Vampiress Review: "Red Days"

The Gist:  After a Nuclear bomb hits Los Angeles a group of friends try to survive as gangs take over the city government and many of the survivors become zombie like cannibals.

Female Vampire Factor: In the most "matter of factly" way possible the main characters daughter just randomly appears toward the films end (after being missing the entire movie which spans about 5 years worth of time) and is revealed to be a zombie fighting vampire.

 She spends the end of the movie staying in her fathers garage bragging that she killed his friends before she eventually (after he tries to have her killed even though she should have said this from the beginning to avoid that) that she was sent by the monarchy running the city to save him

Final Opinion:  So this is an attempt to be a horror comedy in the same light as films like Shaun of the Dead.  They didn't exactly fail at it but my only real complaint is that they stepped on everything that was funny and enjoyable about the film by sticking with jokes too long to the point that they went from funny to me literally having to fast forward to get past segments where it became beating a dead horse.   A parody of bleeding heart liberals on cable news saying that zombies should have the right to vote is funny but then it went on forever.  Guy getting put on hold and sent to different departments while trying to call someone about getting rid of a vampire is funny but then again it went on forever to the point the joke had wore off it's effectiveness.

I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5.  As I mentioned it's one character at the end but she's an awesome character. I recommend the movie but just have your remote handy for the stuff that should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Vampiress Review: "Monster X"

The Gist: A collection of horror shorts being viewed by a couple at a haunted theater.

Female Vampire Factor: In one of the short films a man and his mistress are in bed when his wife comes home from a business trip early.

The mistress hides in the couples closet but the wife is on to them, breaks out a gun and shoots both.

As she drives out to the middle of nowhere to dump the bodies she notices bite marks on her husbands bodies.  The mistress was a vampire and she turned him. 

They then come after the now very afraid wife.  Instead of finishing her they decide to torture her by turning her then tying her to a tree to let the sun finish her off.

Unfortunately for the couple they end up having car trouble.  To make matters worse a bystander finds the wife and unties her. 

In the end the wife makes it home before the cheating husband and mistress prior to the sun rising.  The couple ends up burning and she gets her revenge.

Final Opinion:  The other stories in the series include a woman who is being stalked by a banshee after it kills her husband, A group of werewolves capturing a young girl who sneacked into a movie theater that ends up being the daughter of Satan, and a babysitter that ends up being eaten by the monsters that live under the child she's watchings bed.  They're all tied together as being films being played in the movie theater a couple is trying to escape from as they slowly realize it in itself is haunted.  

As far as the vampire portion of the movie goes I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  Very short film where them being vampires does more to set up the twist ending than it actually being about that.  As far as the entire film go it's pretty entertaining if you're into films like Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside as it's absolutely inspired by those films with the short horror movies inside a great horror movie format.

Vampiress Review: "Bad Girl Dracula"

The Gist: Three short stories revolving around the life of a vampire named "Bad Girl Dracula" and her master "Brinke Stevens"

Female Vampire Factor:  The main characters of the film are Bad Girl Dracula (Dee Flowered)

and the Master Vampire Brinke Stevens (Tittiana Sprinkles)

In the first part of the film a reporter named Miranda Soledad (Thio Rose) confronts Dracula and the Master under the guise of writing a story about them but in reality is a vampire they turned during an orgy seeking revenge.  She changes her mind when they invite her to participate in another orgy.

In the second story titled The Bloody Brides of Bad Girl Dracula she and the master travel from the 1970's to the 2010's to find a vampire named Sexfuratu (Izzie Pop)

In the final story "Bad Girl Dracula and the Pussy the Bites Back"  Dracula and her girlfriend Marsha Hunt (Ebony Dee Lyte) are confronted by Abraham Van Helsing who warns them that they will be destroyed by a vampire with special abilities.

When this vampire named Pussy Lugosi (Anne Atomic) arrives the master ends up exposing that she isn't even a real vampire.

Meanwhile Van Helsing goes to save a girl named Amanda Garcia (Mia O'My) just to disappointingly find out that she didn't need saving as she voluntarily let Dracula turn her.

