Vampire Sisters (2004)

If you ever want to find mediocre or bad movies, there are certain things you have to look for.  No one’s going to say that their movie is crappy.  Instead, you might look for a set of movies.  More movies usually means less quality per movie.  (Yes, $10 will get you 50 movies, but few of them will be worth the effort.)  The straight-to-video label is also a good indicator of low quality.  Movie theaters have to be selective about what they show.  Even made-for-TV indicates a certain standard.  I got Vampire Sisters as part of a six-pack of vampire movies, only to find out that it was also released direct-to-video.

The movie is about three sisters who run an adult site called vampsisters.com.  They just happen to be vampires that use the site to find unwitting victims.  Whenever they’re hungry, they find a local client or two and invite them for a special bonus.  That bonus is ostensibly a private show, but it soon turns into the sisters’ snack time.  The main story is nothing more than several people being invited to the sisters’ house.  Along the way, they attract the attention of Det. Sonny Renko, who is investigating the various missing persons.  When he links all of them to the site, he decides to go in undercover with Det. Jennifer Hunt.

You’re not going to have many surprises here.  The movie hits all of the vampire tropes, like commenting on garlic or having a Bible turn up.  It’s little more than soft-core porn.  (Yes, there is some nudity.)  The story is just a way of stringing together a few various encounters.  It seemed like it was the kind of thing that was meant to serve as a sampler.  (One guy liked pain.  One victim was a woman.  It’s the kind of thing that’s meant to attract a larger audience.)

The acting is also what you would expect.  Many of the actors have ben in a few other movies, although nothing I’d recognize.  The dialogue is so stilted that it’s as if they’re using the first or second take of each scene.  It’s just good enough that it might warrant a single rental.  I wouldn’t buy it, though.  It has low-budget written all over it.

IMDb page

Vampire Hunter (2004)

I had started this blog with two goals.  First, I had wanted to repost as many of my reviews from Epinions as I could.  The second goal was to review as many bad movies as I had the patience to sit through.  I had also wanted to review better-known movies, as well.  However, I wanted to specialize in those films that were of lower quality.  I found these movies to be easier to review on a certain level.

I came to realize in recent months that I was getting away from this.  I was reviewing a lot of TV shows and short films.  I’m not going to stop doing this, but I wanted to get back to the crappy movies that I loved.  Then, I met Vampire Hunter.

The movie is part of a six-pack of movies, which usually tells me that it’s going to be bad.  The same person wrote, produced, directed and starred in the movie.  This is almost always the mark of a stinker.  If those two things didn’t scare me off, the bad video and audio quality should have.

As the name implies, it’s about a man who hunts vampires.  We start with John O'Ryan doing some sort of martial-arts/exercise routine. We find out that he’s pretty good at drawing pin-up girls and has an awesome action-figure collection.  He’s also about to cross paths with Morgan Bane, art dealer and vampire extraordinaire.

Bane is hundreds of years old and is bored with life.  He’s looking for a new woman to have a fling with and maybe find someone to fight.  He’s already gone up against Ramone, having turned his one true love.  When John’s wife, Heather, makes an appointment with Bane, Heather becomes Bane’s next infatuation.  With Ramone’s help, John might be able to defeat the evil vampires and save Heather.

This movie is of such low quality that it’s actually impressive that it found any distribution.  It has the telltale audio and video distortions of a VHS tape that’s been sitting around for a decade or so.  I knew early on that I wasn’t going to be able to make out most of the dialogue.  Fortunately, I was able to follow the basic plot.  This isn’t saying much, though.  It’s the garden variety of crosses, wooden stakes and garlic that’s common with low-budget vampire movies.

The quality was so low that I’m actually wondering if it was deliberate.  Many of the main actors do have other credits, although many of those credits aren’t for acting.  Sean Gallimore, who stared as John O’Ryan, has fifteen credits in the art department, including The Lion King.  Leonardo Millán, who played Bane, did Voicework for Grand Theft Auto V.

I’m not really sure what the impetus was for making the movie.  Was it something that Gallimore wanted to do?  Did he want to show off some skills or try something different?  IMDb shows an estimated budget of $5,000.  It’s possible that he just had some spare time.  Despite there being talent here, it doesn’t look like a lot of effort was put into it.

