The Vampiress Episode: "Relic Hunter"

"Possessed'

Season 1

Episode 20

 

Relic Hunter was a Canadian syndicated TV show that ran for 3 seasons between 1999 to 2002.  The show starred 90's sex symbol Tia Carrere as a professor who traveled the world looking for ancient and supernatural relics ala Indiana Jones.

In this episode from the shows first season Sydney (Carrare) gets a message from a sick friend in Brussels who believes his girlfriend is a vampire who is trying to kill him and in order to break her spell needs an artifact called the Sacred Sundial of Zeus.

After some investigation Sydney confirms that Eric's girlfriend Suzanne (Jane March) is a part of a vampire cult but she is not a full member and isn't aware that she is draining her boyfriends lifeforce away.  When she overhears Syney confront the cult leader about her plans for Suzanne she ends up helping Sydney fight her way out of the cults lair with the Sundial in order to save her boyfriends life.    

Zeta Graff (Emanuelle)

Emanuelle is the cult leader.   Upon meeting Sydney despite her constantly beating up her minions Emanuelle is friendly and inviting to her.  She admires Sydney's strength and wants nothing more than to have her join the cult.  Being the leader she is also the only vampire to fang out in the episode which happens in one quick scene at the end of the episode.

Side Notes...
- The show deals with vampires again in Season 3: Episode 7 "Vampires Kiss" but no females with fangs in that one.
- Show regular Lindy Booth played a vamp in the 1999 film "Teenage Space Vampires".

Vampiress Review: "Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft"

The Gist:  The leader of a brood of female vampires and a Satanist come together with the goal of casting a demonic spell and it's up to Celeste, a beautiful sorceress to stop them.

Clarification:  As corny as the gist sounds its about 5 times cornier than that (a lot of running and martial arts in high heels in this film).  Sadly out of the two films in the Witchcraft series that deal with vampires (the other being "Witchcraft VII: Judgement Hour")this is the better of the two by a mile (the other consists of two fang scenes with obviously rubber dollar store fangs).  The bulk of this movie is people either running or walking around the same hallways and alleys depending on if they're being chased by a vampire or not in that particular scene.  This film could be classified as a softcore porn as there is quite a bit of full frontal nudity but as far as simulated sex goes with a couple of exceptions it's all lumped into one montage mid film (basically every couple in the film decides to have sex at the same exact moment in different locations it would seem).  The acting pretty much sounds like they're reading but there really isn't much substance to the story anyway.  Basically this film is to be watched for the T&A factor only.

Selling Point:  Emily Booth as a vampire is well worth the terrible movie it happens to occur in.

Female Vampire Factor:  The lead vampire "Raven" is played by Eileen Daly who rarely fangs out and is nowhere near what she was in Razor Blade Smile.

The real vamp screen time goes to the duo of Emily Booth and Talitha Tallett who do all the dirty work in the movie and have a great deal of fun doing it.  Most scenes with them usually involve them making out while attacking people in tandem.

Outside of that the movie deals a lot with the three above creating a number of background vampires who become stake fodder

 as well as Booth and Talletts characters getting replaced by some nameless vampire henchwomen upon their demise.

 As mentioned before the movie is pretty bad and only worth taking a look at for the T&A factor.  On top of that they spend the whole movie hinting that Stephanie Beaton's character aka the only thing that relates this film to the previous Witchcraft titles, might turn (she gets scratched and bitten multiple times) but she never does.  Thankfully she has posed as a vampire since this film which you can view HERE.   For that I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  You'll get your fill of hot women with fangs, just don't expect anything beyond that. 

Vampiress Review: "American Vampire"

The Gist:  A teenager whose parents leave him unsupervised for the summer is in over his head when a group of vampires invite themselves to live with him.

Clarification:  This is a comedy which really isn't very funny.  The makers of the film realize this and use the alternate commentary feature on the DVD to basically rip the film Mystery Science Theater style which doesn't make it any more entertaining.  In fact it just points out a lot of little errors in filming that otherwise wouldn't really be noticed.   The premise is pretty straight forward,  A rich kid named Frankie has the house to himself, and lets his buddy invite some random guy they met on the beach to his house who decides not to leave but it's ok because he has two extremely hot girls with him.  Unfortunately all three turn out to be vampires.  Eventually they pretty much take over his place including turning his friends and girlfriend so Frankie enlists the help of a vampire hunter to help him get rid of them.

Selling Point:  Adam West has a cameo as the vampire hunter called "The Big Kahuna" who is pretty much just a surfer version of the absent minded "Mayor West" character from Family Guy (which says something since this film came out two years before Family Guy debuted).

Female Vampire Factor:  Despite the fact that every version of the DVD's cover places them up front.  The female vampires played by Debra Xavier and Carmen Electra are not focal points at all in the film and only exist for the occasional T&A.

 Also the only female vampires that you actually see biting in the film are a pair that Frankie dreams about at the beginning of the film which is very random and not really explained other than I assume foreshadowing.

Frankies Dream vamps

and finally Frankies girlfriend Dee Dee (played by the daughter of musician Mel Torme, Daisy) gets turned in the film but does absolutely nothing.  It is the most attractive she looks in the movie though.

So with that I give this film a Vampire Beauty rating of 1 out of 5.  Three female vamps that hang out in the background of a very unentertaining film where the only thing that makes them vamps is glowing eyes (and in Dee Dee's case having her voice changed. 