Final Opinion:  This is the same group in Georgia that gave us "Space Boobs in Space".  While neither movie is that great this one is miles better as far as at least having a functional story to follow and they get brownie points for the names based on actresses from vampire movies. 

The stories themselves are hit or miss (The first two I liked, the last not so much) with the biggest issue being the long drawn out segments between the stories where Dracula and the master just talk about nothingness for an extended period of time (They're watching these stories on a TV as well).  I can only assume these segments are a social experiment to see how much mindless dribble a person is capable of listening to as long as the biggest cleavage you've ever seen is visible while it's happening (or they're just padding the run time)

I'll give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 3 out of 5 If you like having half naked thicker sized women being thrown at you this film is for you.  Otherwise nothing else to really make it a must watch.

Vampiress Review: "Real Blood: The True Beginning"

The Gist: A doctor after being attacked by angry locals wakes up as a vampire.  After seeking revenge on those who attacked him he unknowingly turns them into vampires and must once again stop them now that they have supernatural powers.

Female Vampire Factor:  The main character Dr Oliver Roberts has an assistant (I guess, it's not really clear as she might just be a lady who works there) who regularly comes to him and hits on him while he's at his office named Nurse Julie Perkins (Lisa E Phillips)

She becomes a vampire for about 5 seconds towards the end of the movie.

She attacks one of the main characters Reggie (aka the films director Phillip Penza) which doesn't turn him as he finds out he's immune and his blood apparently cures her of her vampirism.  We know this because they basically say that's what happens. This film does a lot of the whole "you don't need to see it played out, we'll just have someone tell you what's happening" way of visual storytelling.

Final Opinion:  This movie is so messed up.  So it's attempting to be a superhero origin story with the character of Dr Roberts being a character similar to Ghost Rider in a way (killed, then some demon person gives him powers that brings him back to life but to sustain those powers has to do evil things but chooses to go after people who themselves are evil) and his best friend/driver Reggie kind of being like his Alfred if Dr Roberts was Batman.  I say attempt because it misses the mark big time.  Imagine Ghost Rider but if the movie was only about Johnny Blaze when he wasn't Ghost Rider and you only hear about the cool stuff that probably happens when he turns but never actually see it.  Well that's this film.  Then again, Johnny Blaze was a stunt driver as his day job so that would still be exciting.  This guy is a research scientist with a poorly acted love life.  Not so much

To add to the fact that this is the most non actionist vampire action movie imaginable the final act of the film consists of softcore shock porn including a woman making a cross dressing vampire drink her urine before sex in a scene that is not plot related whatsoever.  I mean the film is literally PG up to this point then just out of the blue the last act went off the rails.  It was almost like the film makers watched the first half that they shot up to that point, hated it and then was like let's just fix it by throwing in tits and weird fetish sex.  

Finally this is one of those films that reels you in by throwing out a bunch of D list celebrities in the advertising when in reality those people are barely in the movie and whose actual part in the film can only be considered a cameo appearance at best.  The promotional posters all state the film stars Eric Roberts, Lorenzo Lamas and Big Daddy Kane.  All three have one scene each where they basically say one thing and you never see them again. Big Daddy Kane specifically plays a TV reporter who doesn't even really need to be in it who reports on what happened at the end of the film. At least the other two had somewhat plot related appearances in the actual movie if small ones.

I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  The concept was interesting, the execution (or lack of) is the problem.

Vampiress Review: "Blood of Dracula"

The Gist: A teacher at an all girls school conducts an experiment on a co-ed hypnotizing her and turning her into a vampire.

Female Vampire Factor: As mentioned the main character in the film Nancy is the victim of hypnosis.

During various situation she blacks out and turns into a very weird looking bat vampire creature and ends up killing two students at her school and one male visitor.

Final Opinion:  If it weren't for the overkill on the vampire look this would be a pretty decent movie.  You still would have to deal with the 1950's teeny bopper singing and clique building story the film began with but watching Nancy lose control when she gets around people the way she eventually does would be much more rewarding if it was just fangs.  Since it's not I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.

Vampiress Review: "Xane: The Vampire God"

The Gist: a group of friends on a camping trip are ambushed by vampires.  They are saved by a vampire god named Xane who ends up being a vampire version of one of the campers sent from the future to save himself.