IMDb page

Vampires: The Turning (2005)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I recently got digital cable. With digital cable came On Demand. One of the great things of On Demand is that they have a selection of free movies. Some of the free selections are pretty good, depending on your taste in movies. I’ve found that most aren’t particularly memorable. Take, for example, Vampires: The Turning. I took a look at the description and saw to things: Vampires and Thailand. So, I’m thinking hot Asian vampires. It turned out that there was only one female vampire and, while she was pretty hot, that alone wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of the movie.

The story begins with two American tourists, Connor and Amanda, watching a fight. He’s way more interested in it than she is, mostly because he studied the form of martial arts that they’re using. She walks out and gets lost in a crowd. He follows her, but can’t find her. It’s not long before a stranger finds the lost woman and ‘offers’ to help her back to her hotel. Turns out he’s a vampire and Connor arrives just in time to see Amanda as an unconscious passenger on his bike.

One of the guy’s cronies tries to kill Connor, but a mysterious man slays the vampire crony and warns Connor to go home. Don’t bother trying to rescue Amanda, as she’s as good as dead. Don’t go to the police, either, since they won’t do anything. Oh, and if Connor follows the mystery man, he’s as good as dead too. So, what does Connor do? Of course, he follows the guy and then goes to the police. Once the police officer hears what Connor has to say, he tells Connor to wait 48 hours before filing a missing persons report.

Connor goes back to the mystery guy’s place tog find a whole hive of vampires, led by the aforementioned hot Asian vampire. Rather that cower in fear, he teams up with them to get his girlfriend back. There’s a possibility that she’s still alive and if she’s still alive, there’s a possibility of getting her back, even if she’s turned.

It all stems from Sang, the female vampire. 800 years ago, she bit someone in rage and that person turned, or became a vampire. From that one bite, all of the evil vampires (and good ones, too) descended. The original bite was during a special eclipse, which apparently means that if she exposes herself to the same eclipse, she dies and all the remaining vampires go back to being mortal again. Connor gets the idea to become a vampire so he has a decent chance of kicking some vampire butt. If he’s successful, he’ll become mortal again. With an attitude like that, how can you lose?

If you’re like me and like vampire movies, I wouldn’t recommend paying money to see it. Free was just about the right price. Most of the movie was about the fighting. The script was pretty bad, there was no real suspense and the acting was just above par, assuming you’re not expecting too much.

Aside from the fighting, the only reason to watch vampire movies is the women. There is something very erotic about watching a women get bitten and/or turn. As I said, there was one who was very attractive, but she was already a vampire. The other wasn’t as attractive, but I did enjoy seeing her get bitten.

Supposedly, this was the third in a series, but the movie didn’t seem like a sequel. It seemed like a self-contained story and I didn’t get any sense that I was supposed to know something. I might see if I can get the other two movies for free and see if they make sense in the context of this movie. From what I’ve read and heard, this is simply the third movie to use Vampires as the main title.

This movie is two-star material, and I only say that because I do like vampire movies. It was only 84 minutes, which wasn’t too bad. It didn’t drag at all. If you happen to get this movie free on demand, go for it. If not, don’t bother looking for it in the video rental place. 

IMDb page

Kiss of the Damned (2012)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


I’ve always liked fangs on a woman.  Make a vampire movie, put a couple of attractive women on the cover and I’ll probably watch it.  If Netflix has it streaming, as in the case with Kiss of the Damned, I’ll almost certainly get around to it.

The movie starts out with a man (Paolo) and a woman (Djuna) meeting each other.  He’s attracted to her and she seems to like him, but she has a secret.  It’s a condition that prevents her from going out in daylight, which is why she has to rent movies at night.  Ok.  Her ‘condition’ is that she’s a vampire.  She’s hesitant to get involved with him, but relents.  He’s kind of persistent.  Even after she bits him, he has to come back.  She eventually turns him.

Djuna tells Paolo that, aside from sunlight, fire and beheading don’t end well for vampires.  This means that they have to stay indoors and be careful what they do, as vampires don’t really want to draw attention to themselves.  The bad news is that Djuna has a sister, Mimi.  Mimi doesn’t seem to care as much for the rules.  She’ll kill indiscriminately.  Paolo tries to get along with Mimi, but comes to realize why Djuna isn’t happy about having to spend a week with her.

