The film succeeds first and foremost because of its strong script. Quentin Tarantino's writing has never been as good as it is here... maybe he should try writing a few more linear screenplays every now and then so he can focus on character and dialogue instead of trying to be clever. Nothing he has written before or since has so many funny lines and really well done black humor; like some of the best moments in "Pulp Fiction", you will find yourself laughing so hard you'll tear up, even if you know you shouldn't be laughing at the gory, nasty action unfolding before you.

Secondly, the direction from Robert Rodriquez is rock solid at every stage of the film's unpredictable course from the opening to closing credits. The first half is a tense, border-line psychological thriller about violent killers on the edge and innocent victims trapped in their grasp. The acting is solid and the cinematic approach is intimate in the way scenes are filmed. We can feel the emotional and physical threats that the various characters pose to one another, and we know that whatever will unfold in the hijacked RV, it's not going to end well.

But there's no way we can predict exactly how badly and strangely things are going to end, because the first half of the movie gives no hint whatsoever what is to come...

And Rodriquez not only manages the transition from thriller to gory and over-the-top violent horror movie monster fest, but he does so with such efficiency and style that the viewers are startled and surprised by the sudden genre change, but we are not confused or put off by it. We all have a "what the hell just happened?!" moment, but Rodriguez is in such tight control of his movie that even as the story explodes into complete and utter mayhem, he never loses our attention for a moment. In fact, the shock only pulls us tighter in. And, of course, his control is bolstered by the exceptionally well-crafted script from Tarantino.

Finally, there is the acting. Every performer in this film may be portraying stereotypical characters, but they do it with great conviction and zest. Every actor in the film brought their A-game to the shoot, and every character seems fully alive on the screen. Clooney is fantastic as the handsome but dangerous hood with a (small) heart; Tarantino is great as the whiny but crazy hood; Lewis rocks as the rebellious teenager who doesn't comprehend the danger she's in; and Keitel excels as the concerned and deeply religious father who just wants to get himself and his kids out of the situation alive. (Keitel is perhaps gives the most admirable performance of all, because it is unlike almost everything else I've seen him do.}

The supporting cast is equally superb in their performances, with Salma Hayek leading the pack as the strip club's main attraction--a stripper whose act involves a boa snake and other twisted elements--as she manages to be very sexy and very menacing, at the same time on occasion. Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, and Danny Trejo stand out as a pair of outlaw bikers that join the Geckos in their desperate attempt to survive the night, while B-movie mainstays Cheech Marin and John Saxon also appear in small but memorable roles, due to their good performances.

"From Dusk Till Dawn" is a film that succeeds on every level. If you have a taste for trashy entertainment and don't mind gore, it's a film that you absolutely must see. (And if you're reading these words and haven't seen it yet, you shouldn't waste another minute. Rent or buy it NOW!)

'Fangs of the Living Dead' has no bite

Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)
Starring: Anita Ekberg, Julian Ugarte, John Hamilton, Diana Lorys, Adriana Ambesi, and Guy Roberts
Director: Amando de Ossorio
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A model (Ekberg) is summoned to her ancestral home to receive her inheritance. She comes under the influence of her sinister uncle (Ugarte) and the cult of vampires that is forming around him.

"Fangs of the Living Dead" plays like a lobotomized version of "Dracula", with several scenes heavily inspired by the novel and with Ekberg's Sylvia standing in for Jonathan Harker, crossed with a "dark old house" movie and flavored with the graphic sensibilities and tight dresses of 1960s Hammer gothic horror flicks. If the filmmakers had stuck with this approach, the over-the-top acting, the melodramatic dialogue, and the dippy characters would all add up, whether intentional or not, to a hilarious send-up of the gothic horror genre. The overblown soundtrack music only makes it all the more funny. Unfortunately, it's all ruined when writer/director Amando de Ossorio tries his hand at a twist ending that tries to undo everything that unfolded in the film and reduces what was funny to a level of idiocy. And the twist on the twist doesn't help any. In fact, these are such misguided twists that one wonders if everyone involved with the production has severe memory issues, as it doesn't fit with much of what unfolded earlier. (That said, the "twist" itself could be a misfired attempt at spoofing horror movies, which would mean the movie was intended as a send-up all along; in the 1930s and 1940s, it wasn't uncommon for the supposed supernatural elements in a film to be written off through a revelation in the third act that it was all a hoax. The most blatant example of this can be found in "Mark of the Vampire".)

The film is further crippled by the fact that headliner Anita Ekberg is miscast. At 38, she was a bit long in the tooth to play the part of the "naive young heiress" and as a result she comes across more like a blonde so dumb that calling her retarded would be a compliment.

However, for all its weaknesses, the film features some nice cinematography, and the director manages to evoke a chilling atmosphere here and there, especially during the sequence when Ekberg is running around the castle in terror, and the one that riffs on the "Dracula" scene where the heroes wait for the undead Lucy in the graveyard. The drunken village doctor who stands in for the Abraham Van Helsing character is also a great deal of fun... and then there's the vamp-on-vamp battle to the death during the film's climax, one of the great cat-fights in cinematic history.

In the end, though, the bad far outweighs the good. The film rates the lowest possible Three I can give it, and it is only suitable for viewing as part of a Bad Movie Night.

Hammer Dracula: The Van Helsing Papers

I'm a bit of a continuity freak. So much so that one of my jobs involved creating a line bible to help straighten out the tangled and badly maintained continuity of one of the creative properties it owned; and that my comic book collection was not sorted by title, but by storyline and characters appearing in certain issues.

For this reason, I view the classic Hammer Dracula films not as one series but as two. It prevents me from having a nervous breakdown while watching them, because "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" is not a sequel to the movie that preceeds it in release order, and the date for Van Helsing's final battle against Dracula in "Dracula 1972 AD" doesn't fit with the date given in "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires."

I break the Hammer Draculas into "The Van Helsing Papers" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula." Here are reviews of the films that make up "The Van Helsing Papers." The rest will follow in a similar post next week.


Horror of Dracula (1958)
Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Carol Marsh
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

This is where the "Van Helsing Papers" cycle of Dracula films starts. It is also the first vampire movie produced by Hammer Films.

"The Horror of Dracula" starts out looking like a straight adaptation, but ten minutes in, it takes a hard left when its revealed that Jonathan Harker has come to Castle Dracula not as a hapless victim but as an agent of vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing and that Harker is fully aware of Dracula's true nature.


But it all works, because when Van Helsing appears on screen (played by the late, great Peter Cushing), we get a different interpretation of him than offered in Stoker's novel, and a different spin on vampirism as well. In the Hammer version, Dracula is devoted to spreading a cult of undeath that consists not only of vampires but of human minions who thirst for everlasting life and who are committed to turning the world into a cesspool of evil and corruption. Van Helsing is a man both of action and letters who is the center of a network of brave men and women who have dedicated themselves to eradicating this sinister evil, which, by the close of the 19th century, is viewed as so much superstitious poppycock.

As "Horror of Dracula" unfolds, Dracula claims Mina and Lucy as victims, mostly because he wants to take revenge against Harker and Van Helsing for being pains in his rear... but this vindictive streak becomes his downfall, as Van Helsing penetrates Dracula's lair and confronts him in one of the neatest climaxes of any of Hammer's Dracula films.

