Vampiress Review: "The Kiss"

The Gist:  An awkward kid who gets bullied in school and ignored by girls has a change in luck when he recovers the body of a vampire who he nurses back to health. Little does he know she has a major jealous streak.

Female Vampire Factor:  Lourdes Reynolds plays Santa Maria.

Santa Maria is a centuries old vampire cursed to be entombed alive until her dried and withered body was found by a young man named Jeremy.

She commands Jeremy to help her recover using telepathy until her body recovers and she once again looks human.

thru the entire process Santa Maria and Jeremy develop a relationship in which the older Santa Maria is both a girlfriend and in a way a protective mother to him. 

 Wherever he goes he is protected by her which not only prevents the bullies who bothered him at school from picking on him but even makes the girls who used to ignore him now pay attention to him.

We then find out all of this was part of a greater plan.  Santa Maria tells Jeremy to invite all his new friends to a party at her home (the stereotypical creepy old mansion in the neighborhood no one thought was occupied).   As the party goes on Santa Maria is one by one killing and feeding on the party guests. 

When faced with what's happening Jeremy feels that he was being used.  Santa Maria ensures him this was not the case and her feelings for him are real and she was doing that partly for him as those kids were not nice to him.  She ends up turning him and the movie ends with her going over the rules of vampirism with him.

Side note:  Santa Maria vamps out in three phases which seem to change the more she feeds.  Stage one is normal fangs.

Stage two I would describe as sabre teeth or tusks (which we later find out are snake fangs as her kind come from the serpent and not bats).

And the final state which we see at the end of the film is straight up demon mouth (very cheap rubber that doesn't move much demon mouth at that).

Final Opinion:  One of my favorite films when I was younger was "Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss."  This film seems to take heavy influence from that one with the "evil spirit of a dead woman seducing a naive kid who seems to not have any issues with the situation because hot ghost woman is better than the no women he was getting before even though everyone around him is getting murdered" plot.   If I have any complaints its that similar to films like From Dusk Till Dawn it's a film that slowly works it's way to one giant vampire finally instead of the whole movie being about the vampires.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  I would love to see a prequel that revolved around the character of Santa Maria. More screen time for her would boost the enjoyment factor much more as she reminds me a lot of the character Violet from True Blood in that she is as sexy as she is aggressively blood thirsty which makes her a text book throw back to 1980's level horror movie vampiresses as opposed to the sympathetic ones of modern day.

Vampiress Review: "Saving You, Saving Me"

The gist: A young girl finds out that she's not only a vampire but she's next in line to lead a group of vampires who recently lost their leader and are being hunted by another group of vampires looking for her.

Female Vampire Factor: In spite of the fact that technically 90% of the people in the movie are supposed to be vampires, none really do anything vampiric so are they really?

In fact the closest thing to it is the lead character Amber (played by the films writer and directer Tina Jetter) who spends a good portion of the film once she comes to terms with watch she is in what looks like a Halloween costume complete with red cape.

 The only thing close to female vampirism in the film is a scene where her and her new vampire boyfriend are attacked by members of the vampire group called "The Scandals".  Amber is briefly shown with fangs while strangling one of the attackers.  Otherwise red eyes is the most you get in the film.

Final Opinion: This gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5 due to the lack of any real vampirism. I'll go somewhat easy on the film since from what I understand it was written by the star when she was 17 and I'm not into burying young people just getting started, especially since this was no small production which in itself is worthy of praise so I'll just go for a little constructive criticism instead.

My biggest issue I'd have to say I have with this film is the continuity problems.  Mainly skipping over major plot details through dialogue even though showing these things would have made a more entertaining movie. Instead the film is full of Twilight-esque drama and romance that seems to be out of place given the circumstances of the plot which comes off as more of a superhero origin story than a coming of age teen drama. This at it's core is a movie about an orphaned girl who finds out that she has magic powers who is caught in a war between two factions of monsters. Despite that the first act of the film barely introduces us to Amber but instead gets wasted on her ex boyfriend and her friends who have absolutely no real bearing on the plot, are super annoying characters anyway and are just written off by mid movie in a manner that doesn't even involve her.  Basically it feels like someone wanted to push a Lifetime Network over dramatic female redemption movie so bad that the much better movie that the plot was hinting at was being held back. Basically if you've seen the movie "Blood Wars" this is that movie just with a female lead, less vampirism and more variety in it's filming location.