The local vampire community welcomes Paolo.  It’s led by Xenia, who’s an actress.  She makes sure everyone has a place to stay and handles problems.  She’s hesitant to do anything about Mimi, though, as there’s direct no proof that she’s a danger.  She is, though.  Whenever a human comes near her, we know it’s not going to end well for the human.

Mimi is the ultimate corruptor.  She tempts Xenia.  She seduces Paolo.  She will kill any human that gets within three feet of her and has no regard for the vampire community.  She is not a sympathetic character.  If anything, you identify more with Djuna, who has to put up with her for a week.  I’ve come to realize why some antagonists get away with what they do.  Even when you have a character as bad as Mimi, it’s not always satisfying to see them meet their end.  In this case, not so much.  You do cheer a little to see Mimi hurt.

On that note, this is not a movie for children.  There is a lot of sex, nudity, violence and gore.  I don’t think this would be appropriate for younger audiences.  Paolo is turned early in the movie.  He and Djuna feed on animals.  After all, this is an R-rated vampire movie.  You have to expect something that you wouldn’t want your kids watching.

If you have Netflix streaming, look into watching this.  It’s even worth renting on DVD.  Just don’t let the kids watch it. 

IMDb page

Bloody Tease 2D & 3D

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I really have to stop getting these movies that have plots in them. It’s not that I don’t like a good story. It’s simply that I have other priorities when I get an adult movie. (At least, movies that I think are adult movies.) Usually, the plot isn’t that developed, the acting is bad and what little the movie has to offer simply distracts from those other priorities. I got Bloody Tease for that and one other reason: There was a 3-D version, which I’ll get to later.

First, I want to talk about that plot which barely exists. It seems that three vampires have set up a strip club to lure college-aged men. Once they have some ‘clients’ inside the club, the three vampires feed on them. (For some reason, they really like college students.) They move on when they’ve had their fill of the local selection, or at least when they’ve been found out. (It seems as though somewhere along the way, they’ve made enemies.)

One day, three friends decide to bring the vampires home for a little ‘private entertainment’, only to discover that they have to fight for their lives or something like that. The truth is that I didn’t really get that far. This was a horrible movie in pretty much every respect. The acting was the typical bad-acting acting. The script and plot were really, really bad. The strip club looked like an abandoned warehouse. Everything was horrible.

I also made the mistake of thinking that this was an adult movie. It has sexual themes and vampires are erotic, but what sexuality there was tended to be spread out and the vampire makeup wasn’t that great. Add to that the fact that the women weren’t supermodels. Yes, they were attractive, but they’re not that attractive. Also, I can’t seem to find them in any other movie anywhere. (If a movie’s main cast hasn’t been in any other movies, that alone should tell you something.)

As for this 3-D business, I saw that the movie came in the standard 2-D version plus a 3-D version. The DVD didn’t come with any 3-D glasses. I thought that I had some 3-D glasses around my house somewhere, but I was too lazy to go digging through everything to find them, especially considering what I thought of the 2-D version. The 3-D version was a nice bonus, but I never got around to using it.

There were no extras. I really shouldn’t complain about that, though. I can’t see there really being any need. It might have been fun to see the thought process behind the plot. (“Well, we were at this strip club and one of the strippers looked like a vampire…”) If there had been any extras, I don’t think that they would have been that substantial. Overall, this is a bad investment. I’m sorry that I paid anything for it. 

IMDb page

Wir sind die Nacht [We Are the Night] (2010)

I’ve never hidden the fact that I have a thing for vampires, particularly of the female persuasion.  When I came across We Are the Night on Netflix, I decided to add it to my queue.  Here was a movie about vampires with three attractive women on the cover.  Add to this that it was available streaming and it was just a matter of time before I got around to watching it.

The story goes that Louise, Charlotte and Nora are the three female vampires you see in Netflix’s image.  One night, Lena stumbles upon a rave that they’re throwing.  Louise sees Lena and knows that Lena is the one that she’s been looking for.  Louise turns Lena first chance she gets.  This makes Lena a little nervous.  To have some random woman bite you is strange.  It’s not like she has many people to turn to, though.  She’s out on parole and doesn’t really want to make waves.  So, she goes to sleep and wakes up to discover that she has no reflection.

