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.