While Cushing's energetic, action-hero Van Helsing is a sharp departure from how the character comes across in Stoker's novel, the Dracula in this and subsequent films in what I designate as the "Van Helsing Papers" is truer to Stoker's portrayal of him than any other film version I've come across. He's not the incongruously eveningwear-sporting-but-decaying-castle-dwelling Bela Lugosi, nor is he the pathetic whiner that Gary Oldman portrayed in so so-very-inaccurately named "Bram Stoker's Dracula"... no, the Lee Dracula is a blood-thirsty monster who preys on the life and emotions of the living. He is a strange and alien fearsome outsider, just as Stoker wrote him.

It's over 50 years since "Horror of Dracula" was released, yet it's still a an exciting item to pop in the VCR or DVD player when you're looking for a chilling, adventuresome diversion.



Brides of Dracula (1960)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Yvonne Monlaur, Martia Hunt, and David Peel
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

The second film in "The Van Helsing Papers” cycle, it opens with a bit of voice-over that informs us that although Dracula is dead, his cult of vampiric corruption lives on. Yes, although he is invoked in the title, Dracula is very much a pile of ash back in his castle.

We are introduced to Marianne (Monlaur), a young French woman on her way to take up a teaching position at a Transylvanian boarding school. She is forced to spent the night at an isolated castle where she concludes Baroness Meinster (Hunt) is a mad woman who is keeping her handsome young son (Peel) prisoner. She helps him escape, but learns to her terror that the madness is the castle wasn’t limited to the baroness and that there was a good reason why she was keeping her son locked up—he is a master vampire who has been preying on and torturing peasant girls in the area for many years.


After fleeing the castle, she encounters Dr. Van Helsing who has come to the area following reports of vampire attacks. When the vampire comes to prey on the staff and girls at the boarding school and to ultimately claim Marianne as his bride, Van Helsing takes up his mallet and stake to end his unnatural existence.

Van Helsing has a harder time with this vampire than he did with Dracula. While Dracula beat the tar out of him in “Horror of Dracula,” the Baron Meinster nearly makes Van Helsing himself into one of his vampire minions… and Van Helsing must take extreme measures to stop the vampiric disease from spreading through his blood. His creativity and resourcefulness is also stretched to the limit when he stops Meinster from making good his final escape with the largest improvised cross in the history of vampire hunting.

“Brides of Dracula” is superior to “Horror of Dracula” is several ways, making it among the rarest of sequels.

First, the Baron’s castle from the first part of the movie features some spectacular sets (some of which are redressed in “The Gorgon”); the sequence in the castle is also one of the most deeply creepy in any of the Hammer Films, as Marianne comes to realize that she is trapped in a house of madness and evil.

Second, Cushing is at the top of his game here. His performance is full of zeal and it is the best he gave in any of the Hammer Films he was featured in. The mixture of horror and steely determination that he gives Dr. Van Helsing as he confronts the vampires and their twisted human servants is very well acted. He is also served well by a plot that allows the Van Helsing character to shine, fantastic sets, and excellent lighting and camera work that constantly reinforces the film’s gothic horror tone.


Finally, the climax is one of the most thrilling of any of Hammer’s vampire movies, and Baron Meinster’s doom provides the best death of any vampire in their productions.

All in all, “Brides of Dracula” may be the best film director Terence Fisher ever made. It is certainly the best of all Hammer’s Dracula movies. (And it’s quite possibly made stronger by the fact that Dracula is nowhere in it. I think Peel’s evil, bug-eyed Baron Meinster comes across as far more sinister and evil that Lee’s staid and rather distant Count Dracula ever did.)

And speaking of Dracula, while Van Helsing is busy with Meinster, something is stirring elsewhere…



Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Starring: Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, and Andrew Keir
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

“Dracula: Prince of Darkness” is a direct sequel to “Horror of Dracula.” It starts with a recap of the dramatic finale where Van Helsing finishes Dracula off with a surprising dash and leap toward the rising sun. It’s his only appearance in the film, but as it continues the theme of Dracula at the center of an evil pagan cult of spiritual and undead corruption, I’m treating it as part of this cycle.

In “Dracula: Prince of Darkness,” two English couples vacationing in Transylvania ignore a warning from the eccentric Father Sandor (Keir) to change their touring plans to give the region around Castle Dracula a wide berth. They don’t take his advice, so they inevitably find themselves abandoned by superstitious locals in the mountain wilderness. Luckily, a coach comes by, and they are taken to Castle Dracula where the caretaker offers his hospitality. Before the night is out, one of the tourists is sacrificed in a bloody ritual to restore life to Dracula’s ashes. Will any of them escape the house of horror, and Dracula’s lust for blood and female flesh?

Director Terence Fisher once again helms a gorgeous production with lots of gothic horror moments and fine acting on the part of the entire cast. However, I must say that the usually delightful Barbara Shelley plays a character so whiny in this film that I found myself wishing that Dracula or his knife-wielding human follower would put her out of my misery!

"Dracula: Prince of Darkness" is also the first time in the Hammer films that Dracula suffers a truly embarrassing death—and it sets the standard for the climax of just about every Hammer Dracula movie from this point forward. Basically, after being cornered at sunset by Father Sandor and surviving tourists turned vampire hunters, Dracula falls through the ice on the moat around his own castle and is rendered inert and helpless by the running water underneath it. It’s a shame that the final confrontation between good and evil in this film is so weak, because the menacing presence of Dracula and the chase scene that leads up to the climax makes for very dramatic and satisfying viewing.

Dracula isn’t exactly destroyed at the end of this film, and his death-by-ice-water leads to the best Hammer vampire resurrection in “Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.” However, I do not include that film in “The Van Helsing Papers”, because there are numerous bad fits continuity-wise with other Dracula films.

While “Dracula Has Risen From the Grave” has a lot of elements that make it worth seeing, but there are also many things in the film that just don’t match up with what we’ve seen in “Horror of Dracula” and “Dracula: Prince of Darkness.” Most obviously, the geography around Castle Dracula, not to mention the structure itself, have changed. So, the movie gets set aside. (You can read my review of it by clicking here, however.)



The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires
Starring: Peter Cushing, Julie Ege, David Chiang, and Robin Stewart
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The year is 1904. Decades have passed since Dr. Van Helsing first took up arms against the cult of vampires, and his struggle has brought him to China. While guest-lecturing at a university, Van Helsing is approached by His Ching (Chiang), who, together with his brothers and sister, have dedicated themselves to ridding his native village of the Seven Golden Vampires which have terrorized it for centuries; they require Van Helsing’s expertise in vampire-killing to augment their own considerable martial arts skills, however. Van Helsing and his son Leyland immediately offer their expert services. After wealthy Swedish adventuress Vanessa Buren provides funding, they embark upon the long and dangerous trek to the isolated village of Ping Kuei, facing both bandit lords and vampire minions before the final apocalyptic showdown between the vampiric army of the Seven Golden Vampires and Van Helsing’s band of heroes. Then, as the smoke is clearing, and heroes and villains alike are taking stock of their dead, Van Helsing’s arch-nemesis Dracula makes his presence known—and only one of them will walk away from this final confrontation.