So, she goes back to try and find Louise.  Louise lets her in on their history.  The three women rock and roll all day and party every night.  Being undead, they can do whatever they want.  Coke?  Won’t kill you.  Sex?  You won’t catch anything.  In fact, the movie starts with Louise, Charlotte and Nora killing everyone on a plane and jumping out the airlock.  That pretty much sets the tone for the movie.

You don’t necessarily see a lot of killing or sex.  Much of it is implied.  This isn’t to say that it’s not an interesting movie.  Louise & Co. don’t turn men.  They feel that men are arrogant pigs and any male tendency is only amplified by being a vampire, making them a pain to have around.  So, yeah.  It’s all about four vampire women having as much fun as they want.  They steal sports cars.  They bribe a security guard to let them into a high-end store.  They do drugs without any regard for consequences.

This does draw the attention of the police.  Lena is sold to a pimp, expecting her to feed off him.  It doesn’t go as planned and they have to kill him and torch the evidence.  The problem is that they leave a living witness, who reports the incident to the police.  The police are able to piece everything together and find the four vampires.  They have a plan to leave town quickly, but it‘s not enough.  The police have them surrounded.  Will they escape or is it the end for the vampires?

One thing that gets me about vampire movies is that they always tend to use a few clichés.  I’ll admit that I expected this coming in to the movie, but I always feel compelled to bring these up.  The most obvious is the use of mirrors.  Yes, I understand that we need a way for someone to either identify themselves or someone else as a vampire and the easiest way to do this is to look in a mirror.  It’s easy and effective.  Still, I could never figure out what it was about a mirror that prevented a vampire from being seen indirectly.  You can see them.  They cast a shadow.  This means that they should also have a reflection.

Bursting into flames in sunlight is another one.  At least this one can be explained as an Achilles’ heel.  You’re given all of these neat powers like quick regeneration and super strength.  There has to be a down side.  I guess combustibility isn’t that hard to believe.  Sunlight is pretty powerful and there does seem to be some variation on this.  (For example, vampires might only be hurt by sunlight or can use sunscreen.)  It also gives the vampires an obstacle.  Then again, the main reason I watched this movie was to see four beautiful female vampires.  Vampire movies end up being horror or soft porn, depending on the male-to-female ratio.

I also got it streaming, so I can forgive a few inconsistencies.  Yes, the constant partying and increasing body count do catch up with them.  I do find it odd, though, that they were so careless suddenly.  Lena is the new addition.  The others have been around long enough to start counting age in centuries.  They should have learned to better control their impulses.

Overall, it was definitely one of the better movies that Netflix has available to watch online.  If you have Netflix, I’d recommend checking it out.


We Are The Night – IFC Entertainment - IFC Films

We Are The Night - Official Trailer [HD]

Gothic Vampires from Hell (2007)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

 

There’s a joke that I think applies to this movie:  A guy orders dinner at a restaurant.  After he eats it, the waiter asks how the customer’s food was.  He says, “I have two complaints.  First, it was horrible.  Second, there wasn’t enough of it.”

Ok.  On with the review, then.

The title of the movie comes from the name of a band that wants to win a competition.  The prize is a contract as the house band at a Gothic night club.  Losers at least get some stage time, but the lead singer of the title band has put too much time into the band to settle for second place.  He wants to win.

Enter two women that claim that they want to sign Gothic Vampires From Hell to a recording contract.  If they can get a contract, they don’t need the club.   The women aren’t quite what they seem, though.  People have a way of going missing after meeting with them.

That’s really where the plot description ends.  I can’t even say it’s a battle between good and evil as it’s really just a battle between the to women and the bands that they meet.  As you might have gathered from trailers and other reviews, the two women are vampires who are really looking for their new vampire leader.