Female Vampire Factor: Every main female character in the film does at some point become a vampire but only in a matter of factly sort of way.  First the evil vampire king Cain's wife Lillith (Zoe Kelly) is one but you only see her do anything vampiric once and her fangs are only seen during a scene when she's being tortured by her husband Kane.

Next one turned is Lilliths apprentice Gentry (Michelle Oneida). She is used to trick the main character Titus by disguising herself as his girlfriend Jocelyn.  Her reward for helping Cain in the plan is him turning her (top photo) but you never actually see her do anything vampiric as she still spends the rest of the movie disguised as Jocelyn (Bottom photo).

Finally is Jocelyn herself (Jenna Farden), the girlfriend of the main character Titus.  She is turned so that she wouldn't die after her friends abusive vampire stepdad bites her.  She has one fang scene where she has to be held down and kept from feeding on Titus' brother.

Final Opinion:  This is one of those films where once it gets going it's pretty good but needs a ton of editing.  It's a two hour film with the first hour being downright hard to watch as they spend way too much time and effort on the "After school special" style backstory of Titus's brother having ALS and him not going to college so that he can get a job to pay for his brothers treatment. All things that really have no bearing on the actual plot of the film.  Then again since the movie doesn't have an actual ending pretty much nothing that happens has an actual bearing on the plot.  That's right, nothing gets resolved.  You sit for two hours for a film with no resolution whatsoever that just cuts to credits on a cliffhanger.  I give this one a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5. 

Vampiress Review: "Sunset Society"

The Gist: A society of vampires seeks out a DVD being sold around the streets of Hollywood that expose that they exist.

Female Vampire Factor: There are two that get any real screen time.  The main one being the character Sophie (Phoebe Dollar)

She ends up being the vampire who had the DVD that they're looking for which we find out after her poor innocent boyfriend is tortured.

The Second is a girl named Belinda Danials (Sarah Nicklin)

She's first seen as one of a pair of random girls picked up at a bar by Sophies boyfriend at the films beginning to eventually feed on. 

But after the vampires watch the film (which ends with a young girl getting bitten) she comes down the stairs of the home and reveals that she killed the vampires sent to kill her and the other woman (who she pretty much lets die at the beginning) and that she was in fact the girl who was bitten in the DVD now grown up, is now a vampire and is the sister of another girl who is turned in the DVD.  Her goal of being there was to kill Sophie for killing her sister.

As mentioned above Belinda's sister Kiera (Angelique Congleton) was also turned.  Most of her screen time as a vampire though is her sulking over the vampire who made her not wanting her around.

She ends up asking Sophie to kill her as she does not want to be a vampire alone (even though she was taught she could hypnotize people but whatev) which Sophie does by draining her.

There are other vampiresses in the film as there are a few scenes of vampire bite parties where they lour humans to their mansion and then feed on them.

Final Opinion: I can honestly say that this movie has one heck of an ending.  Unfortunately everything before the ending was pretty bad.  The first 20 minutes is basically B movie grade torture porn and oddly placed animation.  Then when they get to the point when they watch the Sunset Society DVD its pretty much low grade quality video (it's supposed to have been shot on a camcorder by a street person) that seems to exist just to show how many C and D level celebs walking the streets of Hollywood they got to appear in the film including names like Steve O, Lemme from Motorhead and Ron Jeremy. A good portion of this part of the film not only couldn't have been shot by a third party the way it's presented but they repeat scenes A LOT.  At the end of the day had they just focused on the characters of Sophie and Gage instead of giving bigger name celebs a ton of screen time so they could put them in the advertising as being in the film it would have been much easier and more entertaining film to follow since nothing else outside of those stories actually mattered to the films eventual climax.

Anyway I did get a kick out of seeing an older and still hot vampire Phoebe Dollar who I fondly remember as vampire eye candy in the film "Blood Sisters" back in the early 2000's so for that and that alone I'll give this a Vampire Beauty rating of 3 out of 5.

Vampiress Review: "Rabid" (1977)

The Gist: After getting in a motorcycle accident a woman who was treated using experimental methods begins feeding on the blood of others and giving them a mutated form or rabies.