When it was released, “The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires” was something new and spectacular. It was the first serious effort to mix the horror film genre with the martial arts genre. With everything from “The Bride With White Hair” to “Blade” to “Vampire Effect” on our shelves, this movie may not seem like a big deal, but when Hammer and the Hong Kong-based Shaw Bros. production company teamed up, they were blazing new territory.

“The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires” is a film with great potential and an even greater premise, but in the final analysis it fails to live up to both. While there are some great touches in the film surrounding Chinese vampire lore—the lesser vampire minions of the Seven Golden Vampires are “hopping vampires” and shrines to Buddha repulse the evil undead, not just the typical cross—and Cushing and the rest of the cast deliver fine acting performances, the martial arts side of the film is quite lackluster, even by the standards of Shaw Bros. movies of the 1970s. The big battle between the vampire army and the vampire-busting martial artists might have been more exciting if the martial arts displays had been. Certainly, that climactic battle had plenty of horror—with some quite unexpected twists and deaths as it unfolds—but its Kung Fu is weak.

On the upside, Cushing is a joy to watch as always (despite the fact that the actor was dealing with health issues and severe depression following the death of his wife), and his Van Helsing is again a fun mix of scholarly dedication and grim, determined action. He has great on-screen chemistry with everyone in the supporting cast—particularly Ege and Stewart. The addition of Leyland Van Helsing, the son of the great vampire hunter, is a nice addition to the mythos, and it’s too bad that nothing more came of that. (Hammer was always throwing in great characters in the Dracula films that never developed into anything—such as Father Sandor from “Dracula: Prince of Darkness.” But in the case of the younger Van Helsing, primed to take over the vampire-busting franchise, if the character was added simply because the film was deemed to need a vibe younger than the ailing Cushing, or if there were ideas of plans for a new Dracula/Van Helsing direction, “Legend” was destined to be among Hammer Films’ final productions.

Speaking of Dracula, readers have probably noticed that he’s only been mentioned in passing during this discussion. That’s because when Baker and the actors and the rest of the crew were all done with “The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires,” Dracula was nowhere to be found in the story. In fact, it was Hammer executives who insisted that Dracula be added to the film, so Cushing was called back for an additional scene. An opening sequence featuring Dracula (played by John Forbes-Robinson) was hastily thrown together, along with a denouement that had Van Helsing dispatch Dracula without even being missed by his companions who stepped outside a moment before the Prince of Darkness revealed himself. I really can’t imagine what the people at Hammer were thinking; I think the pointless presence of Dracula in “The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires” weakens the film rather than strengthens it.

By the way, I recommend you get the version of “The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires” that Anchor Bay released as part of their Hammer Collection. Both the DVD and the VHS versions contain the US release of the movie that was titled “The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula.” The bit of film butchery is an example of how editing can make or break a film—and in the case of this movie, the editing definitely broke it. They took an entertaining, straightforward vampire/kung-fu hybrid adventure film and turned it into a confusing mess. When the Americans were done transforming “The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires” into “The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula,” they had a movie that even Ed Wood and Uwe Boll would describe as crap.

For all its flaws, “The Legends of the Seven Golden Vampires” is a very enjoyable film. Cushing’s performance alone makes it worth seeing, and it’s a nice end to the grouping of Hammer Films that I refer to as the “Van Helsing Papers.”

Vincent Price is 'The Last Man on Earth'

The Last Man on Earth (aka "The Night Creatures", "Wind of Death", and "Night People") (1964)
Starring: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
Director: Sidney Salkow (or Ubaldo Ragona, depending on the source)
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dr. Robert Morgan (Price) spends three lonely years battling undead monsters after a mysterious plague that kills most people while causing others to rise as vampires sweeps the world. He starts to uncover signs that someone else is battling the vampires, and soon afterwards he meets Ruth (Bettoia), a fellow survivor. But is Ruth what she seems, or are the vampires getting smarter and is she part of an elaborate trap?


"The Last Man on Earth" is a fantastic horror film. It is creepy up to the very last moment, and it creates its sense of horror, dread, and even sorrow without resorting to gory violence or even obscenity.

Price is excellent in a rare part as someone who is a thoroughly sympathetic character who does everything in the film with the very best of intentions. The supporting cast are okay, but they are really just there for Price to play off.

This is a movie that's well worth the time it'll take you to see it... and it's a movie that all those oh-so-clever filmmakers out there who are churning out horror and suspense films with lame (and even movie-destroying) twist endings need to see. "The Last Man on Earth" offers a twist and then a twist on that twist, and both make the movie a stronger story.

You just can't keep a bad vampire down....

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968)
Starring: Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Christopher Lee, Ewan Hooper, and Barry Andrews
Director: Freddie Francis
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After a craven, cowardly priest (Hooper) accidentally revives Dracula (Lee) from an icy grave in a shadowy crevice of a Transylvanian mountain, the vampire lord discovers his castle has been sealed with blessings and cruxifixes. Swearing revenge, he pursues the Monsignor who made his home inaccessible to him (Davies).


Although it's a direct sequel to "Dracula: Prince of Darkness", "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave" pays little attention to continuity. (Castle Dracula is a fortress in this movie, where it was more of a chateau in the two previous films.)

That aside, however, the film presents a Dracula who is far more evil than he's been portrayed before, cramming more nasty needs into the limited amount of time he is afforded into the story into this one movie than in the previous two. The opening of the film where a murdered girl is found stuffed inside a church's bell is one of the more shocking openers to any of Hammer's horror films. Dracula's pursuit of Monsignor Mueller and his family--particularly of the lovely Maria (Veronica Carlson) also gives rise to a number of chilling moments.

The movie also features some fine acting, gorgeous sets and great camerawork... not to mention the gorgeous cleavages of Carlson and Barbara Ewing! In other words, it's got all the elements we expect to find in a Hammer vampire flick from the 1950s and 1960s.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from the lack of a strong antagonist to combat Dracula. Rupert Davies is okay, but he's no Peter Cushing (Van Helsing in "Horror of Dracula") or Andrew Keir (Father Sandor in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness"). It also doesn't help the film that the good guys triumph in the end here because of a deus ex machina finale. (And I think that plot device has rarely been so literally on display as it is in this film.)

If you're a fan of Hammer's vampire movies, I think you'll enjoy "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave". It's not quite as good as "Horror of Dracula" or "Dracula: Prince of Darkness", but it's a nice chiller.

'Mrs. Amworth' is a decent vampire tale

Mrs. Amworth (2007)
Starring: Magenta Brooks, Jim Nalitz, Daniel Ross, and Christy Sullivan
Director: Frank Sciurba
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Recently widowed Mrs. Amworth (Brooks) returns from years abroad to take possession of her family home and lands in the quiet town of Wilton... and soon mysterious deaths start occuring. Is it coincidence, or, is she, as the town doctor (Nalitz) comes to suspect, or is she one of the walking dead--a vampire? And if he's right, will he be able to stop her from destroying a young photographer (Ross) and his journalist wife (Sullivan)?


