Vampiress TV review: "The Big Easy"

Vamps Like Us

Season 1

Episode 20

The Gist: The detectives receive a case where an author is found dead and drained of all her blood after going to meet the leader of a vampire cult.

Clarification: The Big Easy is a television series that aired in 1996 and 1997 on the USA Network for two seasons.  It was based on a 1986 film of the same name.  It followed a detective named Remy McSwain and his female partner Anne Osborn solving cases around New Orleans. 

Female Vampire Factor:  One of the suspects in this case is a woman name Valeria (Fabiana Udenio).

Valeria believes herself to be a vampire and attacks Remy upon their first meeting seemingly trying to bite him to drink his blood.

Because the victim had two puncture wounds on her neck and was completely drained of her blood this act immediately makes her a suspect.  The finger further gets pointed her way when it comes back that the victim wasn't bitten and that the blood was artificially removed since it's found out she works at a blood bank but like most shows of this type the obvious person is never the culprit so it of course isn't her in the end.  

 I give this episode a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  While the Vampires here aren't supernatural they believe they are so it's close enough.

Vampiress Review: "Search for Love Lost"

The Gist: Two guys search for a girl who is also being pursued by a vampire.

Clarification:  So the movie starts with you being told a story about a vampire who lost his lover in the most idiotic way possible (accidentally swinging her into a tree) and how that vampire has now found a reincarnated version who he wants introduced to. 

It then switches to two guys who are a parody of Wayne and Garth from the waaaaay dated Waynes World franchise talking about how "Barth's" girlfriend is missing and they need to find her (the woman discussed in both segments being the same female)

From there you just get random scenes of "Dwayne & Barth" talking to random half naked women in long drawn out scenes that really go nowhere about where she might be and one scene were "the count" hits on her in the most awkward way possible (as he had no issue finding her apparently).  

Selling Point: I think they were hoping having attractive women in bikini's or short dresses in most scenes would help make the film watchable.

Female Vampire Factor:  So the main female Heather is both a vampire in the beginning flashback and does get turned in the films finale as she bites Barths brother Art.  No fangs though. 

This movie is awful.  It gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  It's about 40 to 45 minutes long with most of it being conversations telling you about things that happened that probably should be played out on screen.  Then you have to tolerate the horrible "Wayne" impression (the Garth one is pretty dead on though but "Dwayne" gets most of the lines in the film.) Fact is the enjoyment factor would go way up if Dwayne was a regular original character who just said stupid things and not a really bad parody.  Then the final 15 minutes of the film is the closing credits which replays literally everyone in the film doing their one line just to give them a visual credit and bloopers to pad the run time to an hour.  It's almost funny level bad......ALMOST.

Vampiress Review: "Hemo"

The Gist: A couple who is addicted to drinking blood struggle with their relationship when they can no longer steel it from blood banks and must depend on murder.

Clarification: It's Troma so it's super low budget (don't expect to see very well in any scene that's dark or be able to hear at all in any scene that's outside).  On top of that it's a very bad attempt at being artistic.  In reality it's about two people who are really bad at being vampires whose issues stem more from just not being very smart. 

You see they aren't supernatural in any way so the idea that they're having a lack of blood seems a bit silly considering there is two of them (why wouldn't they just drink from each other?  The woman lets the guy feed from her once in the film, movie should have ended right there right?)

Then when they do have blood it goes practically everywhere but in their mouths (they literally poor it on themselves) then they have temper tantrums when they've run out.  This repetitive nonsense goes on for the bulk of the movie.   

Selling Point: There's some full frontal nudity in it.  That's the only thing I can think of.

Female Vampire Factor:  The vampiress in this film is Felicia (Pamela Price)

So reading between the lines Felicia was a hot crazy girl who used her hotness to get her easily influenced boyfriend Calvin to join in her crazyness.  In this case drinking blood.

As the movie goes along Calvin seems to have spurts of intelligent thought while Felicia goes further and further into being a loony psycho killer who hears voices and sees people who aren't there who tell her to do bad things. 

