"That Monster's Coming Right At Ya!" Poster Gallery

976-EVIL (1988)

Title: 976-EVIL (1988)

Director: Robert Englund

Cast: Stephen Geoffreys, Patrick O’Bryan, Sandy Dennis, Robert Picardo

Review:

So 976-EVIL is a film known primarily for two things: it stars Stephen Geoffreys (‘Evil’ from Fright Night (1985)) and it was directed by Robert Englund. Now, Robert Englund is of course best known for playing Freddy Krueger on the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films, but he’s also been known to direct a couple of horror films. So far, his repertoire includes a horror film called Killer Pad (2008) about a house that has a portal into hell in it’s basement, a couple of episodes of the Freddy’s Nightmare’s television series and the film I’ll be reviewing today: 976-EVIL. How was this, his first directorial effort?

On this film we meet a nerdy highschool student called Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys) and his cool James Dean type cousin Spike. Spike is kind of ashamed to have Hoax as his cousin because Hoax is such a super nerd, but on the other hand Hoax worships Spike and wishes he could be more like him. One day while reading a magazine, Spike stumbles upon an advertisement for a phone service that gives you your “horrorscope” for the day. Out of curiosity and boredom Spike calls and gets advice from the telephone service, but he quickly gets freaked out by it and quits calling. Unfortunately, Hoax gets hooked with the service and starts calling regularly. It isn’t long before Hoax is doing everything that the horrorscope tells him to do. What evil powers lay behind this telephone service?

Stephen Geoffreys gets Satanic! 

Well, I gotta say, this isn’t a bad little horror movie for a first time effort from Mr. Englund. This is the kind of film in which the nerdy teenager who gets beat up and harassed by  everybody suddenly gets revenge on all those who wronged him; not unlike Evil Speak (1981), Trick or Treat (1986) or Fear No Evil (1981) all of which have nerdy teenagers avenging themselves through Satanic powers. All of these movies are basically the same film, the teenager gets harassed by bullies in the first half, and on the second half the nerdy dude gets help from Satan and avenges himself. All the bullies get what was coming to them in various gruesome ways. Of course, it’s the little things that make them different. On Evil Speak, the main character connects with Satan through his computer, on Fear No Evil, the nerdy guy ends up being the antichrist, on Trick or Treat heavy metal music connects nerds with Satan and on 976-EVIL Hoax connects with Satan through the telephone service.

You mess with the bull you get the horns! 

I liked a couple of things about this movie, for example, the angle about the mother being ultra religious and treating Hoax as if he was still a child. The mother played by Sandy Dennis is depicted as a religious fanatic who watches t.v. evangelists all the time and has paintings and statues of Jesus spread out through out the entire house. She was by far the most animated character in the film, very entertaining, she’s kind of a living cartoon of an over protective/religious fanatic mother. Stephen Geoffreys as Hoax is another plus for the film, he plays Hoax as a sexually repressed young man, who has to resort to watching pictures of naked African women from National Geographic magazine to satiate his sexual curiosities; he also ends up being a peeping tom, spying on his cousin as he’s having sex with his girlfriend. He’s kind of mousy and harmless, trying to break out of his shell. Another bonus on this film is Kevin Yagher’s make up effects for Hoax’s possessed visage. We get a couple of gory moments, Hoax showing signs of possession are very subtle at first and they grow and grow as the film progresses until by the end Hoax looks full blown demonic. 

 The film has a religious themed WTF?! moment in which suddenly, out of freaking nowhere fish start falling out of the sky as if it was some sort of miracle from God. It brought to mind a similar moment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) in which frogs start raining from the sky as if God was so angry at humanity that he performs this miracle to get them to remember he is watching. Funniest thing is that in 976-EVIL, this miraculous event doesn’t seem to phase anyone save for the religious mom who takes it as a sign from God himself. Everyone else keeps living their lives as if nothing had happened, including Spike and Hoax who saw the whole thing happened first hand. I mean, this sort of thing would make the town a freaking media event or something! But no, most of the time the town seems to be completely deserted, lifeless. Actually I liked this feeling the film had, as if the town was this desolated little town in the middle of nowhere. No people on the streets save for the characters in the film and the loose news papers rustling through the streets.

