Vampiress TV Review: "Ghost Stories"

 

Season 1

Episode 28

"It's Only a Movie"

 

Ghost Stories was a short lived short horror story series in the same vain as The Twilight Zone.  It aired on the Fox Family Channel in the United States in 1998.

In this story a horror fanatic who works at a video store ditches a girl who's interested in him when his favorite movie star invites him to be in one of her films.

Female Vampire Factor: The movie star in this film is Mindy McCobb played by Kim Cristo. 

 McCobb represents the late night B-movie scream queens of the 80's and 90's.  Joey who is her biggest fan is no longer affected by horror movies and cynically judges how bad they are when she appears at the store one night and invites him to come to the set of her new film where she's the monster this time and not the victim. Joey agrees, forgetting he had made a date with his co-worker earlier. 

Once on the set he struggles with the concept of acting especially when his role requires him to be afraid of Mindy who he is madly in love with.

Things eventually change when during one of the takes things get a little too real.  The films victim he's supposed to find fictionally dead is actually dead and Mindy who is supposed to be playing a vampire seems to actually be one and is now chasing him around the studio.

 

The story ends with Joey running around with the dexterity of a drunken toddler tying to escape the studio with the camera eventually pulling back to show that his attempted escape is being shown on the television at the video store he worked at with the girl he ditched and a customer commenting on how corny the film is. 

 

Final Opinion: The "scream queen actress who played in vampire movies is actually one in real life" story is one that didn't get used enough but the few times it did it always worked (Fright Night 2, Blonde Heaven).  This is no different.  I can definitely recommend this episode for female vamp fans even if there is no fangs.