"Mrs. Amworth" is a vampire movie that's worth seeing for its very strong feeling of a classic vampire tale. In fact, this film conveys more of the tone, feeling, and subtext of Stoker's "Dracula" novel than any movie adaptation of it I've seen, including the one titled "Bram Stoker's Dracula".

The film a bit slowly paced--there are a few scenes that I'd even accuse the director of arranging the way they are because he was padding the film's run-time--but it's because of the pace that it captures the feel of traditional vampire stories so well. It also brings to the screen more effectively than any other vampire movie I've seen the underlying fear of The Stranger/Foreign that so permeated Stoker's novel. In this film, Mrs. Amworth is the outside corrupting influence that enters into a peaceful community and happy circle of friends, bringing death and terror.

For all my talk about "Dracula", this film is actually a loose adaptation of E.F. Benson's vampire story "Mrs. Amworth." The film contains some of the key scenes from the story, but they aren't set up very effectively, and they feel like they're included almost to make sure that there's more left of original source than its title. For example, Mrs. Amworth's apparent death by car accident is set up in the story from the beginning, and it could easily have been done so in the film, but instead it just sort of comes out of left field. (The film also has a different ending than the short story, one that I supposed was devised partly due to budget, partly to not make the film COMPLETELY traditional as far as vampire stories go. Being something of a traditionalist myself, and given that this movie feels VERY traditional to me, up until the ending, I wish they'd gone with something closer to the short story.)


In the final analysis, "Mrs. Amworth" is a decent, if unspectacular, vampire movie. The actors in the film are okay, although no one in particularly stands out; they all do a creditable job. The same is true of the cinematography and overall direction of the film... it's a solid bit of work, but nothing particularly spectacular. The script could have done with a little more polish, as some of the dialogue is flatter than pancakes, and, as mentioned above, some of the scenes feel like they've been padded.

As low-budget vampire films go, "Mrs. Amworth" is a good effort that's worth checking out.






(You can also read the short story upon which the film was based at my Fiction Archive by clicking here.)

'Rise' is a decent vampire flick

Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)
Starring: Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, James D'Arcy, and Margo Harshman
Director: Sebastian Gutierrez
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Features reporter Sadie Blake (Liu) is raped and murdered, but that's only the beginning. She wakes up in the morgue as a vampire, and soon sets out to take revenge on those who killed her and to stop them from doing what they did to her to anyone else. An obsessed police detective (Chiklis) who lost his daughter to the same killers (Harshman) is also on their trail, but will they help each other, or ruin each others quests?


"Rise: Blood Hunter" plays as if it was scripted from the outline of someone's "Hunter: The Reckoning" or "Vampire: The Masquerade" RPG campaign. If you understand what that entails, you'll either know this movie is for you right now, or you'll know it absolutely isn't.

(The title is sort of a dead giveaway if you've seen any of White Wolf's Storyteller games over the past 15 years. There's also the fact that Liu character tells her editor that the "vampires" she just published an article about were a bunch of wanna-bes that were playing "like D&D... but with nipple-rings" makes me believe even stronger there's a gaming campaign somewhere in this film's evolution.)

That aside, it's basically a paint-by-numbers modern-day vampire flick, with a victim who rises from the dead and wants to retain her humanity while getting revenge for her condition. It's an engaging enough movie, but there's nothing terribly original here, and there won't be any surprises for well-seasoned horror fans. (And those White Wolf gamers will find even fewer surprises... although that may be a selling point.)

There's nothing all that bad about the flick, but there's also nothing to make you go "wow!" while you're watching it.

Technically, it's a very pretty movie. The camera-work is decent, and the director has a good notion of now to stage and pace an action flick. He's a little less adept at invoking horror and dread, having to rely mostly on "Boo!"-type scares, although the scene where Liu's character wakes up in the morgue shows that Gutierrez might be able to produce a scarier movie. It's definately the horror high point of the film. (On the other hand, he probably should not attempt comedy. The two scenes that are clearly intended to be comic relief fall flatter than a pancake.)

Acting-wise, the film is mostly decent. Everyone is playing figures more than characters, except for Liu... and she demonstrates that she probably should stick to light-weight action roles or utter coldhearted bitch parts. She was at her weakest when she was trying to portray emotions such as sorry or uncertainty, with only the scene where she calls her mother on the phone after her "death" being the only such scene where her performance is convincing. She does fine as the hardbitten, vampire-asskicker, but her range seems to fail her otherwise.

In the end, I think lovers of slick-looking, Beautiful People Vampires movies will enjoy this film. (You'll enjoy it twice as much if you prefer playing Toreador or Ventrue Clan vampires in White Wolf games.) It might be worth seeing for the rest of you horror and action fans out there, just don't expect anything you haven't seen before.

Reviews of Classic Vampirella

For over 15 years, Harris Publishing has struggled to restore the classic icon of horror in comics, Vampirella, to the pinnacle of glory she acheived in the late 1960s and 1970s. There have been glimmers of genius in their efforts, but they've mostly been dissapointing. It seems like none of the modern writers have been able to capture what made the original comics so cool and fun. (Nor have any of the modern artists been able to match the glory of the art.)

In this post, I review four graphic novel collections that Harris has produced of the original Vampirella tales. Some of them are still available from the publisher at www.vampirella.com, but they are, sadly, mostly out of print.

Still... all hail the boot-wearing, alien vampiress with the impossibly skimpy costume! Theses books are some of the best Halloween reading you'll ever lay eyes upon, as they are brimming with vampires, witches, zombies, and demons. Even Dracula himself puts in several appearances!

(Among the illustrations are some of my favorite Vampirella portraits over the years, with the Dave Stevens illo at the top being my all-time favorite. It originally appeared on the back cover of "Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos".)


Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos
Writer: Archie Goodwin
Artists: Tom Sutton and Jose Gonzalez
Rating: Nine of Ten of Stars

In the late 1960s, magazine publisher Warren introduced "Vampirella Magazine", an anthology series presenting horror comics with a "mature" flavor that was hosted by a vampire vixen who ware an impossibly skimpy one-piece bathing suit and high-heeled boots.

In fairly short order, however, one of the most talented creators to ever work in comic books--Archie Goodwin--took the character to center stage, developed a supporting cast of friends and foes and put down a foundation that other creators have been building on for nearly 40 years.

"Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos" is a paperback that was produced by Harris Comics in the early 1990s, shortly after they acquired the publishing rights for the Vampirella comics. It contains the early Archie Goodwin stories that chronicle Vampirella's first serious adventures. First, we have her initial encounter with the adherents of the Cult of Chaos and the introduction of her loyal companion Pendragon, as illustrated by Tom Sutton in some of his earliest professional work. The art's a bit rough around the edges, but the future hights his talent will soar to is still evident. Then, as Vampirella's struggles against the Cult continue and she finds herself persued by blind psychic and vampire hunter (and future ally) Conrad Van Helsing, the art chores are taken over by Jose Gonzales, the artist who is most closely associated with the Vampirella character. The art is postively amazing, and the stories also get stronger as Goodwin perfects a forumla that mixes equal parts of humor, horror, and B-movie style sci-fi as Vampirella squares off against angels of death, lycanthropes, zombie-masters, love-sick sea demons, and even the strip's unique take on the vampire of vampire, Count Dracula.

