Sunday, January 5, 2020

Vampiress Review: "Children of the Night (1991)"


The Gist: A school teacher ends up in a backwoods town just to find it is over run by vampires and its up to him to save a teenage girl who the vamps want for her virgin blood.

Female Vampire Factor: The whole town is made of vampires so there's that but this is definitely not a film about glam vamps as all of them are pretty ugly and goulish looking.
There is one scene in which the above vampire Karen (the late Karen Black) seduces a priest she had an affair with.  He has her and her daughter locked in a room and she taunts him throughout the film.  During this one scene she transforms herself to look the way she used to look before she was turned.
Of course the priest falls for this, comes into the room and swiftly becomes her snack.

Final Opinion: Basically this is a less entertaining version of the film "A Return to Salem's Lot" which did the "creepy town overrun by vampires with an outsider finding out" story four years earlier. I wouldn't recommend either as far as must watch though.  I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.

Vampiress Review: "Night Trap"



The Gist: An undercover operation to save a group of school girls from a family of vampires requires you to control security cameras and activating traps.

Clarification:  Night Trap is an interactive live action video game in which selections you make decide on how the film you're watching proceeds.   It was originally filmed for the use of an unreleased interactive VHS format in the late 1980's but when that format never came to be it was shelved until video CD media became affordable in the early 1990's when Sega launched it's Sega CD (or Mega CD in Europe) system.

The game while very cheesy by todays standards has garnered a major cult following after it was taken off shelves shortly after it's release once it became the center of a government investigation into the effects of video game violence on children.  The scenes of young girls being taken away by zombies was in part the reason video games today have a rating system similar to movies and because of this infamy the game has been re-released on multiple current formats just based on it's role in pop culture history


Female Vampire Factor: In the game you play the role of a member of a police type force monitoring a slumber party that is being held in a house where it's believed girls have been going missing.  One of the girls at the party Kelli is an undercover member of the force. Kelli is played by the late 80's child actress Dana Plato which made the game that much more controversial as she was in the news often at the time for her troubles with drugs and crime.
The family who owns the home are all vampires with plans of taking the girls as victims.  Problem is a group of blood sucking zombies called the Augers (basically faceless generic devolved humans dressed in all black who limp around the house) have entered the home and are taking the girls for themselves.
There are two women in the vampire family.  The mother Sheila and the Daughter Sarah.   As mentioned you have control over what happens in the game so if you play the game right there will be zero vampirism in the entire process.
But if you capture the Augers and get to the portion of the game where the family are the ones chasing Kelli you will get to a point where different members of the family will corner her.  If you do nothing to save her during those scenes you will see a bite scene with Sheila...
  or Sarah.


Final Opinion: The Sega CD was hands down very much before it's time and it's a bit of a shame that this format of game barely exists anymore as there is a lot of satisfaction with literally controlling who lives and who dies in a film or in this case who is the one doing the killing.  This film is pretty bad but the game is campy fun and there is a payoff if you want it.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5. There was a kickstarter to make a sequel to this but nothing came of it.  If anything during this day and age of it being popular to say how easily offended people are today this game is a great example of how people were much more sensitive 25+ years ago.  The re-release of this game that was once considered too graphic for anyone under 18 is now rated T for appropriate for teenagers.





Vampiress TV Review: Dracula (2020)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9139220/

The Gist: The story of the Transylvania count from the time he meets Jonathon Harker in the 1800's and has a confrontation with a vampire hunting nun to him arriving in modern day England.

Female Vampire Factor:  Despite the fact that this is loosely based on the Bram Stoker novel this three episode mini series adaptation severely lacks any female vampirism as that seems to be the portion where the most liberties are taken. 

The only real female vampire moment is during the portion in episode one where Jonathon Harker inadvertently finds and gets attacked by one of Dracula's brides.
Outside of that in Episode 3 which takes place in modern times Dracula does meet Lucy Westenra who he feeds on and she eventually dies. 
Unfortunately she chose to be cremated resulting in her being a charred mess when she comes back as a vampire.


Final Opinion:  This gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  The first two episodes which take place in the 1890s are pretty entertaining but also rely heavily on sarcasm and graphic imagery.  The final episode just kind of falls flat even though there was a lot of potential.