There are some movies that do well with a small budget.  This isn’t one of them.  The most obvious sign of it being low budget is the recycling of footage, despite the short running time.  If you’re making a movie and need to reuse footage and it’s going to be very obvious, I’m sure there are ways you can work that into the story.  Instead, there are several scenes with different bands playing where the images of people dancing are used repeatedly.  To boot, the scenes look like nothing more than filler.  (Remember when you had to write a paper for school and you played with the font and margin to make the minimum number of pages?  This is the cinematic equivalent.)

Most of the acting was bad, too.  Yes, good actors had to start somewhere.  I don’t think many of them started in a movie like this.  Normally, I’d go to the Internet Movie Database and look at the actors’ other work as an indication.  With many bad movies, there are no other roles to speak of.  This one seems to be the exception, although I think there’s at lease one actor that hadn’t been in anything else at all.  Others have had a few roles, although some have had a lot of roles in other bad movies.

The video quality looked like the movie was made with a couple of borrowed camcorders.  It seemed like the producers were trying to make up for bad video quality by doing things that made it look more like they didn’t have that much money.  What little CGI they had didn’t really blend in that well and actually was distracting.  They also tried to use a lot of fancy transitions between scenes which made it seem like they were trying too hard.

I think with some more attractive women and a lot more nudity, this could have been a great porn title.  In fact, the one good thing the movie had going for it was a couple of attractive vampires.  If the writing was better, it could have been a real mainstream movie.  As it stands, it looks like someone took an episode from one of those horror series like Tales From the Crypt and put it on steroids.

IMDb page

 

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I am going to give away major details about the movie.  Most of these major details are ones that you should see coming, as the movie follows actually history to a certain degree.  However, if you don’t want to have all the details before seeing the movie, you might want to hold off on reading this review.

There seemed to be a lot of interest in Abraham Lincoln at once.  Daniel Day-Lewis starred in a movie called Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg, about the President’s final months in office.  I’ve also seen a few Time special publications about him.  One movie that I found interesting was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The movie roughly follows history.  It seems that many of the major characters were real people, although the move claims that Lincoln hunted and killed vampires around the time he first moved to Springfield, Illinois.

The story goes that his mother was killed by a vampire.  Young Abraham witnesses the murder and seeks revenge as soon as he’s old enough to get a gun and some bullets.  Problem is that it’s not so easy to kill a vampire.  All he does is enrage his mother’s killer, who now turns on her son.  Fortunately, Henry Sturgess saves Lincoln.  Lincoln convinces Sturgess to train him to kill vampires, which he reluctantly does.

He makes Lincoln understand that hunting vampires has to be his only pursuit.  He can’t have friends.  He can’t have family.  He can’t have a life outside of doing what Sturgess tells him to do.  This suits Lincoln just fine until he meets Mary Todd.  He’s able to hunt and kill vampires for a while longer, but eventually proposes to her and they marry.

It turns out that Sturgess has a secret.  Once revealed to Lincoln, he abandons his hunt and goes into politics.  He wants to abolish slavery, but it might come at a price.  The South is home to a lot of vampires and those vampires use slaves as a source of food.  Take away slavery and they may revolt.  When Lincoln becomes president, the South splits, eventually leading to the Civil War.

Vampires don’t hold political office, but they do contribute money to make sure their interests are protected.  They even enlist in the war, as they have a better survival rate than normal humans.  Lincoln does have a few tricks up his sleeve and is able to defeat the vampires and win the war.

As I said in the warning, the movie uses history as a guide.  The movie is not meant to be historically accurate to the last sentence.  It’s more like different motives are assigned to historical characters.  It should come as no surprise that the South goes to war with the North.  It should come as no surprise that the North wins.  The surprise comes in how the North does it.  There is some suspense in how.  These are the details I don’t want to give away.  (In the last few minutes of the movie, Mary Todd Lincoln is calling to her husband that they’re going to be late to the play.)

I figured that the movie was going to be one of those stories about how you didn’t know all these things about our 16th president.  It was more of an alternate history where vampires exist.  Yes, they’re kept hidden from people and use large amounts of sunscreen to go out in daylight.  Still, the main draw of the movie is the action sequences.  There’s one where Lincoln is fighting a vampire in the middle of a horse stampede.   In another, Lincoln and his allies are fighting many vampires.  Both sequences are very well done.  I’d say both are worth renting the movie for if you’re into action movies.