Lovers of B-movies, quality comics, and sexy women in outfits that can't possibly exist outside of comics (or only if the wearer has lots of spirit-gum applied to her breasts and moves very, very carefully) shold seek out a copy of this book. (All joking aside, the tales contained in the pages of "Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos" truly are classic examples of high-quality comic book story telling.)



Vampirella: Transcending Time & Space
Writers: T. Casey Brennan and Steve Engelhart
Artist: Jose Gonzalez (cover by Dave Stevens)
Steve's Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

"Vampirella: Transcending Time & Space" was the second collection of classic Vampirella tales issued by Harris Comics after they revived the character in the early 1990s. It picks up where "Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos" (review here) left off, and writers Brennan and Englehart continued to build an excellent house on the foundation that master storyteller Archie Goodwin put down.

The book reprints seven stories, which not only continues Vampirella's clash with the Cult of Chaos, but also manages to pick up and resolve some left over story-threads from the previous book. A major storyline running through the bulk of the tales relates to the attempt by Dracula (who in the Vampirella mythos is an alien from the same planet as our heroine) to reject the Mad God Chaos, to cleanse his soul, and to atone for the many centuries of evil he has committed. It makes for very interesting reading.

Although solidly rooted in the Goodwin stories, the tales presented in "Transcending Time & Space" have a different, more freewheeling flavor. Where Goodwin tended to anchor most of his tales with horror genre mainstays (vampires, werebeasts, and demons) or references to classic genre fiction, the stories penned by Brennan and Englehart lean more heavily on science fiction and bizarre fantasy elements--servants of Chaos trap Vampi and friends in a Dream Dimenions; they're transported to a distant world inhabited by a thoroughly alien and monstrous creature; and then there's the all-powerful Conjuress who hopes to show Dracula the path to redemption. All of these elements, mixed with the sexy Vampirella, a dash of humor, and healthy number of crazed cultists all add up to some great comic book stories that make up the second half of the greatest run of Vampirella tales in the character's near-40 year history. (The book is made even stronger by the fact that in the book's closing tales, Englehart ties off a plot thread that's been dangling since Goodwin's first Vampirella story, and then spins it off into an unexpected direction.)

As strong as the stories in this book are, they wouldn't be half as effective if not for the gorgeous Jose Gonzalez art. While I'm lukewarm toward his tendency to drop in fine art portrait-style images in the middle of his sequential panel art, the detail and beauty of work on every page of the book is a real joy to behold. His layouts are clear, his characters expressive, and every panel helps move the story forward AND be a work of art unto itself. (Gonzalez's finest moments on the Vampirella series are, arguably, found in this book; the two tales set in turn-of-the-century England are particularly well-rendered.)

Oh... and the Dave Stevens cover on this book is perhaps the finest drawing of Vampi that we've seen in 25 years.

All in all, this book is a must-read if you have any fondness at all for the Vampirella character, or if you like well-done, off-beat horror comics.



Vampirella: Crimson Chronicles Vol. 4
Writers: Flaxman Loew and Archie Goodwin
Artists: Jose Gonzalez, Leopold Sanchez, and Jose Ortiz
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

"Vampirella: Crimson Chronicles Vol. 4" presents 13 Vampirella tales from issues 29 to 41 of the original black-and-white "Vampirella" magazine published during the early 1970s.

The art in this volume is absolutely gorgeous, but the fluxuating quality of the stories show that even at the halfway mark of the magazine's life, Vampirella's best days were behind her.

With the initial Archie Goodwin stories, we had horror tales with a classic feel and touches of humor (collected in "Vampirella vs. the Cult of Chaos"). With the T. Casey Brennan and Steve Englehart scripted stories, the sci-fi aspect of Vampirella was emphasized more, but there was still an air of classic horror about the strip. With the arrival of Flaxman Loew (whoever he may truly have been, because that has got to be a pen-name!), the series moves in a campy, offbeat direction, with less of an ongoing storyline but instead having Vampirella and Pendragon globe-trotting from booking to booking, and adventure to adventure. (Loew makes more use of the magic act/showbiz angle than any of his predessors did.) It's still a horror strip, but it too often plunges into the depths of pure silliness. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't.

Take, for example, the low points of the book. Each are two-part stories.

First, there is "The God of Blood" and "Betrothed of the Sun-God" where Vampirella becomes the lust-object of a very jealous Aztec god. Here the goofiness of a sun-god wanting to make Vampi his bride--and turning to ash anyone who looks upon her scantily clad body--is balanced by the lecherous evil of the god's priests, and a plotline about a phoney psychic who is murdering her way to a fortune. (Someone out there must really have liked this storyline, because not only did Warren reprint it later in the original Vampirella series, but Harris has already printed that slightly revised version in a previous paperback, "Vampirella: A Crimson Thirst". These stories are beautifully illustrated, but I think the presense of an Aztec sun-god whacking mortals over Vampirella is a bit much.)

Second, at the bottom of the barrel, the book presents "The Vampire of the Nile" and "The Mummy's Revenge". The in this two-part storyline "reveals" that Vampirella is a reincarnation of Cleopatra, and that she first became a vampire due to the actions of her evil brother. The follow-up pits her against occult forces that are bent on bringing back the evil from her previous incarnation. The second story has some decent elements in it--the sequence with Vampi is stranded in the catacombs under Rome and the dead may be coming back to life is very well done--but its too tightly tied to the idiocy of Vampi as the reincarnated Cleopatra to be any good.

On the flipside, the desire of Loew to send Vampirella off in different and unexpected directions work very well in "The Undead of the Deep" (where Vampi confronts a bizarre underwater party that she may never escape), "The Running Red" (where a cruel gambler and an immortal wanderer meet, with Vampirella standing at the crossroad of fate), "The Sultana's Revenge" (where the manipulative wife of a Middle Eastern prince brings danger to Vampi and Pendragon), "The Carnival of Death" (where evil hedonists get their come-uppance after they attempt to ruin a party thrown by the last remaining member of Venice's old upperclass, and "The Blood Gulper" (where Vampi crosses paths with a rock star and his agent who are truly operating on the life-blood of the public). These stories are all fabulous little chillers that pit Vampirella against unexpected foes while providing either chuckles, tragedy, or ironic twists (sometimes all at the same time).

Another two-part adventure--"The Head-hunter of London" and "The Nameless Ravager"--that pits Vampi against an insane killer and his spell-weilding sisters presents some of the most horrific scenes in the whole book, but the stories feel rushed, so their impact on the reader is someone lessened. Still, one has to congratulate Loew and the illustrator (Sanchez) in this case) on putting some naked women in the book who DON'T look hot in swimsuits.

The balance of the stories ("She Who Waits"--the single Archie Goodwin tale in the book, his last work on Vampirella, as far as I know-- and "The Malignant Morticians" are mostly forgettable and they have a sense of filler about them. They're not bad, but they are vapid.

