Vampiress Review: "Female Vampires Online"

The Gist: A college student recruits his friend and a college professor to follow two girls to Vegas in order to save them from a brood of vampires who run an adult website.

Clarification:  The concept gets an A+.  The execution gets an F--- (yep that's three minuses this one is pretty bad).  So from what I understand this was a web series that was then re-released as a full film.  Problem is the story goes all over the place. In order to pull this off the film needs to be re-edited to tell one story instead of the several stories split up by episode that you get in a web series.

Biggest Complaint: The bulk of this film revolves around a search for a peeping tom.  This storyline does get resolved by the end.  Problem is it has no bearing on the films advertised main plot. This happens quite a bit with subplots that get introduced that in the end never relate to the main plot of the film and are just time filler making almost the whole film filler.  That results is basically you being told in scenes about the vampire story while the less interesting stuff plays out on screen. It also doesn't help that none of the characters in the film are likable at all.  Basically 3 out of the four main protagonists are in a battle for who can be more obnoxious. 

Female Vampire Factor: So we start with the concept that the vampires are killing guys who just watch their website by appearing behind them and biting them.  That makes this seem like it's going to be a horror in the style of The Ring.  Don't get used to this as it never happens again.

From there the plot completely dumps the "vampires attacking perverts in their home while they're distracted" (much better) plot for the concept that they are only a threat to the people they are molesting and biting on their website. They're only killing men it should be noted.  It's later revealed that men can't be turned so basically men are food and women are recruits.

There's also a sub plot about a female vampire who is standing against the others.

This plot is the only time the female vamps get any real screen time and it only amounts to two scenes so this plot does not get resolved whatsoever in this film and goes against the last two attempted plots of they only attack perves who log onto their site or people on videos through their website.  This is too bad as it had potential.

So in the end we just have an un-finished web series merged into a hard to follow film with no payoff. I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  This is one hour of movie in which only 8 minutes actually has vampire or anything related to them in it with the rest being a very poor attempt at raunchy comedy.   This one is a miss.

Vampiress Review: "The Breed"

The Gist:  A human federal agent enters a world of supernatural crime as he's informed that vampires are real and is given a vampire partner to help solve crimes that are believed to be committed by vampires.

Clarification: Basically a crime drama.  Vampires have outed themselves to human authorities and are living as a sub race among them.  Problem is there is a group of vampires who don't like the idea of living among humans and they have concocted a plan with the goal of eventually eliminating humans altogether.

Meanwhile a cop named Steven Grant must wrap his head around the fact that not only are vampires real but separating the negative stigma of them being a threat from the reality that some of them are good people.  Basically this is a film about race relations with vampires playing the part of minorities.

Female Vampire Factor: While there are some background vamps in the film there is only one female vamp main character and that is Lucy Westenra (Bai Ling).

This isn't much of a vampire movie as much as it is a crime drama featuring vampires.  The one positive is that her fangs are always out.   Lucy starts out as a suspect in the case but ends up becoming more of a middle man informant who helps the detectives get to the right people they need talk to.  Eventually her and Steven get very close to the point that his feelings for her helps him warm up to the idea of vampires as a group not being a threat.

I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  The movie is great and very entertaining on it's own just don't go into it looking for a horror film or any neck biting whatsoever.

Vampiress Review: "Bitten: Victoria's Shadow"

The Gist: A couple of gambling addicts take a cane from the corpse of a woman to pawn in order to pay their debts unknowingly resurrecting a centuries old vampire.

Clarification: This is one of those 90's "B" movies (that was re-released on DVD in 2001) where they pad the run time by concentrating on the stuff that most movies would edit out.  It's your basic Mystery Science Theater affair where the actual plot only makes up about 15 minutes of the 1 hour and 18 minute run time with the rest being the main group of characters having discussions, or drinking, or shopping, or DJ'ing, or listening to a band.  You know, horror movie stuff. We even get to see some great scenes like "EMT struggling to put body on stretcher" and "Guy has conversation with Librarian about books".

Biggest Complaint: The night scenes in the film are either barely visible while accented with neon lighting or not visible at all with the camera iris being adjusted to the point of a grainy picture.  What you can see is zoomed in so much most of the time that it looks like you're watching through a telescope.

Female Vampire Factor:  The title character Victoria is played by legendary scream queen Brinke Stevens.

Victoria was turned into a vampire by her doctor who wanted her for himself.  She didn't fully turn as a cane was placed in her which prevented her from waking up.  Once it is removed by grave robbers a century later she wakes up that night and feeds on the cemetery caretaker.

From there she seeks out and finds the doctor that turns her who explains how he wanted her so he turned her.  She explains how she is somewhat struggling with what she's become (A side story that is never addressed after this scene) and wants the man she loved who obviously is dead.  The next time you see her she feeds on a little girl who wanders off during a picnic with her family so I guess she got over her struggles pretty quickly.

While all this is happening one of the grave robbers is having visions of all of her murders.  You see he is in her blood line and has an exact resemblance to her long dead lover (his great great grandfather) so she has a thing for him and wants him to herself.  This part of the plot is only played out in the last 10 minutes and doesn't end well for her. 

I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.   If you've ever seen the movie Prom Night III that's pretty much where this movie should have gone with Victoria spending the bulk of the film stalking the doppelganger of her long lost lover and killing anyone that she sees as a threat to their relationship.  Instead you get random vampire scenes that break up a movie about the daily life of two couples with any connection being vague at best.