The movie is definitely worth watching.  This was one of those movies I wanted to see, but not enough to pay full price for it.  The movie was released in 3D, which would probably have been worth it.  It’s just that I’m not working full time right now and have to make choices.  I’d rather get the 2D version from Redbox with a free code than pay to see it in 3D.  I just wish that more movies would release the 3D version on DVD.  (I guess it’s too difficult to distribute special glasses with the movie.) 

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Official Trailer (HD) Benjamin Walker  

The Living Dead

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Many, many years ago, back when I was working at Wolf Camera, I found these sets of movies for $7.99 each.  Each set had 9 or 10 movies that fit in to some theme.  One set is all Alfred Hitchcock movies.  Another is all science fiction.  This one is titles The Living Dead and has to do with zombies, vampires and strange cults.  (Or at least things that pass for zombies, vampires and strange cults.)

The thing that first attracted me to this set was that it had Dawn of the Dead.  This was a movie that I had heard about and had wanted to see.  I figured that I could get eight more reviews out of it.  (Nine, if you include this one.)  With that many reviews, it was just a matter of waiting for the right promotion on Epinions and I could make my money back.  (I ended up getting a few of the other sets when the store put them on sale.)

Well, I’ve finally gotten around to reviewing them.  Now, I have to review the set as a whole.  I don’t really want to write too much on each movie.  I doubt you’d want a 3,000-word review and I know that I don’t want to write one.  (Since I’ve reviewed all of the movies, I will link to the individual titles.)

This set has nine movies spread out over three discs as follows:

Disc 1:  The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, The House by the Cemetery, Fangs of the Living Dead

Disc 2:  I Eat Your Skin,  The Last Man on Earth, King of the Zombies

Disc 3:  Night of the Living Dead, The Thirsty Dead, Messiah of Evil


The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is about Lord Alan Cunningham, who likes to kill women.  He seems to think that marrying again will cure him of this.  It just leads to a strange and disjointed movie.  It’s more strange than scary.  Also, kind of light on the living dead thing.

The House by the Cemetery does have living dead that haunts a family.  They move into a house while the father finishes the work of a colleague who committed suicide.  It’s not quite as strange and disjointed, but that’s not to say it makes any sense.  Take the grave marker in the house.

Fangs of the Living Dead does have living dead.  (In this case, vampires.)  A young woman about to be married inherits a castle.  She goes over to sign the paperwork only to find out that her uncle really isn’t her uncle.  Also, there’s some question as to whether or not her mother is dead.  The movie comes across primarily as goofy.  (I don’t know how much of it was intended to be goofy.)

I Eat Your Skin was originally billed with a movie called I Drink Your Blood.  (I kid you not.  Check IMDb.)  The only likeable thing about this movie, in my opinion, was that it was filmed near me, albeit before I was born.  In this movie, a writer goes to Zombie Island with the intention of getting material for a new book.  He and his party get more than they bargained for.  This one redefines what it means to be low-budget.

The Last Man on Earth is the reason I got this pack in the first place.  I’d say it was worth it.  It’s one of two movies in this set that are worth the purchase price.  (The other one is Night of the Living Dead.)  The movie is about a man who seems to be the last human alive, hence the title.  He spends his days gathering supplies and his nights hiding from the undead.  It’s not a great movie, but it is worth seeing, especially if you’ve seen Omega Man or I am Legend.  All three movies are based on the same book.

The King of the Zombies is not even worth watching unless you want to get the review out of it.  It’s the shortest of the nine as well as the oldest.  In it, three men crash land on an island.  They discover a strange man in a strange castle with strange things going on.  This is another case where the living dead aren’t technically living dead, but it’s a minor point.  The movie is just plain bad.

Night of the Living Dead  is a classic.  Yes, it’s that Night of the Living Dead.  It’s the one directed by George A. Romero.  This movie does have actual living dead and is actually good enough to raise the bar for zombie movies to come.  This alone is worth the purchase price.  If you’re going to get this set, watch this movie first if you haven’t already seen it.