There’s these little inside jokes spread through out the whole movie. Since the movie is based on the premise that this phone service gives whoever hears it satanic powers, everything in the film is Satan related. The coffee shop is called “Dante” (as in Dante’s Inferno) the movie theater is called Diablo (Spanish world for Devil) one scene has a character about to eat a t.v dinner and the box reads “Devil Twins”. The local theater is apparently run by a group of teenagers (!!??) who have the projection room filled with posters from old horror movies like Maniac (1980) and even Fright Night (1985). In order to get your horrroscope for the day, you have to press “666” and so the Satanic inuendoes continue all through out the film, keep an eye out for them.

 The big thing about this movie is that it was the film that Stephen Geoffrey’s decided to do instead of returning as many horror fans hoped he would, for Fright Night II (1988). I’m sure a lot of you out there ask yourselves why Geoffreys choose not to reprise his extremely memorable role of ‘Evil Ed’ in the Fright Night sequel and chose instead to appear in 976-EVIL? Fright Night II isnt a bad sequel in my book, but I’m sure it would have been a bit more memorable had Geoffreys returned. Geoffreys reply to this query is that he was looking forward to working with horror legend Robert Englund, a reason that I respect. Sadly, Geoffrey’s followed one bad career move with another, Im sure many of you are already aware of Geoffreys escapades in porn. Still, I think he managed to leave two notable performances in the horror genre, Hoax from 976-EVIL being one of them.

There’s a lot of silliness in this movie, but I guess that’s to be expected in a film from the 80’s, on top of that, were talking about a film whose premise is a Satanic powered horoscope phone service? On this film, telephone booths blow up without explanation! Guys get their hands chopped off and the best thing they can think of doing is using toilet paper from a public bathroom to cover the wound! Another guy gets his face sliced and he can think of nothing better than going to play poker with his buddies afterward! The local movie theater is run by a group of poker playing highschool teenagers! Fish fall from the sky and no one thinks nothing of it! But what the hell, 976-EVIL manages to be entertaining anyways in spite of all its flaws, and that’s what really matters in the end.     

Rating: 3 out of 5

Drive (2011)

Title: Drive (2011)

Director: Nicholas Winding Refn

Cast:  Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman

Review:

Drive is a film that appeals to the senses in more ways than your regular run of the mill commercial film. Nicholas Winding Refn is that rare filmmaker that knows how to make you feel with his images, something that seldom happens when watching the latest Hollywood summer blockbuster for example. With a lot of those films, even though they try, in the end most commercial films are a lot of flash, a lot of action, but no feeling, no emotion. Not so with this latest Nicholas Winding Refn film, Drive aims to please the eyes as well as the heart. But don’t mistake this one for a film without any ‘cojones’, because it’s got a lot of those too! When Drive has too, it can get damn graphic and violent! 

Drive is all about a nameless man who earns a living as a stunt driver for the movies. But that’s just his day job, during the nighttime he gets paid for driving criminals in and out of their heists. Eventually, word gets around about his driving skills, and so mobsters want to use him, so they can make good money off of his driving skills. At the same time, the mysterious Nameless Driver falls for his lonely next door neighbor, whose husband just so happens to be away in jail. So she’s a lonely parent, raising her kid on her own. One day, her husband finally gets out of jail and returns to live with her. He tries living a ‘normal’ life, but being good and normal just isn’t in this guys genes. You see, the husband owes money to some thugs, and these thugs have gone as far as threatening his wife and kid if he doesn’t pay up. What will the Nameless Driver do about this? Will he selfishly walk away from the situation, or will he help his babealicious neighbor find the money to pay the debt that her husband owes the mob?

