Tropical Vampires (2016)

Rating: D

Dir: Marcelo Santiago
Star: Renata Davies, Fausto Fawcett, Otto Jr., Michele Hayashi
a.k.a. Vampiro 40ยบ

For the films in the this series, I aim at about a thousand words of commentary. For some, it’s easy enough, because they have historical significance, offer a lot of food for thought, or are simply just interesting. Others, I have to end up going a bit more plot-heavy in the review. This, however, does not offer such an option, since it would require me to understand what the fuck was going on. Writing up everything I could positively swear was accurate, would not trouble the back of your average-sized beer-mat. A match-book is probably closer to the truth, and you’d still have room for the matches.

I mean, there are certainly no shortage of ideas here. Such as the concept that sexual energy can be captured and transformed into a state that it can be used in place of more traditional power sources. Dedicated performers are then tasked with keeping the lights on. This is an interesting thought, and one which merits exploration. However, my question would be: why is it in this movie? It’s got nothing to do with vampires, adds precisely zero to proceedings, and is just kinda dumped into the plot, then left lying there awkwardly. It’s the modus operandi of this film, which seems to have involved the creators brainstorming every idea they can think of, then dropping the entire kit and kaboodle into their script. Vampires are, by and large, just one such aspect of the resulting mess.

What we do have is this. The city of Rio has been largely taken over by vampires, operating under the control of the Limbo Corporation. The man in charge is Vlak (Fawcett), who moved from Transylvania, and his main business is selling an addictive drug that allows the user to briefly experience life as a vampire. Vlak has had enough and drops off the grid, after plucking out the GPS-enabled canine which allows Limbo to track him. This apparently causes a massive bout of amnesia, leaving Vlak wandering the city with no clue who he is. His other half, Michele (Davies), hits the streets and finds down-and-out vampire Draco (Otto Jr.) as a potential replacement, but he decides to team up with a chainsaw-wielding psycho bitch, while Vlak is befriended by Wang Su (Hayashi).

Yeah, then stuff happens. A great deal of stuff. Most of it seems at least borderline sexual in nature. There’s an Eyes Wide Shut feeling to the whole thing, because a lot of the characters are sporting animal masks, for no reason ever explained. We also get interludes from a TV panel show about crime, where the hostess seems to be in a perpetual state of near-orgasm, and whose purpose is equally impenetrable. Almost nothing here is “real” in an objective sense, with copious amounts of rear-projection and green screen, though in the film’s defense, no effort is attempted to make it look like anything other than copious amounts of rear-projection and green screen. The results look like someone tried to make Sin City, based on a third-hand description, where the budget was limited to twenty bucks and a handful of ‘shrooms.

You get the sense there is a fair amount of social satire in this – or at least satire which seems to require knowledge of Brazilian society for any real appreciation. But basically, the authorities, such as they are, will always be incompetent and/or corrupt. I guess that’s universal. However, there’s just nothing onto which you can hang your attention. Is Vlak the hero? Draco? Michele? I reached the end without even the slightest clue. It’s an exercise in excessive visual style, yet ends up an empty and hollow experience, due to the flimsy nature of the script. The makers may not care about such old-fashioned notions as story structure. I do, and by the end, pulling out my own canines was beginning to seem like an attractive proposition.

That’s all I’ve got. Let us never speak of this again.

This review is part of our October 2023 feature, 31 Days of Vampires.