Vampiress Review: "Where Evil Lives"

The Gist:  The caretaker of an abandoned home tells stories about the previous tenants to someone interested in buying it.

Clarification:  Pretty much a similar plot as "The House that Dripped Blood" you get three stories in this film.  The first deals with a guy getting out of prison after murding a bunch of party goers in the house and being haunted by them and the third being a cop using supernatural abilities to find a serial killer.  The reason it's being reviewed here is the second story.

Selling Point: Not bad by Troma standards.......but still Troma.

Female Vampire Factor:  This would be story number two.  A guy goes into an abandoned house after being stood up by his girlfriend because he hears a female voice calling his name.  It ends up being a woman in black lingerie (nothing suspicious about that right?)

Anyway she's ready to go and he's already horny from earlier in the day so he's easy prey resulting in her fanging out, biting him and turning him.

 The guys little sister and brother end up going to the place to rescue him but ends up being confronted by the woman and is attacked by the now vampiric version of him as well.  By stories end the woman is dead and the little sister now takes care of her vampiric brother. 

As I said the film is decent by Troma standards but that isn't very high.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.

Vampiress Review: "Blood + Roses"

The Gist:  A woman who is having marriage issues is bitten and turned by a vampire.

Clarification:  Basically this is vampire cliche 101.  If it exists, it's in this film.   The biggest issue with this film that prevents it from really being enjoyable is that it is one of those films that tries way too hard to have a dramatic sub plot which becomes extremely annoying.  Basically the woman who is turned in the film has a douche bag for a husband.  The problem is the guy is always a douchebag in the film so the big reveal later that he has been drugging her and letting guys screw her for money which results in her accepting her new vampire abilities means little to nothing whereas if he wasn't a complete lunatic in the film her loyalty to him prior to that reveal would actually make sense.  In essence this is one of those Lifetime network "abused wife who goes from being the victim that doesn't stand up for herself to being the aggressor" films.

Selling Point:  For the brief period that it is a vampire film it's ok.  But the word brief is an understatement.

Female Vampire Factor:  The film begins with a vampire louring a woman into a hotel room where she goes topless and his female accomplice comes in.  He tells her to drink and she doesn't.  In disappointment he snaps her neck and kills her.

The vampire portion of the film goes on an extended hiatus after this scene as the bulk of the film from this point on is the woman Jane being yelled at a lot by her husband Martin and her perclaming her love for him despite really not wanting to be around him that much.

One night she goes out to take a walk and witnesses the vampire from the films beginning attacking a woman.  He ends up biting her and she goes through the whole "what's wrong with me" cliche as she can't stand sunlight and wants to eat but doesn't know what she wants until she finds some bloody meet in the fridge that she drinks the blood from.  She then goes to almost attack some lady who's running from a rapist prior to being confronted by the vampire that turned her.

Anyway the only time she does anything vampiric is after the reviel of what her husband was doing which is the brief point she fangs out.

I can't express how close this film came to being great as vampire Jane was a pretty awesome character.  Unfortunately she only exists very briefly thanks to the film concentrating way too much on her husband being a moody jerk which was a plot device that really wasn't needed considering what eventually happened between them. I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5. 

Vampiress XXX Review: "Corruption of the Pure 2"

The Gist: An evil vampire targets a priest by seducing and turning a nun.

Clarification:  The second installment of Primal Fetishes nun/priest fantasy films.  As per usual the film is not an actual continuation of the previous film but just the second film with that particular subject matter.

Selling Point:  Primal Fetish always delivers high quality films. 

Female Vampire Factor:  The film stars Kleio Valentien as the main vampire targeting the priest.  The film is pretty straight forward.  In the first act Kleio seduces, sexes and bites an innocent nun played by Zoe Parker.

From there the newly turned Zoe seduces the unsuspecting priest.  Kleio then shows up and the two trap, rape and bite the priest.

While both are very good films I do prefer this one over the original thanks to Kleio's performance. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5. 

New Vampire Series "Van Helsing" coming to SyFy

The Fall television season is quickly approaching which means new shows.  Along with shows like the Vampire Diaries, The Originals and the Strain, the newest vampire series will be premiering on SyFy titled Van Helsing.

The series stars Kelly Overton as Vanessa Van Helsing.  The daughter of literary vampire hunter Abraham Helsing.  In the series she leads a group of vampire slayers in a world where vampires have taken over.

Below is a trailer for the series.  It doesn't give much but does seem to show that the vampires do not have fangs though there has been some discussion that the vampires have different clans similar to Kindred: The Embraced

and that some of them indeed do have fangs and look similar to the 2003 film starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale . Van Helsing premiers on September 23rd.