Nicholas Winding Refn has amazed me with each and every one of his films. I’ve only seen three so far: Bronson (2008), which is a film about the most famous convict in England and Valhalla Rising (2009), a trippy film about a barbarian who gets stranded in a strange new land filled with deadly natives who don’t exactly take kindly to strangers. And now Drive a simple, yet visually poetic film. Refn has so far proven himself to be the kind of director who places a lot emphasis on the visuals, and what they can evoke. There are moments in Drive where the main character doesn’t talk for long periods of time; he simply drives around town, taking in the lights, the sights and sounds of the big bad city landscape. He doesn’t talk, but you kind of get an idea of what he is thinking, or maybe you come up with your own idea of what’s going through his head. Point is, the silent scenes evoke some sort of response out of you even though nothing is said. In this way, these long moments of silence work like the silent films of the past. A lot can be said through visuals and performance alone and Drive does it exquisitely.

This strong silent type of character is nothing new to Refn who had a similar character in his previous film, Valhalla Rising. On that film we meet a character called ‘One Eye’, a barbarian character who very rarely spoke. In fact, he had a kid tagging along beside him that spoke for him as some sort of ‘Jiminy Cricket’ or something. With Drive, you can expect a film that exploits it’s moments of silence to the fullest, Refn uses yet again a strong silent character to tell his story. The Nameless Driver brings to mind Clint Eastwood’s legendary Man With No Name from all those spaghetti westerns he made. In those westerns, The Man With No Name , never spoke much and he was never a squeaky clean character. He was always walking the fine line between savior and bandit. The same can be said of the Nameless Driver in Drive. Here, we meet a lonely type of character, but one that is focused and knows exactly what his doing and why.

Drive is a film that has many influences attached to it. Like a Tarantino film that draws from many others that came before it, Drive draws a lot of it’s awesomeness from equally great films of the past. It has a bit of Bullit (1968), The Driver (1978), Le Samourai (1967), and by Refn’s own admission The Day of the Locust (1975). These are all a bunch of films that I will definitely be looking into in the next few months, just to see where Drive came from. With a title like Drive, a lot of people where probably expecting something along the lines of the Fast and the Furious movies, when in reality, Drive could not be further from those formulaic action flicks. Though it does have about two cool chase sequences, I don’t consider Drive to be action flick at all. It’s more of an introspective piece, almost entirely focusing on its one main character. One look at this film and you immediately know it’s not going to be your regular run of the mill pop corn flick. I mean, two of the production houses that joined to make this film are called “Odd Lot” and “Bold Films” so right off the bat we know were going to be in for something that thinks outside of the proverbial box.

Drive feels like a film both from the 70’s and 80’s. The credits are in pink neon letters, obviously as homage to films from the 80’s. The music in the film has a real retro-feel to it; the synthesizers make it sound like something straight out of the 80’s club scene, but interestingly enough the songs were all recorded post 2007, so it’s a deliberately retro soundtrack. By the way, this is the kind of soundtrack you’ll want to make a permanent part of your collection. Most of it is abstract music that sets the mood for the well orchestrated visuals. And man, this is one of those movies that perfectly matches both music and visuals. There’s a scene in which the Nameless Driver is silently driving around town, and he’s gone through a lot of shit, and this song plays in the background. The song is called “A Real Hero” by Johnny Jewel. Wow, that song perfectly picks up what the film is all about. Behind all its car chases, and shoot outs and Italian gangsters, this is really a film about a good guy trying to survive in an imperfect world. About a person who is struggling to do what is right, to be a real human being, a hero. To feel and love and care. And even though in the end, the Nameless Driver doesn’t seem to be destined to live “the good life” at least he tries.

Rating: 5 out of 5   

     

Attack the Block (2011)

Title: Attack the Block (2011)

Director: Joe Cornish

Cast: Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega

Review:

Attack the Block is kind of like an updated version of The Goonies (1985); if the kids from The Goonies were thugs and used a lot of profanity. Can you imagine ‘Fat Kid’ saying something like “I aint doing no fucking truffle shuffle for the likes of you!”;  and then kicked the door open, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and started to munch away on ‘Mikey’s’ leftovers? That’s the attitude with the kids from Attack the Block. They are a bunch of street hoodlums, actually, they kind of reminded me of the ‘Droogs’ from Stanly Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), going around taking advantage of whoever they can in the middle of the night. They all look out for each other; they all got each others backs.