As mentioned at the top of the review, the art in the book is spectacular. Leopold Sanchez's style is a bit more consistently cartoony than those of Jose Gonzalez and Jose Ortiz (in fact, Ortiz' style is so similar to that of Gonzalez that I had to check to credits page to sure I knew who was doing what), so the first impulse is to consider his work lesser. However, as one reads on and gets used to his style, it becomes clear that Sanchez's art is just as solid, spooky, and sexy as Gonzalez... it's not weak, it's just different. The cover galleries presented on the inside makes one long for the day when such gorgeous covers were common-place on comics magazines.

"Vampirella: Crimson Chronicles Vol. 4" may be a book that's erratic on the story-front, but it's still a collection of fun, creepy stories, and we still get to see Vampi when she was at her best. Most of the stories here are still superior to the more "serious", more modern tales that Harris presented during the past ten years. Get yourself a copy... it's great reading!



Vampirella & The Blood Red Queen of Hearts
Writers: Bill DuBay and Rick Margopoulos
Artists: Jose Gonzalez, Gonzalo Mayo, and Esteban Maroto
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

"Vampirella & the Blood Red Queen of Hearts" is a slim paperback reprinting eight stories from the original run of "Vampirella Magazine." About half of them focus on the villain mentioned in the book's title--a devotee of the Cult of Chaos who is quite possibly the craziest foe Vampi ever faced--and the rest capitalize on Vampirella's science fiction roots more-so than perhaps any others published. (Given that Vampirella's current publisher has ret-conned the sci-fi aspects of Vampirella's background into oblivion (except in the manga-esque "Vampi" version), those stories will probably stand as the ones that have taken the MOST advantage of the sci-fi roots of the character.)


The Blood Red Queen of Hearts was a crazed woman who decided she was going to make herself a Bride of the Mad God Chaos, and to prove her worth she was having her imp servant carve out the hearts of Chaos' greatest enemies. Her insane plan was to culminate with her offering up the ultimate dowry to the god-the heart of Vampirella, a woman who once narrowly escaped becoming a Bride of Chaos herself.

As you might expect, the Queen's plans don't go quite as she had planned. Her machinations actually end up leading to her getting the sort of “reward” anyone who disappoints Chaos gets, providing Vampirella with an opportunity to return to Drakulon, and for the reader to learn about the society that once existed there. The trip to Drakulon also brings Vampirella into conflict with perhaps the creepiest bad guy to ever cross fangs with her. In fact, the "Return to Drakulon" stories mark the end of consistently high quality for the series; after that point, the quality and tone of Vampirella's adventures become inconsistent and erratic.

The final two tales in the volume are from the last days of "Vampirella Magazine", and it shows. The art is not up to the standards set by the likes of Jose Gonzalez and Esteban Maroto, or even Tom Sutton, and one of the stories (a sci-fi horror take with Lovecraftian overtones) is simply lame. The closer in the book (“Return of the Blood Red Queen of Hearts”) is a fun read and it does manage to end the book on a high note.

According to the liner notes in "Vampirella & The Blood Red Queen of Hearts", the Queen was a favorite among readers, and she appeared on more covers than any other Vampirella villain. While the fact that the Queen ran around in even less clothes than Vampirella (being the Blood Red Queen of Hearts means you go topless everywhere!), but I think that readers also responded to the fact that she one of the most interesting Vampi foes to come along since the very earliest days when Archie Goodwin and Steve Engelhart were writing the stories.

It's Blade... in black and white

Blade: Black and White (Marvel Comics)
Story: Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, Christopher Golden, et. al.
Art: Tony DeZuniga, Rico Rival, Gene Colan, et. al.
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

In the 1970s, Marvel Comics published one of the finest horror comics series, ever... "Tomb of Dracula." In issue #10 of that series, writer Marv Wolfman added a tough-talking, black vampire-slayer to the line-up of Dracula's enemies--Blade. A rough-and-tumble streetfighter, this character's trademark was a bandoleer of wooden daggers with which he dispatched vampires with unrivaled efficiency and brutality.

A couple years after his initial appearance, Marvel Comics gave Blade his own solo-series in their "mature" black-and-white comics magazines. The series moved from title to title, as Marvel gradually whittled their commercially unsuccesul magazine line down to nothing, but the lack of readership wasn't the fault of the "Blade" series... those pages were some kick-ass vampire tales (in every sense of the phrase).

The main plotline of the stories collected in "Blade: Black and White" was written by Marv Wolfman and Chris Claremont. It sees Blade pitted against an emerging vampire organization that calls itself "The Legion." These vampires have chosen to target Blade where he lives--by killing his friends, his loved ones, and framing him for murder. It's only with the help of Katherine Fraser, a psychic Scotland Yard detective (another 'Tomb of Dracula' supporting castmember, featured mostly in the 'Giant-sized Tomb of Dracula' series') that Blade will even have a prayer of clearing his name.

This storyline occupies about 2/3rds of the book, and it illustrated primarily by the vastly underappreciated Tony DeZuniga, with some assistance from Rico Rival. The illustrations are top-notch, bringing the sort of gritty reality to the proceedings that the Blade character requires.

The collection is rounded with three additional 'Blade' tales. Two are illustrated by Gene Colan--one dates from the 1970s and in it we see Blade for the first time unable to bring himself to kill vampires... and that hestitation may cost him his life! The second tale was a one-shot issue scripted by novelist Christopher Golden that teamed Blade with his old partner, Hannibal King (who, like Blade, is a far better character in his original comic book incarnation that he is in "Blade" flicks) to take on an emerging vampire threat in New Orleans and confront ghosts from their past. Both tales are great reads, but I think Colan's art has started to degrade a bit. (It doesn't help matteers that the second tale was inked by someone who does't look to be a good match for Colan's pencils.)

Sandwiched between the two Colan stories is a pathetic little 14-pager that 's got bad art, a bad script, and doesn't really fit in with anything else that's been printed about the Blade character. Further, the way Blade is presented is closer to the movies than the comics. I recommend skipping that story entirely, or reading it after you've read the rest. (It should be placed in that order anyway, as there's a reference on the very first page to Blade being in New Orleans.)

"Blade: Black and White" is a collection of some fine horror comics (with one noted exception) from a time when vampires were monsters and men's men were devoted to their destruction. If you like horror comics and vampire tales, I recommend this book. (I'd leave the movies for when you have seen everything else interesting at the videostore. They are but pale reflections of the original source material.)





Note: The illo at the top of this article is by the great Gene Colan. To see more of his artwork, visit his webiste by clicking here.

Pop stars make cute vampire slayers

The Vampire Effect (2003)
Starring: Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Ekin Cheng, Edison Chen, Anthony Wong and Jackie Chan
Director: Dante Lam
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

"The Vampire Effect" is a light-hearted Chinese film about fearless kung-fu fighting vampire slayers who are called upon to stop an evil vampire lord from gaining the collective powers of all vampires and ushering in a new era of darkness and evil on Earth.


The film is populated by likable (if goofy) characters, and features great fight- and wire-fu scenes, and is genuinely funny on many occasions. There is a romantic subplot where the teenaged sister of the chief vampire hunter falls in love with the slacker son of the Chinese vampire king that is a bit too sappy (and too close to what a genuine teenage love affair is like--contentless phone conversations and lame dates--but the rest of the film more than makes up for it. Jackie Chan is featured in a small part, but his performance is funny and actually revolves around an important plot point.