The Thirsty Dead does not involve anyone who is either thirsty or dead.  Instead, it involves a cult that lives in a remote area that drinks the blood of people to stay young.  They think they’ve found someone who is supposed to change the course of their special cult.  The only problem is that she wants nothing to do with them.  Ironically, one of the other women kidnapped with her does want eternal youth and beauty.  The shame of it is that she’s nothing to look at.  Neither is the movie.  It’s just plain ridiculous.  This is Mystery Science Theater 3000 material at its finest.

Messiah of Evil was somewhat decent.  It’s not as good as other movies I’ve seen, but it does involve some creepy scenes.  It’s about a woman looking for her father in a small town.  The small-town residents have some sort of infection that turns them into flesh-eating zombies during a blood moon.  The main drawback is the film transfer; it looks like St. Clair Vision used the cheapest one they could fine.  It’s worth watching, but only if you get it as part of this set.

In addition to the nine movies, there are three special features.  On disc one is classic movie trailers.  Disc two has vintage movie posters.  Disc three has a feature on the making of The Night of the Living Dead.  The only one I watched was the one on the movie posters, which is basically a slide show set to music.  I watched a few minutes, but didn’t see anything interesting.

I think the common thread running through all of these movies was that they were either public domain or had expired copyrights.  In other words, St. Clair Vision, who distributed this collection, didn’t have to shell out any money beyond what it cost to produce and ship the units.  Most of the movies don’t seem to have been restored at all.  I think very minimal effort was put into this.

If you find this collection and think (as I did) that you might be able to get your money back by reviewing the movies, I’d really think hard about it.  I only finished most of the movies because I wanted the reviews.  Had it not been for the site, I don’t think I would have finished (or even started) watching some of these movies.  Many of these are really old.  Release dates range from 1941 to 1981.  I’d say that all of the movies show their age to some extent.

The packaging was very basic.  It’s a plastic case with three places for the DVDs.  The only problem is that the back half has two holders that are arranged so that you have to take out one disc to get at the other.  It’s not a problem, but it might be a nuisance if you want to get to a movie on the bottom disc quickly.  On the back of the DVD case is a short description of each movie and the suitability for children.  Each disc is easy to get out of the case.

Interestingly, there’s a copyright warning.  I think all of these are public domain, so I think the only thing that would fall under copyright is the menus and maybe the special features.  I guess it’s one of those things that they have to put in just in case it ever matters.  I don’t really regret buying this.  I’d say that between Last Man on Earth and Night of the Living Dead, I got my money’s worth.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.  I have made a few modifications here.

I first became aware of this movie through Epinions. I had done a review of Omega Man and decided to read a few of the other reviews, which mentioned Last Man on Earth. Both movies are based on the same novel, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. When I saw a collection of movies that included The Last Man on Earth, I had to buy it. (I got this and 8 other movies for $7.99 plus tax.)

Vincent Price plays Dr. Robert Morgan, a scientist who is literally the last normal human on Earth. You see, there was this worldwide plague that affected every other human on the planet. Many were killed and burned to prevent the spread of the disease, but to no avail. Those that are infected become sick and die only to reanimate shortly thereafter. Dr. Morgan’s best guess as to his immunity is a bat bite that he sustained many years ago.

Either way, he lived and had to watch his wife and daughter die while his coworker thinks that everyone’s turning into vampires. Morgan dismisses it at first, but thinks twice when his wife comes home…after he buried her. He realizes that humanity may really be doomed.

For several years, Morgan has spent his days looking for supplies and his nights scared out of his wits, hoping that the 'vampires' don’t get him. Morgan finds out that garlic and wooden stakes have the same effects as in legend and the zombies also have an aversion to mirrors. (Amazingly, mirrors and fresh garlic are easy to come by, even after three years.) He finds hope when he discovers a woman watching him. If he can help her, there may yet be hope for humanity.

The first thing that I noticed was that the acting left something to be desired. Granted, most of the characters were zombies, but Vincent Price was the only one who seemed to give much of a performance. Even with the zombies, the acting seemed more rigid than one might expect from the undead, but I’ll get to that later.

The picture quality also wasn’t that great. The quality was good, considering that it’s a black-and-white movie from 1964. However, there were several points in the movie where the transfer was terrible. It wasn’t a major point, but it was a little distracting at times

I don’t know if this is to be expected from all versions of the movie or just the DVD that I got. The name of the collection I got was called “The Living Dead”. It’s from St. Claire Vision, which is known for distributing public-domain material.  They don't seem to put a lot of effort into restoring the movies or getting the bet versions.