But what happens when all these droogs are confronted with an alien invasion? They kick some serious ass that’s what happens! The plot for this film is extremely simple in nature, but also extremely entertaining. One night during Great Britain’s ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ celebrations an alien being falls from the sky in the form of a meteor. When a gang of kids sees the meteor fall they decide to go and investigate the meteor. Unfortunately, the creature ends up scratching their fearless leader called ‘Moses’. Now Moses isn’t going to stay hit, not in front of his crew, so he goes after the creature for some payback. He successfully kills it, dragging the lifeless alien body out for all to see. But they are not yet sure what the hell it is, to them it’s just some wild animal or something. Soon after, more of these creatures start falling from the sky and start following the kids around! How do they stop these creatures? And why are the creatures following these kids around? Will the nightmare ever end?

So as you can see, the premise is fairly simple. Monsters arrive; good guys run from the monsters and find a way to kill them. But I will say this: simple or not, this was one fun movie to watch. A couple of elements make this one extremely watchable, one of them was the group of kids who come off as completely likable in spite of the fact that they are a bunch of street thugs. These are kids going through a transition period, where they have to learn to respect other humans, which is why I compared it to A Clockwork Orange, in that story good old Alex De Large must learn the hard way that we all have a choice to be decent human beings, respecting all others on this planet, and that if we don’t learn that simple yet important lesson, society is going to forcibly teach it to us. So that’s the lesson that Moses and crew are learning on this picture.

Another thing that makes this one a fun romp is the creatures. Gotta give kudos to whoever designed these things. The design is extremely simple, yet extremely effective and cool looking. These creatures look like very hairy gorillas, and have teeth that emit a blue glow. So most of the time what you see is this big black blotch, but with glowing blue teeth! And the black on these creatures is blacker than any black you’ve ever seen! Pretty cool looking aliens. This is a very fast paced adventure, the characters are always running and hiding from these creatures who keep coming after them relentlessly.

This was director Joe Cornish’s first film and I have to say that this guy has made a film that makes him look like a seasoned veteran. It’s so hard to believe that this is his first feature film, but it is. Cornish is also a successful writer. Recently, he was part of the team who wrote The Adventures of Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) for Steven Spielberg. A writer turning director isn’t always a good thing, a lot of times when a writer decides to direct, we get films like: Blade: Trinity (2004), Ghost Rider (2007) and The Unborn (2009). But Cornish is a multi-talented guy, he’s not only a writer, he’s also been an actor, a radio show host, a comedian, a producer, this guy does it all! All that experience and talent were siphoned into Attack the Block, which is probably why the film has such an enjoyable vibe to it. Cornish seems to know what makes a film work, he knows how to please the audience, he knows how to entertain. I’m really curious to see what he will come up with next, looking forward to it! This one is fun times every step of the way, dont miss it!

Rating: 4 out of 5   

Nick Frost has an extended cameo in Attack the Block

Manhattan Baby (1982)

Title: Manhattan Baby (1982)

Director: Lucio Fulci

Review:

In Manhattan Baby, we meet the Hacker family while they are visiting Egypt. The father, George Hacker is an archeologist conducting an exploration of ancient Egyptian catacombs. While he does this with a colleague of his, his wife Emily and his daughter Susie go around Egypt exploring buildings and architecture, taking in the sights. Suddenly, a blind old lady walks up to Susie and hands her an Egyptian amulet. The blind old lady then disappears into thin air. Susie seems to think nothing of the lady vanishing into thin air before her very eyes (how typical of Fulci!) and decides to keep the amulet  and take it back home with her. At the same time, while exploring the ancient catacombs, George comes upon an ancient hieroglyph on the wall; a symbol of a snake. Suddenly, rays of blue light shoot out of the symbol and blind him! Will he regain his eye sight? And what’s up with the strange amulet that Susie brought back with her from Egypt? What strange powers does it hold?