I might have given this film Eight Stars--it is funny and it kept me entertained from beginning to end--but the lack of a wrap-up at the end cost it a point. In the same way the first kung-fu vampire movie just sort of ended when the action was over ("Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires" starring Peter Cushing, review coming soon), "The Vampire Effect" likewise starts rolling credits almost immediately after the spectacular final fight is over. I was left wanting a bit more of a wrap-up for the Jackie Chan character. He had been drawn into what is implied to be a secret international war against the vampires, and yet the character is just dropped. It was the one sour note that was struck during this otherwise entertaining film.

One comment totally unrelated to this film: About a year after seeing it, I learned that it was made as a vehicle for Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, who were big pop stars in China at the time it was made. Oh, if only American girl pop-singers could be put in vehicles one-tenth as good as "The Vampire Effect."

Vampires + martial arts = gory fun

Fist of the Vampire (2008)
Starring: Brian Anthony, Leon South, Darian Caine, Cheyenne King, and Brian Heffron
Director: Len Kabasinski
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Two police officers, the beef-cakey Lee (Anthony) and the babealicious Davidson (King), infiltrate an underground extreme fighting ring, only to come into direct conflict with the vampires that run it (Caine, Heffron, and South).


"Fist of the Vampire" is a rarity among low-budget action films. It sports a decent cast, a well-conceived script, and some effective use of both CGI and blue-screen effects. Overall, it's an entertaining film that fans of vampires and street fighting will enjoy.

The film derives most of its strengths from a solid script that moves along speedily from beginning to end. There isn't any big surprises in it, but it makes full use of both the vampire and extreme fighting angles. The good script also gives the lead actors plenty of material to work with, and they all do a good job in their parts. The weakest performer is Brian Heffron, who plays the vampire ring leader. His role called for someone to be completely over the top, but instead he seems subdued in most scenes. He is reportedly a professional wrestler who goes by the name of the Blue Meanie, so this is surprising to me. If anyone can ham it up, it's professional wrestlers!)

Another strong point in the film is the use of CGI. It's become commonplace for low-budget films to use CGI to simulate muzzle-flashes and gunfire and we have that here, too. The degree to which it's done is the most impressive I've seen so far. (The filmmakers go a little overboard here and there--such with an animated bullet speeding through the air that's cool the first time we see it but which gets tiresome when they use it a second and third time.) The CGI explosions, fire, and other blue screen effects are also very nice executed, particularly the ones where vampires meet their fiery ends.

Unfortunately, for all its good parts, it also features a number of weaknesses that are often present in low-budget action movies.

The most glaring of these weaknesses is in the fight scenes. While the staging of the action and the cinematography is superior to what I've seen in many films at this budget level, they are still obviously staged and choreographed. The angles the fights are being filmed from successfully hides that full-on blows don't connect, but the actors are under-rehearsed and blows and parries are telegraphed so far in advanced that nearly all illusion of reality is dispelled.

In final analysis, I think "Fist of the Vampire" is worth seeking out if you like vampires and martials flicks. Despite its flaws, it's a fun and fast-moving picture.

'Lust for Dracula' isn't very desirable

Lust for Dracula (2002)
Starring: Darian Cain, Misty Mundae, and Julian Wells
Director: Tony Marsiglia
Rating: Zero of Ten Stars

Misty Mundae stars as Mina Harker. Darian Cain is featured as a female vampire named Dracula who likes to stand around naked and spout nonsense. There are also a pair of lesbian vampires who wander in and out of the film at random, occassionally masturbating as they do. Oh, and then there's Jonathan Harker, Mina's transsexual shemale husband. Plot? Storyline? This movie contains no such trivialities!

I suppose I should have known what I was getting into, but the plot on the back of the DVD case sounded interesting... and the promise of boobies is always alluring. But "Lust for Dracula" bears very little resemblence to what is described on the back, and the procedings are far too boring to even be remotely sexy.





(Trivia: This film was my first exposure to Misty Mundae and the Seduction Cinema crew. It was acquired at the closing sale of a DVD/music store going out of business in 2003.)

'Vampyros Lesbos' is Jess Franco at his best

Vampyros Lesbos (aka "The Vampire Women" and "The Heiress of Dracula") (1970s)
Starring: Soledad Miranda, Ewa Stromburg, and Dennis Price
Director: Jess Franco
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Linda (Stromburg) is drawn to an island where a reclusive young noble woman resides in her castle. Turns out, this noble woman (Miranda) is a vampire with a taste for female flesh and blood. She drinks Linda's blood and starts her transformation into her eternal blood/love/lust slave. Random nonsense follows, as Linda attempts to fight off the vampiric urges and a vampire hunter (Price) with dark motives arrives on the scene.


"Vampyros Lesbos" is one of the better Jess Franco films I've seen, which means that it's not unwatchable garbage.

The film's got some very fascinating visuals, Soledad Miranda gives an excellent and subdued performance as the vampire queen, and there's a dreamlike atmosphere that hangs over the entire film... but, ultimately, what passes for the story here is just an excuse to show as many tits and naked lesbian nookie as possible. Not that is necessarily a bad thing, but when the story is convoluted and badly thought out, it becomes almost as frustrating as the bad comedy bits that Seduction Cinema likes to insert into their films (where the storylines are also mostly just there as an excuse to show naked, cavorting lesbians).

The story that IS here is better than what you find in, say, "My Vampire Lover", but there's no excuse for it to be as muddled as it is... except for the fact that it's badly executed becuase it's just there to get us from one softcore lesbian vampire scene to the next. It also causes the film to drag and feel over-long.

If you feel like you need "art" to justify your softcore porn watching, "Vampyros Lesbos" might be worth checking out. It's a nicely shot film with a pair of very pretty ladies in it.

'Project Vampire' is a failure

Project Vampire (1993)
Starring: Brian Knudson, Mary-Louise Gemmill and Myron Natwick
Director: Peter Flynn
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A mad scientist, Dr. Klaus (Natwick), is perfecting a longevity serum that turns those who use it into vampires. A brave intern from the univsersity hospital (Knudson), a kind-hearted nurse (Gemmill), and a Chinese genius (Cho) join forces to save themselves from the effects of the serum and to stop Klaus's convoluted schemes from coming to fruition.


At the center of "Project Vampire" is a neat idea--I like the notion of the vampire serum--but that idea is brutally strangled by a script so badly structured I doubt the writer/director has even heard the term "three-act structure", and then dumped in a shallow grave by a cast of actors who have almost certainly heard the phrase "don't quit your dayjob" many times. To make matters worse, the film is a mixture of a chase story and a race-against-time story, but both of these normally dramatic plot-types are made deadly dull by chase scenes that have all the excitement of my daily commute to work.

"Project Vampire" is yet another badly executed low-budget film where a good idea falls victim to a shortage of talent. (It's also the only film of recent vintage that features a Chinese character that brought to mind Lionel Twain's rant at Inspector Wang in "Murder By Death" about geniuses being unable to grasp the use of preposition, articles, and pronouns when speaking.)

