20 vampire films, all first time watches for me.

Come on — sink ’em in.

Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) – Tubi

I’ve seen Blacula (1970) plenty of times, but somehow never got around to watching the sequel, and thank the stars I did, because it’s excellent. I think I like it even more than the original.

If you are new to this nonsense, the original film told the tale of an African prince who is bitten by Dracula and becomes a bloodsucking fiend on the streets of L.A., tapping all jive turkeys he comes across. It’s obviously a product of the Blaxploitation era, but its dodgy premise is saved by the presence of William Marshall. For my money, Marshall can stand toe-to-toe with Christopher Lee as one of my favorite depictions of the count (so to speak). Like Lee, he brings much gravitas, animalistic savagery, and raw sex appeal to the role, along with one of the best voices in the business.

This sequel though has the added bonus of Pam Grier at her height of acting skill and gorgeousness, and a voodoo sub-plot that adds an extra layer to what is ultimately a tragedy. Marshall brilliantly walks the line between monster and victim, and it doesn’t matter how many other players are in the scene, he and Grier keep you mesmerized.

A wonderful start to a new project — onwards and upwards!

8/10

Blood Shot (Infinite Justice Productions, 2013) and Night Teeth (Netflix, October 20, 2021)

Blood Shot (2013) – Prime

Nope, not the quickly forgotten Vin Diesel actioner from four years ago, nor the other Blood Shot from 2013 starring Danny Dyer, this one is a straight to video chunk of sparkly tomfoolery featuring brief cameos from a lot of actors who need new patios.

In a nutshell, the CIA has a special division that employs the services of the last living vampire to take out terrorist threats to the US of A. This vampire (Michael Bailey Smith — wonderful) is a wise-cracking brute of a Nosferatu, and an effective hitman (bitman?). However, his missions are often hampered by a dogged detective, played with maximum grizzledness by Brennan Elliott, who is determined to kill the vamp. His attempts to kill the bloodsucker grow successively funnier as he exhausts his collection of tricks (garlic-filled shotgun shells etc.), all the while getting the snot kicked out of him. Things come to a head when a nefarious gang on a manic jihad arrive in the city, ready to unleash a nuclear bomb, and the vampire and detective must reluctantly team up to take them down.

First of all, I wasn’t expecting anything from this, but I had a splendid time. The snippy buddy-cop routine between the two leads was excellent and there were some genuinely funny moments.

It’s not all YIKES-free though.

A close squint at the poster will reveal Brad Dourif in brown-face and hook-nose prosthetic as ‘Bob’, the jihad organizer whose real name is too long so everyone shortens it. He’s not the only white actor playing a character of Middle-Eastern descent, so be forewarned. It’s a bizarre decision, but perhaps in keeping with the irreverent nature of the story. Also, if you do decide to take a look, don’t be put off by the seizure-inducing first 10 mins. It settles down quickly, possibly because the editor got tired or had to go to hospital.

A cautious recommendation.

7/10

Night Teeth (2021) – Netflix

First up, I don’t like this title. It’s awkward to say and isn’t very interesting. Secondly, this is a Netflix film, and I like that they are producing so many films and giving newish directors a crack, but I’ve reached the point where they all look the same to me. Same lighting, same editing, same polished ‘product.’

That’s what they’re knocking out. Not films. Content.

Anyhoo, on a more positive note, I liked the idea of L.A. being split into five, vampire-run, districts, and one uppity bloodsucker attempting a coup during the course of one night. The monster on the power trip is Victor (of course), played by Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy of GoT), and he has sent his faithful hitwomen out to do the dirty deeds. The bitey ladies, Zoe (Lucy Fry) and Blaire (Debbie Ryan) need a driver for the night, and the hapless Benny (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) ends up filling in for his brother, who is up to shenanigans. As Benny drives the women from slaying to slaying, he slowly figures out what is going on, and then has to fight for survival.

It’s a potpourri of borrowed ideas from the likes of the Underworld and John Wick films (especially the secret society with rules), and could have been spectacular, but leaden writing and wooden delivery (particularly from Sidney Sweeney and Megan Fox in a 5-minute cameo) let it down. I was really impressed with Ryan and Lendeborg Jr. though, and could stand to see them in more projects.

Recommended if you like glitz and exposition.

6/10

Vampires on Bikini Beach (Beacon Films, 1988) and Dracula:
The Original Living Vampire (The Asylum, January 28, 2022)

Vampires on Bikini Beach (1988) – Tubi

Remember the 80s? That glorious time when the best vampire films came out? Fright Night, Near Dark, Lost Boys, Innocent Blood, Vamp, et al. What a time. Anyhoo, writer/producer/director Mark Headley thought “Hey, folks love vampire flicks, and they like bikinis, and my pal needs an 80-minute promo video for his dull band, I got it!” and so this film came to be, and it was bad.

Here’s the skinny: some boring teens find a boring book that has something to do with some boring vampires in the most boring parts of Venice Beach. Boredom ensues.

It’s so shoddily written, acted and filmed, that it can’t even be considered as a ‘so bad it’s good’ flick; it’s just aggressively rubbish. It’s the first hate-watch I’ve done in a while, which is amazing considering all the crap I watch.