Watching Lucio Fulci movies can sometimes be something of a challenge. Case in point: Manhattan Baby which proved to be a difficult movie for me to follow. I kept trying to pinpoint why the hell this was so. I mean, I watch so many movies, why can’t I grasp the ideas that Fulci is trying to put across with his visuals? What is it that distracts me from following? Then I figured it out, its Fulci’s camera movements! I had to rewind certain moments and re-watch them instantly until I realized that Fulci sometimes focused his camera on completely unnecessary things that had nothing to do with the story. Here we are focusing on a light bulb….for no reason whatsoever! Here we are panning out towards….what? Something else that doesn’t even matter or say anything that’s what! Why did Fulci do this so much? It’s almost as if he didn’t want you to understand the film. Some might try and pass this off as “visual poetry” or what have you, but I say boloney! I think it’s just lazy filmmaking, or just plain bad filmmaking. While watching Manhattan Baby it felt as if Fulci was actually purposely trying to confuse me as a watcher rather than helping me understand his story. This got really annoying after a while. Is it the “Italian Way” of telling a story? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of Fulci movies and have encountered this same feeling, so maybe it’s not just this film. Maybe it’s the way Fulci chooses to tell his stories that I find hard to follow. Whatever the case, you’ve been warned! This movie just might get on your nerves to the point where you’ll suddenly find yourself completely lost. And it’s not that it’s a difficult story to tell, or even a complex one, it’s just the way Fulci unfolds his story that gets in the way.

Fulci goes overboard with close ups of eyes on this one! 

   

There is a phrase amongst film buffs that is commonly used to refer to unexplainable moments in a film. That phrase is “What The Hell---?” or What the Fuck---?” In order to keep this blog family friendly, I’ll use “What the Hell---?” from here on in. The last Lucio Fulci film I saw that had an excessive amount of “What the Hell---?” moments was House by the Cemetery (1981). That one was a “What the Hell---?” type of film every step of the way. Just when you think House by the Cemetery  is starting to make some sense, right out of nowhere comes some image or situation that has nothing to do with the film, and ends up confusing you even more. I never thought the day would come, but House by the Cemetery is no longer the most confusing film in Lucio Fulci’s repertoire! Manhattan Baby has now taken its place! Manhattan Baby is overflowing with moments that have little to no explanation whatsoever. For example, on this film people disappear and are never heard of again…and nobody gives a damn if they do! Wouldn’t you be the least bit concerned if your co-worker suddenly vanished into thin air right in your own home? Wouldn’t you be freaked if some blind old lady handed you an amulet and she would suddenly disappear right in front of you? Wouldn’t that freak you for life? Well, not in the world of Manhattan Baby, things like these phase no one. And this are just some of the “What the Hell---?” moments I'm referring to, trust me, there are many more where those come from. So be ready for that. Manhattan Baby is a strange, strange movie.

As is the case with many Italian films from the 70’s and 80’s, Manhattan Baby was extremely influenced by a number of American films. First up, we open up with the exploration of an ancient Egyptian catacomb, something along the lines of something we’d see in Indiana Jones film. The films title Manhattan Baby is an allusion to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), in fact, the writer of the film actually admits that there was an attempt to turn this film into a Rosemary’s Baby of sorts, but honestly, I don’t see anything that even resembles Rosemary’s Baby except for the films title, and the fact that one of the characters in Manhattan Baby has the same last name as one of the Satanists in Polanski’s film. The film that Manhattan Baby most resembles is The Exorcist (1973), though it doesnt have a miligram of the atmosphere found in that horror classic. Manhattan Baby has possessed girls, exorcists and exorcisms. The only real difference between both films is that the demon who posseses the little girl in Manhattan Baby doesn’t come from Africa, but from Egypt. It also has a bit of Poltergeist in it, especially when it comes to how they handled the kids and the supernatural events that unfold in their rooms. So once again we have one of these Italian films that’s trying to be like a more successful American film. The only problem with these attempts at ripping off American films is that American films like The Exorcist and Poltergeist were made with millions of dollars while Fulci only had about 300,000 dollars to make Manhattan Baby. So what we got here is a film that needed more money in order to tell its story, unfortunately Fulci had to make do with the little money he had. The film suffered because of it in my opinion.

