My Best Friend is a Vampire (1987)

Plot: Jeremy is a high school kid who just wants a girlfriend.  Roger is his best friend.  While at work one afternoon, Jeremy meets Nora, a sexy older woman who just happens to be a vampire. Soon Jeremy finds himself dealing with more then just keeping up his grades, he's got a vampire hunter on his tail.


This is one of those lost in the shuffle teen movies from the 80's, when teen movies meant something.
It was finally put on DVD just a couple of years ago, but has made it to cult status over the years from being on almost every late night television station movie marathons.

This movie is sweet, funny, and shows that no matter what you're going through, your real friends will always be there for you.   And it has the best line from any vampire film in the last 30 years   "This Blood's For You."

Let Me In (2010)

This is a remake of a Swedish film Let The Right One In (2008).
Originally based on a book as well.

I know that when I first saw this the original version back in 2009, I had mixed feelings on it.  Sitting down and watching the English version, I still have mixed feelings.  (maybe I need to read the book?)

Plot:  12 year old Owen is being bullied at school. Abby moves in next door with her dad.  Soon the bodies start to pile up and we learn that Abby is a vampire and her dad is not really her dad, he's her familiar.  Once Owen and Abby realize they have a budding romance, Abby does everything possible to keep Owen safe.

The questions here are what are we willing to do for dignity and desire?  There is a scene where Abby climbs into bed naked with Owen after having killed her familiar.
As a straight up vampire film, it's brilliant.  The subplots of pre-teen self awareness and unconditional love are something you don't see done honestly in any genre.

This film is as brutal as it is honest, which at times can be very disturbing to sit through. 

If you have seen the original version, there isn't much difference in the English one.  From what I can tell, it was shot scene for scene. 

The Bleeding (2009)

Plot: Black witnesses his parents being murdered and he ends up in the hospital. He's awakened from a coma to find out he's been chosen to kill the new King of the vampires, Cain.  Ends up his dead brother has been turned into the vampire king.  He's joined by a priest and a cemetery groundskeeper. Can the three of them save mankind before dawn?

You know what, I hate to tell you all this, but we've seen this one before.  In different vampire films.

• There is a rave where the vampires are draining people (Lost Boys Thirst  did this plotline already)
• There is a rebel priest who is set to fight the vampires (John Carpenters Vampires, Dracula II Ascension and III Legacy, Live Evil)
• There is a desert chase at night (Forsaken, Near Dark)

I was disappointed by this offering.  The only bright spot was Micheal Madson. (who has made a name for himself in the vampire genre)

Priest (2011) Rant and Review

Originally posted on my main blog on May 14th 2011 (so if you read my main blog you most likely have read this post already... just saying)

Yesterday the latest vampire movie opened up.   I went to see it today.  Been really hyper about this one ever since I saw the trailer last summer.

I was like "finally, we are returning to what a vampire film is suppose to be.  Brutal"

Only one problem.   THE FREALING THING WAS 3D
I wish our local cinema had said that on the damned website. Needless to say, if I had known before hand I would not have bothered.  The last thing you want to do is cause dren in a busy line up of movie goers so I picked up my pre-ordered ticket and trudged into the screening room.

Next weird thing.  I was the only WOMAN in the room.  Dude! normally I would love that;  I mean me alone with about 45 males and vampires.  Sounds toasty.    Only we're talking a bunch of teenaged boys, and dads with their kids. (okay so there might have been a few five year old girls in the screening room with their daddies but they don't count)

So there's me, five minutes into a vomit worthy 3D movie trying not to let the migraine headache that was starting actually turn into a vomitting sitch.  I was actually thinking of walking out after five minutes but ended up just removing the 3D glasses and watching it that way.  In a very blurry 2D.
So this is one I will be getting on DVD the second it comes out in the fall or whatever so I can sit and watch it properly in proper vision being 2D.
Also did not realize it was based on a comic/graphic novel. 

The movie was very much geared to the males, because even the previews were all for shoot em action movies.  I suppose trying to make a bit of a balance with the vamps after all the Twilight dren in the last few years, which was all geared for teenaged girls.

REVIEW:  The vampires and humans have been at war for centuries. Now, in a remote out-skirt a nest of vampires have upped the game.  They kidnap a family member of one of the more well known Priests who have been ordered to protect humans.  This leads to a renegade band lead by the Priest, the kidnapped girl's lover, and the Priestess-Warrior traveling to the area to stop them. What they learn is that Lucy is being held by a former priest who's been turned into the only living half-breed. This gives him the advantage of being able to be out in the daylight. Meanwhile, back in the city, which is run by the church, a cover-up is happening withing the rankings of the church.  Everything comes to a finale on a train in the middle of the desert.

THOUGHTS:  Well Spudguns, I did like this.  Despite the 3D bulldren,  I was right into the whole thing.  Part western, part gothic, part action this vampire movie was sleek and just brutal enough to make me quiet for the length of it.  It packed a few famous names in it too in the form of Christopher Plummer (Dracula 2000, Red Blooded American Girl, Vampire in Venice,  ) and Brad Dourif (Child's Play)   
Vampire fans know that when you see Christopher Plummer in a film, you know it's one you can sink your teeth into.

Playing catch up

There was a situation that I blogged about on my main blog last week.  (Ardeth the Vampire Detective)
That got me thinking about a few things.  Add to this that I just did a book review for work on my book blog, that was in my mind a vampire story. 

On the weekend, I had a coffee with a member of my book club, and we talked about vampire and zombie books.  The ever growing trends and what we have liked in the past vs what we've hated.

All this has me getting very nostalgic over my old ... way of life.  Put it bluntly,  I miss my vampires.