Even though I liked the movie, I didn’t think that the story was developed very well. I realize that 86 minutes isn’t a lot of time to go into detail, but how was it that out of a total population of several billion, only one person was lucky enough to have immunity?  I always find it odd when exactly one person survives.  He also had plenty of food, garlic and other supplies. I would think that after three years, either the food would have gone bad or the zombies would have gotten to most it.

On that note, why was it that the zombies were so one-dimensional? All they did was moan and make a very weak effort to get to Morgan. The only reason they even seemed interested in Morgan was that he was unaffected by the plague. In The Omega Man, the zombies and their relationship with the last human survivor were both developed more.

Overall, I’d give the movie three stars. It was entertaining to watch, but I don’t think that the movie would hold up well to today’s standards. For what I paid for it, it was worth it. If you’re interested in this movie, I’d actually recommend getting Omega Man.

Blood Angels/Thralls (2005) Movie Review

I have to admit that I’m a ‘sucker’ for female vampires.  Since I have access to streaming movies, I can pick out movies that I might not otherwise rent.  I could tell that Blood Angels, a.k.a. Thralls, was going to be one of those movies that I might not otherwise have rented.  (I almost didn’t make it through the introductory voiceover.  If you want to use a deep voice, find someone with a deep voice.)

The movie is about several half-vampire women, called thralls, that want to escape from their evil vampire captor, Mr. Jones.  Thralls can’t fly or turn humans or anything, which makes it difficult.  However, Marlene finds a possible way out.  She manages to steal Mr. Jones’s Big Book of Vampire Stuff, Latin Edition, and finds a passage about some ritual to make a thrall into a full vampire.  With one exception, the women manage to escape.

Cut to a woman waiting at what I’m assuming was supposed to be a bus station.  Her name is Ashley and she’s waiting for her big sister, Leslie, to pick her up.  It’s late.  It’s dark.  Of course, several guys try to attack her.  Leslie shows up just in time to attack and drain them of blood.  Yes, Leslie is one of the thralls.  (Ashley doesn’t see any of the blood sucking.  She doesn’t know and won’t find out until later.)

They go to a large building that the women are using for raves.  There, a wide assortment of people are waiting to get in.  Some do.  Some don’t.  They’re collecting some sort of emotional energy for the ceremony, which has to be held on the Winter solstice at midnight.  Just as the moment is about to come, Mr. Jones shows up and starts wreaking havoc.  Turns out that it wasn’t that easy.  The ceremony is to bring over a demon.  As you might expect, the ladies win.  (Well, three of them win.  The rest aren’t as lucky.)

The voice over was the first of many things to bother me.  As much as I like vampire movies, I hate it when vampires don’t reflect.  I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll probably mention it again.  They’re physical objects that light interacts with.  What is it about being a vampire that makes their photons not interact with reflective surfaces?  I’m sure that there was some reason.  As far as I can tell, it’s currently only used as a plot device to let other characters know that there’s a vampire around, and even that’s far fetched.  How is it that the protagonist always has a mirror and is looking at just the right angle?

Most of the actors were in other movies, but the acting is just a little over the top.  I think everyone involved knew that this wasn’t going to be a serious movie.  Most of the action is gratuitous and/or exaggerated.  You also have gratuitous nudity, some of which I’m not complaining about.  Add to this some really corny one-liners and you have a B movie that you’ll either love or hate.

There further into the movie, the less obvious the explanations were.  Towards the end, the writers were throwing things in at random.  (Leslie and another thrall figure that if a thrall is half a vampire, two thralls could make a whole vampire.)  I think at this point, the writers knew that very few viewers would remain.

I’m not saying that I don’t recommend the movie.  Several of the women were pretty hot and made the movie worth watching.  Unfortunately, many of the scenes are dark and you can’t always get a great view of the women.  In fact, one of the women has snakes that come out of her chest.  That alone may make the movie for some people.  The bad news is that it’s one brief scene late in the movie.  All I know is that I’m glad I was able to get it streaming through Netflix.

IMDb page