Female Vampire Factor: Softcore film queen Marilyn Chambers plays Rose.

Rose was in a motorcycle accident and is taken to a clinic where they use an experimental treatment to treat her.  Upon waking up from the treatment she freaks out and asks the first person to come to her aid to hold her.  She then feeds on him.

This pretty much happens whenever she's on screen.  She basically hugs people to death.  As she hugs them a leech like tube comes from her armpit and attaches itself to them sucking them dry of their blood.

Those she feeds on if they aren't killed then eventually just develop a rabies like illness that makes them attack others.

Final Opinion: Loved this movie,  Rose is a straight up predator.  Also helps that if she isn't feeding on someone she's either half naked or topless (I mean this is Marilyn Chambers after all).

I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  If she was a traditional vampire it would definitely get a five but she is still seducing people to feed on.   In 2019 the Soska sisters made a much more PG rated remake of this which I review HERE.

Vampiress Review: "Rabid" (2019)

The Gist: A woman who gets an experimental reconstructive surgery after a moped accident has complications which gives her a vampire like hunger while the rest of society exposed suffers a rabies like illness.

Female Vampire Factor:  The main protagonist in the film is an inspiring fashion designer named Rose (Laura Vandervoort)

As explained in the gist one of the side effects for getting her face back is she has to drink a "protein shake" regularly.  This protein shake ends up just being blood basically.  Eventually what's being given to her isn't enough so she resorts to the old raw meet trick.

Then when that isn't enough she begins to black out and hunt for it fresh.

Her final vampiric form has a leech that involuntarily comes from her armpit and feeds on the nearest blood source. This only happens twice during the films final act. 

During the films final act we find out from the Dr/mad scientist he turns out to be that the point of the treatment that was used on her was not about helping severely deformed people but about trying to create immortal beings and Rose was apparently the success.  It was just easier to use the severely deformed as they were more desperate and open to using experimental treatments.  As long as she continued to feed on blood, she will live forever.  If she chooses not too, her body will do all the work for her and she will still live forever but just in a lot of pain and discomfort.

Meanwhile the failed version of the formula gave everyone experimented on a mutated form of rabies. So the background of the film toward the end is society dealing with a pandemic of people basically trying to eat other. The last victim of the rabies you see is Rose's best friend who was attacked on the subway on the way to her fashion shoot off screen and turns as the fashion show she is set to star in is starting.

Final Opinion:  So this is a remake of a film from 1977 of the same name. As far as it as a stand alone it's an ok film.  It's a little lengthy with some things in the beginning that can absolutely be cut out that wouldn't effect the storytelling at all.  Comparing the two the original was much more of a rated R horror film complete with nudity and with Rose being much more predatory where as here she is a sympathetic character trying to fight what she is. Basically this film treats rose as a person, the original literally starts with her getting in the accident and her only screen time is pretty much hunting and feeding on people after that.

It is somewhat therapeutic to watch right now since as I type this it's April 2020 and there is a pandemic going on in the world and the bulk of the last two acts do follow people who have no survival instincts whatsoever completely ignoring a health warning that rabies is going around yet and are still hanging out downtown and attending a fashion show even alongside people showing obvious signs. Even Rose having a ridiculous amount of hallucinations of murdering people is like "I'll go to the doctor tomorrow, have to go to work and see my dress".  No matter how frustrated you are about the world situation if you're reading this in spring 2020.  The stupidity of these people will make you feel better about the real world.

The other thing I find unintentionally comical is that prior to the deformity she gets from the accident (which is pretty gruesome, good job to their special effects dept.) the rose character is supposed to be apparently so ugly that a guy asking her out is a surprise and a big deal.  They do this by hiring an attractive actress, not giving her makeup and then putting glasses on her.

Then after they give her the experimental treatment and she comes out wearing makeup and no glasses they act as if she was basically a gutter troll before and looks completely different when she really doesn't.

Anyway I give this a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  Vandervoort is attractive but as per usual for her she plays the anti monster that avoids doing monster things and when she does it's either not conventional or off camera.  Best way to see her as a vampire so far is still on the Netflix series V-Wars.  Best way to see this movie to me is still the original.