It was more then a hobby for me (collecting movies, books, posters, etc) , more then a job (studying the medical and psychological elements along with the folklore), more then a state of mind.  It was me. 

This morning I broke out the collection.  All three movies of Lost Boys and have been sitting down just absorbing.

I have long since stopped paying attention to the one thing in my life that used to be the core of it.  I keep promising myself, that I will return to it.   Bear with me as I try to maneuver through the next few stages of things.  My writing/book reviews + wrestling + food + vampires = chaos.   But a full expression of myself.

The Lost Boys

In 1987 a movie came out that changed the whole framework of how a vampire was seen. It became a cult classic on so many levels.

Thanks in part of the popularity of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles  vampire fans had something fresh to sink their teeth into, and they wanted their movies to reflect that.

The Lost Boys  served up the vampire as a young, hip, journey of teenaged confusion masked in a wrap of peer pressure and rock n roll.
The catch phrase of that year was "sleep all day, party all night, never grow old, never die it's fun being a vampire"
Many films and books tried to copy the formula that made Edgar, Allan - the Frog Brothers- and their friend Sam so cool, but just could not hack it.

It would take 20 years for a sequel to show up.  With promises of bringing a new generation of fans to the edge of cultism.

Unfortunately, 20 years was just a bit long.  Even die hard fans were left with a bad taste in our mouths.

Even given the addition of Kiefer Sutherlands'  younger brother -Angus- as the lead vampire, it just did not do much for the fans who'd waited and waited and waited.

The 2008 offering was a nightmare not a dream come true.



Seeing the error of their mistake (total quote from the original Buffy movie here) the producers went back to the drawing board and came up with another offering.

This one picks up 20 years after the first one, with only a slight nod to few themes used in the second film, giving fans a more stable offering with the return of the Frog Brothers.

The only real thread that ties the three films together would be Corey Feldman, who starred in all three as head vampire hunter Edgar Frog.

Some would say the first and third offerings foreshadowed Feldman's career.   The first saw him paired off with Corey Haim, who would gone on to co-star in close to 80% of the movies Feldman put out over the years, and the third film sees Haim's character of Sam Emerson, as having died; which ironically was filmed around the same time as the death of the actor in real life.

There was a tease at the end of the LBThirst, giving a nod to a secluded quote in the first film about werewolves in office, that there might be a fourth LostBoys.  It would be interesting to see what they could do with another creature.


Plot: Two brothers, Sam and Michael, move with their mother to Santa Carla, to live with their grandfather.  While out one night, Michael meets Starr and forms a crush. Starr, to his disappointment is already seeing David, and part of his biker gang. Meanwhile, Sam heads to the comic book store where he meets Edgar and Allan Frog, who believe in the monsters they read about. Sam's mother gets a job working at a video store owned by Max, who no one ever sees in the day. Soon bodies are piling up, and the boys are finding themselves pit against each other brother against brother, vampire against hunter.  Will they be able to survive or will they all become one big happy blood sucking family? Twenty years later, Sam has fallen into the same fate his brother had, while Edgar is still hunting vampires. Sam's younger cousins move to the area and find themselves at the mercy of a vampire gang. The leader who happens to have been the best surfer in the last few years, and Chris Emerson's old surfing rival. Who's got the skill to stay on top, and who's going to end up deader then dead?
A year later, Edgar Frog gets hired by an author who writes vamp-pop-lit. She wants him to find her brother and kill the vampire who is holding him. Edgar having found himself alone and broke has no choice but to take the gig. What he finds underground is a rave of innocent victims and the Head Vampire, whom he's been hunting for years. Will he make it out and save the world?

Do not watch Lesbian vampire films with your gay friends

Originally posted on my main blog on Aug 24th 2010

 It's dangerous man!

I love this movie.  Dude, it's funny. My friend Sophia and her girlfriend, were not sharing with the joy at all.

Plot: Fletch and Jimmy have both just been fired and dumped, and decide to have a vacation.  Both being broke agree on a hike in the nearby area.  Soon they find themselves sharing a cabin with a group of college girls.  The girls are there to study the mythology of Carmilla the Queen Vampire.  Unknown to them,  the villagers that sent them to this cabin have been cursed by Carmilla.  On the day of their 18th birthday all the women in the village turn into lesbian vampires.  The cabin is their feeding ground.  Unknown to Jimmy,  he's the last in a line of warriors who can defeat Carmilla and end her curse.  All he needs is a sword of pure steel that is penis shaped.

First off, I know this is going to piss alot of people off, but it was a fun movie.  Done in a comicbook style and in similar fashion to a Scooby-Doo cartoon, you know right off this is not your typical teen vampire movie.   It walks a line closer to From Dusk till Dawn then anything else you've seen lately.  (like a scene where one of the boys are in the bathroom and ends up in a fight with a vampire who's only trace after being killed are her implants)
I thought it was a brilliantly bold move to have the vampires not splatter red blood or black for that matter but infact.... white goo  when killed.  (I'm sorry I thought it was frealing funny stab the chick and she splatters white sticky stuff ) 
There is little to no seriousness to this film, just a lot of laughing.  A nice take on the Carmilla plot, which I have to say I haven't really ever been a fan of Carmilla movies other then Stay Alive.
The running joke that the only way to kill the queen is to "run her through with a large steel rod with a cock shaped handle"  did it for me, I was laughing for the entire film the first time I saw it few months ago, and was just giggling my ass off this round. (yes I bought it!)  My friends did not feel this movie was "productive to feminism". 
My response to my friends was "Nether am I"

This is one of those vampire films that will become a cult classic for late night horror parties.