Vampiress Review: Blood Ransom

The Gist: A driver for a group of mobsters devises a plan to save a stripper who works for them who he is in love with not realizing that the mobsters are vampires and the woman is in the process of becoming one herself.

Female Vampire Factor: Since it's established very early that Crystal (Anne Curtis) is a vampire it's not about if but when does it happen.

99% of the film is her fighting her urges so don't expect much vampirism.  She does not want to turn and especially does not want to kill the man she loves Jeremiah with a lot of her dialogue being her trying to convince someone to kill her.  That means the closest you get in that portion is her getting veins in her face and red eyes as she fights back her urges while the two escape the vampires chasing them looking for her.

Once she exposes to Jeremiah what she's becoming they head to a pyschic who explains how she can become human again.  Crystal doesn't believe the psychic so she proves to her what she's saying is true by exposing that she is herself a vampire and her little girl is turning like Crystal is (the idea being you have to drink a special potion within a specific time from being turned and you can go back and also to kill a vampire they must have their throat slid with a specific blade)

 (SPOILER ALERT) In the films final act both the vampire and Dan, the cop on the case who happens to be Jeremiah's best friend catch up to them.  Crystal and Jeremiah survive the vampire attack when Crystal forgoes taking the vampire cure in order to rip him to shreds but Dan then confronts them with the intent to kill Crystal.  Jeremiah steps in front of Crystal and pleads for her life and tries to shoot the cop but when that doesn't work because his gun jams gets shot three times in the chest.  This is the one and only time in the film that Crystal actually fangs out as she loses it over Jeremiahs "death" (post credits hints he didn't die and she turned him).

Final Opinion: Best way to describe this film is Innocent Blood meets John Carpenters Vampires. The ending is a bit of a let down especially since the reality was that Crystal was not in any real danger from Dan and could have handled herself (she did after all rip the head vampire to shreds just the scene before and this was just a small town cop) so this kind of falls under the Titanic "Jack didn't have to die because there was plenty of room on the wood" type argument. While it's a good movie I can only give a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5 since it's a film about a hot lady almost being a vampire more than being a vampire film.

Vampiress TV Review: "What We Do in the Shadows"

The Gist: Based on the movie of the same title the series much in the same light as the show "The Office" follows a first person documentary/ reality tv format.  In it a film crew documents the everyday lives of a group of four vampires living together in Staten Island with them talking to the crew about the everyday happenings in their lives. Three of the tenants are old world vampires while the fourth is an energy vampire who feeds by sucking the energy out of rooms through boring stories and ruining fun.  The three blood drinking vampires try to avoid him as much as possible.

Female Vampire Factor:

 The female of the house is Nadja (Natasia Demetriou)

As the series goes on Nadja sees and eventually turns a nerdy college girl named Jenna who becomes her fledgling.

Jenna even after becoming a vampire struggles socially.  Eventually we find out while Nadja is teaching her to seduce and feed that she has the vampire ability to become invisible.

Season 1 of the series includes several cameo's from famous actors and actresses playing vampires.  The first of which is former SNL actress Vanessa Bayer who plays an emotion vampire name Evie in the episode "Werewolf Feud"

An emotional vampire is someone who feeds off of sympathy from others.  She ends up working in the same office as the energy vampire Colin Robinson.  They start out in competition feeding off of their co-workers by making them miserable (him with his long boring stories and her announcing a new crisis in her life every day to the office) but eventually join forces and even develop a short lived romance.

Season 1: Episode 7 "The Trial" includes a ton of vampire cameos.

 In this episode one of the head vampires comes to stay with the clan in their long island home.  Eventually they teach him to ditch his old ways and he starts to enjoy life in the modern new world.  Eventually he gets too comfortable even being up during daylight hours when the vampires familiar opens the door to the home at the wrong time exposing him to daylight instantly killing him.  This leads to the roommates being put on trial by an all star vampire counsel.  The one who leads them to the trial is played by a vamped out Kristin Schaal.

The council of vampires is pretty much a who's who of people who have played vampires in film and television.  This includes the three original stars of the film adaptation as well as Danny Trejo (From Dusk Till Dawn), Paul Ruebens (Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie) & Wesley Snipes (Blade) (Dave Bautista also make a cameo in this episode as a vampire inmate waiting for his trial).  As far as the females of the counsel we have Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood).

 and the leader is Tilda Swinton (No Lovers Left Alive)

The running gag in this case not being that they're playing their characters from their films but instead that they weren't acting in their movies and the actors themselves are vampires as they are all playing themselves.

