Rating: D
Dir: Jeffrey Alan Miller
Star: Jacqueline Smith, Katherine Von Forelle, Josh Bingenheimer, Shane Dean
I was pointed in the direction of this by a friend – he shall remain anonymous – involved in the production. I think he now owes me a drink, I feel. Though in his defense, at no point was a claim made that it is any good. It is a rare example of a vampire film made here in Arizona. I mean, Phoenix is the sunniest big city in the world, getting over 300 days a year. Not exactly the best place for creatures of the night. Or pale Scotsmen, but that’s another story. Originality aside, sadly, we have an idea with some potential, nailed to the cross of inept execution.
It begins back in the 19th century, when vampire Giovanni (Dean) made his way from Europe to the New World with vampire hunter Richard Longshank in pursuit. Longshank wins the battle in Arizona, albeit at the cost of his own life. Fast forward to modern times and big tiddy Goth Melissa (Von Forelle), who is obsessed with the idea of becoming a vampire. She gets an ancient tome at a weird garage sale (from the film’s writer, David C. Hayes), and convinces her friends to go out into the desert and carry out the occult ritual it contains. The bad news: it unleashes Giovanni and his minions. The good news; it also releases Longshank, who possesses Mel’s sceptical friend, Liz (Smith), turning her into a bad-ass vampire hunter.
Amusingly, it also gives her a somewhat less aggressively shitty British accent than the original Longshank, who seems have taken dialect lessons from Dick Van Dyke. What’s weird is, all the dialogue in this is post-sync’d anyway, so was something they could have fixed in post. That, however, would have required more than a sloppy approach to the production, apparent in many other aspects, such as getting the publication date of Bram Stoker’s novel wrong. Pacing would be another such issue. While it only runs 75 minutes, the ritual doesn’t happen until comfortably after the half-way point. Even allowing for the prologue, you need to get through a lot of inane chit-chat between mopey Goths. Things are only temporarily enlivened there, courtesy of the bad hair extensions and worse boob job sported by Melissa’s pal Mona.
Things perk up somewhat post-ritual, though we are still constrained by Giovanni being a dopey-looking Nosferatu wannabe, who is about as threatening as his similarity to Uncle Fester would suggest. Matters are not helped by a shitty nu-metal soundtrack from local band, Corvus, which is particularly inappropriate for the 19th-century scenes. There is one (1) scene of amusingly excessive gore, and a moderate amount of nudity, mostly the Gothettes writhing around in front of Giovanni (top). Precious little else of genuine interest, although I did laugh at the line, “They’re fucking maniacs! And lesbians, too!” The makers have the temerity to leave things open for a sequel, as if this were a Marvel comics franchise. Sadly for my friend, but probably mercifully for everybody else, no such entity ever came to pass.