Vampiress Review: "Vampire Assassin"

The Gist:  A cop with a fear of blood must face his fear as what starts as a sting operation against a counterfeiter ends up being a war with vampires. 

Clarification:  Basically this is just an exhibition for star Ron Halls martial arts skills.  If you've ever seen a Jackie Chan movie that's about the level of plot development you're going to get here.  Hall as cop Derek Washington gets attacked by 700 people (one at a time obviously) and is then taunted by the movies vampire antagonist Gustoff Slovak (Mel Novak) in long drawn out speeches in which he really doesn't say anything of value ever but makes him seem more "villainy".  In other words it's like watching Blade but without that high budget getting in the way. 

Selling Point:  The cheese factor on this one makes it mildly entertaining. For example Slovak unlike other vampires I assume can be hurt by bullets so in order to keep from getting injured by them he flaps his Dracula like cloak around like he's punching them out of the air.

Female Vampire Factor:  As I mentioned in the clarification this is basically just a martial arts exhibition so anyone who isn't the character Slovak is just a moving punching bag.  That means there are no female vamp main characters or quite frankly any that get quality screen time other than to establish who is about to get killed next.

With that I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  After all they are pretty hot for the 3 to 5 seconds they're on camera before a stick gets put in their chest.

Vampiress Review: Dracula's Great Love

The Gist:  In order to bring his daughter back to life Count Dracula must get a woman to fall in love with him without the use of vampire abilities.

Clarification:  The gist being what the movies plot eventually turns out being if you watch it all the way through in reality you're getting a story of a group of travelers (most of which being attractive slutty women) who get stranded in the woods when their stage coach breaks down and has to seek shelter in an old sanatorium that is inhabited by a doctor who just so happens to be a disguised Count Dracula and the women's ambitions to seduce the doctor. 

The voice acting for the English dub is pretty bad but forgivable since so is the movie in general.  The beginning of the film is filled with long drawn out scenes where nothing happens and the end of it consists of jump cuts where you loose large chunks of time with no explanation whatsoever.  It doesn't help that much of Count Dracula's dialogue (once you find out he's Count Dracula) is narrated to further confuse the viewer during these chopped up scenes since the narrated voice is often talking directly to characters on screen without his character on screen moving his mouth at all (I guess he's a telepath). 

Selling Point:  At least there's tons of full frontal nudity.  This Dracula loves breasts way more than necks.

Female Vampire Factor:  This is where the movie could have and should have been much better.  (!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!).  Basically Dracula creates a harem of super sexy female vampires by having the girls turn each other in order to run one errand and that's to grab a virgin from the local village.

After that he has them destroyed because he changes his mind at the drop of a hat.  Then when plan B doesn't materialize (because the woman he's in love with is the only one that gets to choose whether she's turned or not, unlike her slutty friends)...  He kills himself over it just for the viewing audience to witness the woman change her mind AFTER he dies.

Basically Dracula chooses some girl he knew for two days over his dead daughter and paid for it.   None the less there is quite a bit of fem vamp T&A in this film just not quite at the use or level as you'd get in a Jean Rollins film even though the opportunity was there so this gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  

Two major vampire franchises being rebooted

If we've learned anything in cinema it's that when you start giving action movie hero's kids and family's there's only two places you can go from there,  The shelf or the re-boot machine.  Well the last time we saw "death dealer" Selene she was a supernatural wife and mother and not even Superman could survive parenthood so it's no surprise that Lakeshore Entertainment has announced that Underworld is being rebooted.  The only thing known is that the script is being written by Corey Goodman (the guy who wrote Priest which will not be reviewed here since the vampires in that film were really mole people).

The biggest issue this reboot will probably have is the question of who will take over the role of Selene.  Kate Beckinsale (above, left) is universally praised by major publications and movie reviewers alike as one of the hottest female vampires of all time so those will definitely be tough boots to fill (Just ask Rona Mitra who starred in Underworld: Rise of the Lycons and who was stuck with constant Beckinsale comparisons though playing a totally different character). As soon as her replacement is announced I'll post it here.  Until then check out my post on the sexy female vampires of the Underworld saga.

In the same boat comes news that Universal pictures has acquired the rights to Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles" and are already in the process of putting together the first film of the re-booted franchise titled "Lestat".  The significance of this (and the reason for the pick at the top of the article) being that "Lestat" is expected to be a REMAKE of Queen of the Damned which will be the starting point of a new franchise of films. The original film got more publicity off of the fact that it's star, R&B singer Aaliyah Haughton (above, right) died prior to the films completion than it did for honest interest in the story and probably benefited considering the film which was a sequel to 1994's "Interview with the Vampire" had very little star power compared to the first film.  For more on those films is my recent post on the sexy female vampires of the Vampire Chronicles.

So that's two of the hottest female vampires of the previous decade expected to hit the big screen brand new (and none of them will be in high school thankfully). 

Vampire B movie actress auditions for X-Factor

On the British version of the talent show X-Factor a husband and wife band auditioned called "the Courtesans".  One half of the husband and wife duo is none other than B movie veteran Eileen Daly.

While word is just now getting out of Daly's past. To vampire fans she is pretty well known as she is actually featured in the logo for B movie company Redemption films.

Redemption Films logo

In fact she has starred in several films sporting the fangs, most notably 1998's Witchcraft X and Razorblade Smile which you can read my review HERE.

Screenshot from Razor Blade Smile

Daly is 51 now and you can't be a B movie sex goddess forever so it's good that she's looking for main stream success doing other things.   Good luck to her.