Vampires Review: "Theresa & Allison"

The Gist: A fledgling vampire who was turned after a drunken one night stand is met by an estranged vampire couple who each separately take turns showing her the ropes while seducing her.

Female Vampire Factor: The fledgling vampire whose point of view the film is told from is Theresa (Arielle Hope).  One day she gets really drunk with her friend who then puts her in a cab to have her taken home.  Instead she ends up with a woman who takes her back to her home.  During sex the woman proceeds to take a chunk out of her neck.  Feeling somewhat sympathetic she turns Theresa.

From there a woman named Allison finds Theresa while at an office where she gets the rundown on vampirism at some sort of vampire initiation office. She approaches her and volunteers to teach her some things.

Theresa then tells Allison about what she's gone through during her turn and her struggles with her first five victims that eventually lead to the trip to the vampire office. Like most fledglings in films she had issues controlling her blood lust and was feeding on any female lost soul she'd meet on the streets.

 Eventually Theresa storms away from Allison once Allison reveals that she's not a lesbian as she doesn't want to be someones experiment.  This leads to her being approached by Tony,  Allisons ex boyfriend, who then attempts to teach her about reading minds and smelling people.  Then he murders a girl and she once against gets pissy about feeding on her and again runs away.  The rest of the film is Theresa running into more vampires trying to teach her things and her eventually ending up at a vampire feeding party that she also doesn't agree with being a part of and wants to save the humans trapped there.  Especially after encountering an especially evil vampiress named Paisley

Eventually she meets back up with (and sleeps with) Allison at the vampire party where she is also introduced to a vampiress named Miranda.  After seeing the massacre of humans at the party the two basically try to talk Theresa down from trying to either save the humans or killing herself.

Final Opinion: I liked the story.  If there is a such thing as a coming of age lesbian vampire story this would be it.  As far as vampirism itself outside of the films opening and final acts there isn't much of it so I'm going to give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  I'd prefer if it was vampires first and lesbians second but it's definitely a lesbian film that happens to have vampires in it.  Most of the main vampire characters in this film other than Theresa never actually do anything vampiric.

Vampiress TV Review: "Freddies Nightmares"

"Prime Cuts"

Season 2

Episode 15

Freddy's Nightmares was a horror TV series which ran from 1988 to 1990.  The show was done in the same vein as the popular short story based horror series of the time like Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside and the Twilight Zone.  Like those series a host would introduce a horror story with the story being different every week.   In this case the host is horror movie icon Freddy Krueger from the "A Nightmare on Elm street" series of films played by Robert Englund.

Female Vampire Factor: In this episode a group of friends go camping in the woods.  Things get interesting when their guide ends up being a very attractive woman named Tracker played by 80's sex symbol Sandahl Bergman.

As they get further into the trip one of the men named Johnny starts to notice that Tracker has some weird tendencies.  First she freaks out when they start handling the stakes to put up the tint.  Then when one of the guys cuts himself, she helps by sucking the blood as "anesthetic".   Finally he notices that she freaks whenever he handles his cross neckless.

Johnny also has issues seperating fantasy from reality as he has very vivid dreams.  In the beginning they're about a helicopter crashing but after meeting Tracker they're all vampire related. 

Eventually one of the guys in the group goes missing.  Johnny eventually finds that Tracker has him tied up and is feeding on him. He confronts her but instead of her trying to feed on him she tries to seduce him.

He rejects her and tries to save his friend instead but on the way out they fall off a hill and before she can attack he wakes up. The whole thing was a dream.  In reality they were in a plane crash, Tracker was the pilot and Johnny was the loan survivor of the passengers.  The two were stranded in the woods after the crash and eating the bodies of the dead to survive.

The rest of the episode revolves around Tracker and Johnny having a budding romance while Johnnys gold digging fiance finds them then gets herself stuck in the same area.  While all this is happening there is a serial killer in the woods as well.

Final Opinion: Needless to say the episode goes downhill pretty quickly once the vampire portion ends.  It becomes a soap opera rather quickly and the women become super annoying as they fight over Johnny.  I'll give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  Had the episode stopped with the twist of the plane crash it would have gotten a higher rating.