'Transylmania' should have had a stake through its heart

Transylmania (2009)
Starring: Oren Skoog, Jennifer Lyons, Tony Denman, Patrick Cavanaugh, Paul H. Kim, Musetta Vander, Natalie Garza, Nicole Garza, David Steinberg, James DeBello and Irena A. Hoffman
Directors: David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A group of American college students travel to a remote Transylvanian university for a semester of studying and partying abroad. Will the partying or the vampires kill them first?


I need to learn the lesson that the smart choice is to go home if I arrive at the theater too late to see the movie I had planned on. But, as I was stood at the box office, I noticed "Transylmania" was about to start. And, seeing that I love old monster movies and this was part college stoner comedy and part spoof of the classic monster-in-the-creepy-castle films, I thought it might be fun. "How bad can it be?" I asked myself.

Well, it was pretty bad. The humor is more stupidly offensive than funny, the acting universally weak--especially when it comes to the comedic timing of the cast, which is surprising given the long resumes of everyone appearing in the film--and the story features numerous characters that do nothing except serve the purpose of a single joke and otherwise just clutter up the film and story.

It's too bad, becuase in the hands of competent writers who understood how to streamline a story (not to mention write funny jokes) and with some better actors, this could have been a really funny movie with roots in classic films from Universal and Full Moon. The vampire/college student look-alike and the midget mad scientist had all sorts of potential, potential that we can see shining through at the film's best moments, but which remains tragicaly unspent or even wasted.

I really wish this film had been better and that it had done well at the box office. I applaud the filmmakers for writing a spoof that actually has an original story instead of just a cobbled together string of lame references to recent movies and current news events and pop culture. Maybe (God willing!) this film is a sign that story will be returning to the spoof film... or maybe the failure of this film will mean the genre will go dormant for a while because the business people and creatives STILL won't get the message that quality is what sells a movie.

'Decadent Evil' is neither decadent nor evil enough to be interesting

Decadent Evil (2005)
Starring: Debra Mayer, Phil Fondacaro, Daniel Lennox, Jill Michelle and Raelyn Hennessee
Director: Charles Band
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A master vampire (Mayer) on the verge of becoming a demi-god finds her life complicated by a defiant fledgelings (Hennessee and Michelle), a love-struck mortal (Lennox) and a midget vampire hunter (Fondacaro).

That summary makes "Decadent Evil" sound like it might be a lot of fun if you're into Charles Band-style movies. Don't be misled... this is a film you can safely skip.

It seems to me that the quality of Charles Band's films reached a lowpoint in the first part of this decade. While recent films have been better, "Decadent Evil" is a craptacular film that isn't even a pale shadow of Band's earlier directorial efforts... it's shocking to think that this film is even from the same guy who brought us "The Creeps" and "Blood Dolls", let alone "Head of the Family" or "Hideous!".

That's not to say there aren't some halfway decent ideas here, it's just that they're badly implemented.

Everything about the script says half-baked. From a lame attempt to tie the film to previous Full Moon vampire films with an overlong prologue, through a a wavering sense as to the vampire queen being ancient or not, and to a fuzzy sense of how much time passes between various scenes in the film, it's clear that either the script needed more work or the production had issues. This sense is strengthened by the fact that this film feels heavily padded--with the aforementioned prologue and a drawn-out strip club scene/seduction scene that ends up having very little to do with anything that follows adding 10-15 minutes of pointless running time--despite barely being over an hour long.


And then there is the neigh-obligatory Charles Band puppet creature/toy tie-in, here embodied by Marvin the Horny Homunculus. I think Marvin was supposed to be the source of comic relief in the film, but the jokes are unfunny and the puppet is so badly made that it's almost sad that it was even included. Marvin is a superfluous element in the film and since there clearly wasn't enough in the budget to make him properly animated it would have been better to simply leave him out. As it stands, Marvin serves primarily to make the experienced Charles Band viewer remark, "Well... I guess the puppets in 'Blood Dolls' weren't so bad after all." (The one positive thing about Marvin is the eyes... the sculptor did a great job on the eyes, and they help bring a little life to the creature but nowhere near enough.)

The film is saved from a 2-rating, however, by a cast of talented actors who do their best with the material they're given. Debra Mayer is a little miscast as the haughty, bitchy vampire queen (she does bitchy quite well, as we saw in the Band's far superior effort "Blood Dolls", but haughty not so much) and Phil Fondacaro wasn't particularly believable as a vampire hunter, but they weren't bad. The rest of the cast of small-time, young newcomers accounted nicely for themselves, although they really didn't have much to do; this film is virtually free of anything resembling character development.

Dracula returns to menace small-town America

The Return of Dracula (aka "The Curse of Dracula" and "The Incredible Vanishing Man") (1958)
Starring: Francis Lederer, Norma Eberhardt, Ray Stricklyn, John Wyngraf, Virginia Vincent and Gage Clarke
Director: Paul Landres
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Dracula (Lederer) escapes to America by murdering a Czech artist and assuming his identity. He settles in a small California town and sets his sights on corrupting pure-hearted young girls and turning them into vampires.


"The Return of Dracula" is a vampire movie that rises far above its low budget thanks to a good script, a decent cast, and some clever touches on the part of the director. Francis Lederer (who plays Dracula) may not be a Dracula in the class of Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi, but he holds his own here. He's comparable to--and even a little better than--Lon Chaney Jr.

While one is always hardpressed to describe a vampire movie as "realistic", this one comes close. The characters are all very real-seeming and performed with great skill by the actors. Particularly noteworthy are the high-school girlfriend/girlfriend characters of Tim and Rachel (portrayed by Norma Eberhardt and Ray Stricklyn), as their relationship and behavior reminded me of my own high school love-life... either things were really racy in this movie, my life was really tame in the 1980s, or things haven't change that much for active kids in the real world, despite what pop culture and politicians would have us believe. These characters seem very real throughout the picture, up and including the way in which they ultimately come face-to-face with the full might of the vampire.


The film also has several unexpected moments of artful creepiness, including one of the spookiest vampire seduction scenes ever filmed. Dracula's first victim is Jennie, a sick blind girl (Virginia Vincent) who can see him in her mind's eye as he corrupts her and devours her soul. Jennie also gets one of the creepiest vampire ressurection scenes ever filmed, as well as a very neat death scene. (The cinematography in this movie is its weakest element, but there is a shot of the vampiric Jennie flitting through the graveyard that's very beautiful. Jennie's death-by-stake moments later is also very startling, due to a bit of Hollywood trickery. I won't go into details, because the effect is one that has to be unexpected for it to have its full and starteling impact.)

Like in most vampire movies, the demise of the master vampire is somewhat anti-climactic, but Dracula's death in this film is not as embarrassing as some of the deaths he suffered in various Hammer flicks. At least here he is done in partially by his own evil deeds instead of by complete accident (like when Dracula dies by thorn bush in "The Satanic Rites of Dracula").

If you're a fan of classic horror films, I recommend you seek out "The Return of Dracula". Francis Lederer may not have been the best choice to play Dracula, but the great supporting cast makes up for his slight shortcomings.