The film has some positives going for it though. First off, I loved how the film opens up in Egypt. The filmmakers actually went out to Cairo, Egypt and shot the opening sequence of the film there. Filming in an exotic location like that, with real pyramids and dessert vistas for a backdrop can add a lot of beauty to your film, and I must say Fulci really took advantage of filming in Egypt. Unfortunately, I learned later that these scenes in Egypt were actually filmed after the film had been completed so they could give a more international feel to the movie, to help sell it. That Egyptian opening sequence was just tacked on. Back in those days, Italians had an extremely messy way of making movies; sometimes it feels as if they were making them up as they went along. And I’m sure they did on many occasions. Manhattan Baby has some of Fulci’s trademarks. For example, on this one he went over board with the focusing on the eyes thing he always does in all his movies! We get animals turning evil on this one as well, only this time it’s with a twist. Yet, strangely enough, this film has very little of the traditional Fulci gore. It starts and ends with a bit of gore, but it’s not the amount we are used to seeing in a Fulci film.

Final words: this is not what I would call a good Lucio Fulci film. I am used to a certain amount of confusion from an Italian movie, there is something about how they tell their stories that can end up confusing the hell out of you as a viewer, but Manhattan Baby takes the taco as one of the most confusing of all. I get that they were trying to get away from zombies and what is considered a traditional horror film, by the writers own admission, they were trying to take horror to ‘new dimensions’ with Manhattan Baby. I guess by this he meant that he didn’t want to do what he’d always done with Fulci meaning zombies, ghosts and magical books that open doors to hell. On this one they were going for something just a little different. Demons from Egypt! I don’t think they were entirely successful in pulling off the story they wanted to tell, a lot of that seems to stem from their meager budget. I’d suggest this one to fans of Fulci films, everyone else will either be completely bored or confused, take your pick.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Vamp (1986)

Title: Vamp (1986)

Director: Richard Wenk

Cast: Grace Jones, Billy Drago, Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler, Gedde Watanabe

Review:

During the 80’s three vampire movies really made a mark on the genre: The Lost Boys (1987), Fright Night (1985) and Near Dark (1987). Often times, all three of these films are mentioned together as the three vampire movies that stood out the most from that era. And yeah, it’s true, these three films were the cream of the crop as far as 80’ vampire movies went, there is no denying that. But I always held Vamp, the film I’ll be reviewing today in a close fourth place. Vamp isn’t the best vampire movie ever made, but it has a lot of elements that give it its own charm.

Vamp is all about these two college buddies that want to form a part of this fraternity. So they try going through all the normal channels in order to do so. You know, doing all these initiation gags they make you do so you can get in. But these guys aren’t going for any stupid initiation routine; instead, they offer the fraternity a stripper for their next party! The fraternity dudes say sure why the hell not. So off they go to find a stripper so they can be accepted into the fraternity. Unfortunately, the strip club they are headed towards is actually run by a group of vampire vixens and their ghouls! Will these college students escape the night with their lives (and throats) intact?

What makes Vamp cool for me is that it’s so very 80’s. There was this thing during the 80’s and early 90’s where neon colors took over the world. Everything was neon. Sneakers, t-shirts, bracelets, jackets…you name it, it was neon colored. And so where music videos. Back in those days, music videos always had that neon colored lighting in the background. No matter what the scene, everything was suddenly neon blue, or neon pink. Vamp has that neon colored looked that most films had back in those days. Vamp takes place mostly during the night and every single wall of every building of every street is lit with these shades of neon green or pink, it just reminds me of how much this was done in films and music videos back in those days. It gives the film that uniquely 80’s look and feel that I love, one look at Vamp and you’ll know it is a film that could have only been made in the 80’s. It takes me right back to those days. And the comedy, the silliness of the dialog reminds me of films from that time as well. How eighties is this movie? Gedde Watanabe, aka the funny/drunken Chinese guy from Sixteen Candles (1984) is on this one as the comedy relief. Most of the time he simply acts as the geekiest, dorkiest Chinese guy you could ever hope to meet, the rest of the time he’s ultra annoying which is exactly what the filmmakers were going for.