I can honestly say if the movie didn't try so hard to fill the hour and a half run time with meaningless plot stopping conversations and at least tried to have some structure instead of just doing stuff just for the sake of shock value and having something happen on screen, it wouldn't be that bad.  Felicias road to insanity is an intriguing story and really should have been the main plot instead of just a few clips in the last 10 minutes.

Because of the lack of structure in where the movie wanted to go, the character development really isn't there for the ending to be as powerful and emotional as they intended it to be.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5. 

Vampiress Review: "Minty: The Assassin"

The Gist: An evil doctor with the ability to manipulate peoples minds kidnaps the leader of a group of assassins and it is up to his top assassin to rescue him.

Clarification: Minty the Assassin is done in the style of a comic book story up to and including animated sequences very much in the style of Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2.  In order to rescue the Big Boss, Minty has to fight her way through several comic book type hero's who are being mind controlled by Dr. Brain Bender to do his bidding. Minty is played by scream queen Elina Madison.

Selling Point: This is nothing more than fan service.   Basically its if you tried to make a movie out of a sex hotline commercial.  In fact Minty gets superpowers as well as sexual arousal from eating mint chocolate (hence the name).

In reality this film is the closest thing to a porn without being a porn that you can find but not in a bad way.  It tells you up front what it's all about so basically every scene being a sexually charged male fantasy should be expected.

Female Vampire Factor: While this is not a vampire movie there is a female vampire who is a prominent character in the movie in the form of former Go Daddy Girl Tabitha Taylor as "Double Delicious".

Delicious ends up being the final character that Minty has to get past in order to get to Dr. Brain Bender in the films finale even though the two are allies in the films beginning (she's being manipulated obviously).  I can only assume the nurse look is somewhat of an homage to Daryl Hannah's from Kill Bill as that's a running theme in this film (Including Minty having to fight a school girl in the film as well).  In what is expected at this point from the film Minty gets past Delicious via seducing her and letting herself get bitten to have a psychic bond with the Dr (she doesn't get turned).

Delicious only takes the nurse look once it's revealed she's under the doctors control.  Prior to that her vampire look is just a black two piece bathing suit with a cloak which is prominently featured in the films promo pictures.

I give the film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5.  It's a sexy Kill Bill parody with a vampire and a film that somewhat parodies those who would be into the movie (Dr. Brain Benders motive ends up just being he was a comic book fan who just wanted to see Minty do sexy stuff.)

Vampire TV Review: "Ben & Lucy" (Web Series)

The Gist: A vampire befriends a guy at a restaurant and invites him to be his roommate. 

Clarification: "Lucy" is short for Lucian so the main vampire in this is a guy.  His story is basically he's been anti-social for years after killing a human.  For whatever reason he decides one day he doesn't want to be alone so he picks some random guy named Ben to be his new roommate based on him not being afraid of his fangs.  The next day he learns Ben was just really high that day and remembers none of what happened so the fact he now lives with a vampire has to be re-explained to him.

Female Vampire Factor:  There are two female vamps in the series.  The first is Lucians sister Eve who is introduced in the third episode.

While she does initially inquire about whether Ben is food she doesn't do anything vampiric at all during the season and it is hinted to Ben that Lucy and Eve have to do something weird and possibly sexual together to recharge themselves every once in awhile which is why she's back.

Next up, in the fourth episode we're introduced to a vampire named Irina.

She along with Ben are the only vampires in the series to actually show their fangs with Irina doing it when she feels threatened in Episode 4 and then again in Episode 9. It's explained that she has heightened abilities compared to Lucy and Eve due to a defect created from experiments done to her and her family when she was young.  This also leads to some distrust with her from Lucy and co. as her bloodline is believed to feed on other vampires.

The series is quirky but the vampirism aspect is super simplified to explain why they don't do anything vampiric with rules like "only relatives can be turned" and "vampires can eat any food as along as there is blood on it as a condiment".  I give season 1 a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  There's potential in a season two especially if there was a potential romance between Ben and Eve and if Irena does end up being the vampire eater they assumed she was but nothing of note so far.