Recommended.

1/10

Dracula: The Original Living Vampire (2022) – Prime

Cue arguments about whether vampires are technically ‘living.’

Anyhoo, when the words ‘The Asylum presents’ flash up on screen, they tend to trigger a Pavlovian response in that my expectations are immediately quashed. This is a very healthy attitude, and can sometimes lead to a pleasant surprise. Not this time, however.

D:tOLV is a weird film. It really doesn’t know what it wants to be — a horror film, police procedural, or a comedy. I don’t suspect the latter was intentional. It allegedly takes place in the UK, which for some reason is depicted as a turn of the (previous) century Austrian town transplanted to the Carpathians, complete with mountain-top castle. The clothing is early 20th C, houses are lit by candle light and some bulbs, Van Helsing carries a luger, and characters say stuff like ‘it’s above my paygrade.’

Anachronisms aside, it’s an interesting twist on the tale. Amelia Van Helsing is a police detective working with Captain Renfield. Amelia works closely with mortician Dr Seward (Michael Ironside, briefly phoning it in), and chemist Jonathan Harker, as the group tries to solve the murders of a bevy of red-haired women, all drained of blood. When Van Helsing’s girlfriend, Mina, gets targeted by Drac, they must rally forth and get on with some slaying.

This premise is let down by some pretty bland acting (Amelia and Dracula in particular were wrongly cast) and a great deal of dull conversation. I mean, a LOT of conversation. 50% of the film is Harker and Van Helsing pulling a Mulder and Sculley – the twist being that Van Helsing doesn’t believe any of it. The other 50% is filled with Seward talking to himself, some lacklustre action, and a couple of sex scenes to ensure there are some knockers for the foreign markets. Wasted potential.

Minus another point for the bad grammar on the poster.

4/10

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (Universal Pictures, August 11, 2023)
and The Velvet Vampire (New World Pictures, June 1971)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) – Prime

The untold story of the doomed Demeter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula has long been a gothic tease for horror fans. It has been touched upon in other films (and was my favorite part of the recent Dracula adaptation by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat), but my anticipation was riding high when I heard André Øvredal was directing a version of the story. Øvredal is responsible for Troll Hunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe, two of my favorite films, and with a cast fleshed out by the likes of Liam Cunningham and Corey Hawkins, how could it go wrong? Well, it didn’t, but it also didn’t go spectacularly either.

It looks good, and the performances are great, but there was something about it that didn’t quite work for me. Perhaps it was the repetitive, episodic feel of crewmembers being bumped off one by one while exposed on the deck during the night watch, maybe it was Dracula himself. I loved the design of the vampire, but his face didn’t do it for me. His savagery was undeniable though, and the effects, a seamless blend of practical and CG, were top notch. Hawkins’ character, Clemens, offered up an interesting angle being not only a man of science, but also black, in a time when Eastern Europeans would have been remarkably intolerant. He does touch upon this, but I feel it could have been explored further.

Cunningham is the captain of the ship in every sense of the word, elevating every scene he is in, and the skeleton crew do their jobs well, even if they are largely forgettable aside from the reliable David Dastmalchian. I went into this assuming it would be a ten-out-of-ten movie, but it gets eight from me, partly because I hyped it up too much for myself, and partly because an awesome sequel is hinted at but the box-office was so dire that, like Dracula, it will never see the light of day.

8/10

The Velvet Vampire (1971) – Prime

It would be remiss of me not to include a title from the Roger Corman stable, so here we are, with a notable title for several reasons. Firstly, it was directed by Stephanie Rothman, a trailblazer in the film industry and responsible for a clutch of genre-bending flicks. Rothman leaned into the fluid sexuality of vampires, no doubt prompted by the recent success of Hammer’s lesbian vampire films (Vampire Lovers, Twins of Evil, Lust for a Vampire), and adapted a story, Carmilla, written in 1872 by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla is considered to be the first lesbian vampire story ever published, and the lead antagonist, Diana Le Fanu, is named after him as a direct homage.

The tale concerns Sarah and Lee, a swinging married couple who encounter Le Fanu at an art gallery (where the actual Johnny Shines is playing a fantastic tune), and the enigmatic Le Fanu invites them to stay at her remote home in the middle of the Mojave desert. By this point, Le Fanu has already killed a would-be rapist in the opening scene, so we are well aware of her strength.

Car trouble forces the couple to start walking, but then Le Fanu turns up in a dune buggy (!), and takes them back to her place. After that, not much happens. There’s some walking around, a bit of jealous chat, and some semi-erotic dream sequences, but you will have to wait about 40 mins for someone to actually get bitten.

Naturally, shenanigans ensue.

Is it a great film? Not particularly, but you can see why it’s a cult classic. Lee’s casual promiscuity, Sarah’s blank-faced screaming, Diane’s bisexual seductions, some early electronic scoring, and some lovely color design (look for all the red bits) are certainly worth a look if you don’t have anything more pressing to attend to.

5/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

You Can’t Handle the Tooth, Part II
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

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Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part VII of Tubi Dive. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).