A word can be said about the kind of setting the film creates. This town is all kinds of weird, I mean, once the guys arrive to the “bad side of town” where the strip club is located, you feel as if you’ve walked into an episode of The Twilight Zone. The transition from ‘nice looking city’ to ‘bad side of town’ is kind of funny. The scene has the guys driving down the city, taking in the sights when suddenly, to avoid an accident they swerve the car around and it starts to spin around uncontrollably (and unrealistically I might add) and then, when the car comes to a stop, suddenly Toto isn’t in Kansas anymore and we find ourselves in ‘weirdsville’. A town where every street is lonely and filled with fog, a town where little girls are left to wonder the streets alone in the middle of the night while her prostitute mother takes care of business. A town with street gangs made up of albinos with an extreme desire to make your life miserable. A town where even the garbage man is a vampire!

While watching this movie, you won’t be able to ignore the similarities with Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). They are too many. Strip bar in the middle of nowhere? Check! The strippers in the club are vampires? Check! The leader of the vampires is an ancient female vampire? Check! Said vampire gives a show stopping dance that makes all the guys in the strip club melt in their seats? Check! And trust me, the similarities don’t stop there! I won’t mention them all because I don’t want to spoil the fun you’ll have finding the similarities between both films. I’m pretty sure that when the time came to write From Dusk Till Dawn, Tarantino had just seen Vamp and said “I can do that better!” And that he did. From Dusk Till Dawn is infinitely superior to Vamp. It takes the same basic ideas and gives them that Tarantino twist, but we must remember: Vamp did it first! And Vamp is a good vampire movie on its own right. A little silly at times, but there’s no denying that Vamp has fangs. It’s got its moments.   

For example, the make up effects on the vampires are awesome. These are the kind of vampires that look really demonic and evil; the kind of vampires we can find in films like Fright Night and The Lost Boys. The kind of vampires I miss in movies nowadays. Unfortunately, what passes for a vampire in today’s vampire films is sometimes embarrassing; nothing compared to the evil looking creatures we can find in an 80’ vampire film. Even the Fright Night remake had vampires that pale in comparison to the demonic brilliance of these old movies.

Queen Katrina wows her audience

And of course, I can’t go away without saying something about Grace Jones playing the head vampire, Queen Katrina. During the 80’s, Mrs. Jones was at the height of her popularity. She was an established recording artist, she produced a series of albums many of which where huge hits in their day, reaching the top of the charts. She also appeared in a couple of mainstream films like Conan The Destroyer (1984) and the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985). But before the acting bug bit her, she was already a successful model, a singer and a performance artist. She performed acts that weren’t all that different from what we see her do in Vamp when Queen Katrina does her big striptease sequence. Mrs. Jones offers up some of the most interesting visuals on Vamp, and also, she adds a lot of weight to the Queen Katrina character. Mrs. Jones has always been an intimidating persona, and she brought a part of that to the film. She has two stand out sequences, one when she does her striptease, and the other is when she seduces one of the teenagers, that scene was pretty memorable.  My only gripe is that she is underused in the second half of the film.

Ultimately what Vamp is, is a fun vampire movie with that undeniable 80’s movie feel. It plays with that delicate balance between comedy and horror. Not every movie is successful in this merging of genres. Vampire in Brooklyn (1995) for example failed horribly at it. The comedy in Vamp falls a little on the silly side; it has the kind of humor you’d find in films like Revenge of the Nerds (1984) or Porky’s (1982). Basically, this is the kind of movie in which a bunch of horny teenagers are looking to satiate their libidos by visiting a strip club. Only thing is that the strip club in Vamp isn’t exactly the friendliest joint they could have found. So to close my thoughts on Vamp, this is a strange sort of vampire film; it has a weird vibe to it. Most of the time you’ll feel like you’ve just walked into an episode of The Outer Limits or something. It has that 80’s sex comedy humor which it chooses to mix with its more horrific elements. Vamp will remind you of the silliness that a lot of films from the 80’s had, but then again, that’s really part of this films charm.  

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5   

Behind the scenes of Vamp. Grace Jones gets body paint applied for her big striptease sequence