Vampiress Review: The Dead Undead

The Gist: A group of college aged kids on a vacation get stuck at an abandoned hotel and end up in the middle of a battle between a group of mercenaries and a town full of zombie like vampires. 

Clarification: This starts out as a straight late night horror and then stops and becomes an action movie.  It reels you in as a regular horror at first with partying kids showing up at a creepy motel after their car breaks down. 

As the girls lay down in their room one is stalked by a vampire who drools blood on her, they freak out, two of the guys do the "We'll be right back" routine just to get eaten and all of a sudden the A-team shows up and the rest of the film is shooting and explosions starring the closest thing you can get to Jason Stathom on a medium budget.

It's explained that vampires are peaceful creatures in this film who live off of cows blood.  Unfortunately an epidemic turning vampires into feral monsters came about from drinking blood tainted with mad cow disease.  That leaves this film basically being good vampires vs feral ones.   

Selling Point: Basically this would make a slightly more entertaining episode of the not so good last season of "True Blood" (The Hep V season) but with no sex and nudity. 

Female Vampire Factor:  Due to the action film nature of this movie you aren't getting much out of this in the seduce and bite department.  In fact there are literally four women in the film and only two make it very far. 

First turned is the girl who is slobbered on by the vampire to start the film. 

Don't expect much here as her screen time post turn lasts about as long as a sneeze even though she does actually live through the film (they just kind of forget about her).

Then you have one of the mercenaries who gets turned after getting infected blood on her.

Again this doesn't last long whatsoever as she's pumped full of bullets immediately upon showing aggression.

The last surviving female (Summer) is theoretically turned into a good vampire as well but this film doesn't actually have an ending and just kind of stops so nothing comes of it.  I give the Film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  It had a ton of potential and was entertaining for the most part but the lack of a real ending kills any momentum that was built up since there is no payoff.

Vampiress TV Review: "The Strain"

The Gist:  A CDC Doctor teams with a vampire hunter in order to try to save New York from a plague that is turning people into blood sucking monsters.

Clarification: This series aired on the FX network in the United States from 2014 to 2017 and was based on a graphic novel series of the same name. In it a master vampire devises a plan where he turns the citizens of New York into vampires starting with the passengers on a plane that is transporting him there with the goal of creating an apocalypse for humans

Unlike your standard vampires these are alien like creatures who feed through elongated tongues that can be launched at their prey with stingers on the end.  The stingers also transfer worms which turns the victims into vampires as well so any feeding creates new vampires.

Female Vampire Factor: The biggest issue as far as this blog is concerned is it's explained in season 1 that once a person is turned they lose all humanity to the point that they become different creatures altogether.  By that meaning they don't even have human bodies (including no sex organs) and when they are fully changed they barely look human anymore.

 There are only a few exceptions to this rule. One is that their thirst for blood and stinger develop very early in their transformation so their first feeding they generally still look somewhat human.

The other is situations where the master vampire can chose to give vampires some form of humanity if he feels they would be useful to him as something other than a mindless blood drinking monster.

That Brings us to the estranged wife of the main protagonists, Kelly (Natalie Brown).

Kelly's human looks were restored in the shows second season as the master felt she was special and her looks could be used to lour Dr. Eph and more importantly their son into a false sense of security when she's around. It is explained that when someone is turned the first thing they do is go after the people they love as their memory just associates the people in them as food which Kelly does when she's first turned in season 1, feeding on their babysitter and her kid before looking for her son. The looks Kelly gives when her blood lust gets the best of her shows how great this could have been if they kept their human looks on the show.

 Also the master when he "adopts" Eph and Kelly's son assigns a woman to him who also retains her human looks for his comfort.

From a female vampire standpoint it gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  The two that are there are great though but they are definitely few and far between .  From an entertainment standpoint the shows first few seasons were very good and I highly recommend them.