Song of the Vampire

I love vampire films, but this one had nothing new to add to the genre. On top of being painfully low budget, the boom mic dips into every other scene. Why wasn't this caught in editing? The story is predictable and awkwardly slow paced. The vampire, who is supposed to be a good guy, takes some peoples lives without a second thought. It doesn't really make any sense.

To be honest, I got this movie on DVD because I am a huge fan of Denice Duff's work on the Subspecies series. In Subspecies, she's hauntingly beautiful, and was the perfect vampire. I was hungry to see more of her. In this film however, she is not a vampire, and her character is pretty weak. She does have one love scene which is unfortunately PG-13.

Pretty lame overall. I'd recommend skipping this movie and picking up Subspecies instead.

Wanting to find his true love, a man sells his soul to become a vampire and awakens a century later to target and torment a woman who he feels was taken from him years ago, sending him out to find her in the middle of a battle with her abusive ex-husband and bringing them together.

This was a solid enough romantic-themed vampire effort. Among the better features here is an intriguing and rather impactful storyline that manages to provide a fun time overall. The initial setup of the vampire looking to sell his soul to ensure he can return to find the woman he loved who's now reincarnated as a random woman in modern times who's starting to become overwhelmed by a series of dreams and hallucinations depicting both her past abusive relationships and the life she had with the vampire works incredibly well. This creates a great impetus for why he would want to track her down and reunite based on his belief in their past while also giving a reason why she becomes receptive to his charms once the rampage brings them together. None of it stands out beyond doing a necessary job of explaining why they come together as they do since the later scenes involving the couple reuniting again have the build-up required to be quite somewhat enjoyable. With a strong setup allowing for some decent stalking scenes with some decent enough gore involved, this gets some decent enough positives. There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback here is the agonizingly slow pace and tempo that comes about trying to make for an epic look and feel only to drag the running time out needlessly. So many scenes here, whether it's the genuinely slow nature of how the conversations are carried out or the inclusion of actual slow-motion sequences into the setup which are awkwardly injected into the film and don't mean much and do nothing but carry out the running time far more than needed. This could've been trimmed out so it's not as irritating as how long it takes to get going with these factors, keeping the running time too long for its own good. As well, there's also the lowered intimidation of the vampire that causes this to fall as there's not much threatening action in the middle section of this one due to taking up the romantic angle with him trying to seduce her and make her see how she's the reanimated lover in his former life which drains the fear completely out of this one. With the low-budget nature of this one creeping in as well, these all come together to hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

"Song of the Vampire" is one of those movies that took years to complete, not because it's a vast and elaborate undertaking, but because it was stitched together on a tiny budget, probably in the production team's spare time. Rest assured that there are bloopers and signs of amateurism aplenty. But if you're reading this, you're probably already a low budget horror fan, so no doubt you're used to production values that aren't exactly blockbuster-level.

What really matters is the story, and in this case, it holds together pretty well. The basic premise is older than the hills; a vampire returns from his grave to seek a lost love. But there's some unique elements in the mix, including a very sympathetic heroine who is stalked by a psycho ex-boyfriend. Other commentators have complained that the domestic drama drags the movie down to a "chick-flick, Lifetime special of the week" level, but hey, I think it works. It's cool to get a female director's perspective on horror, and I find it annoying that so many male viewers are quick to dismiss a story that isn't as drenched in testosterone as something they would produce.

The directing is solid, considering that Denise "Subspecies" Duff wasn't working with decent cameras or lighting equipment. On the DVD commentary, she cheerfully admits that many of the props were obtained from Wal-Mart! But she's a very good photographer, and she knows how to frame interesting shots and inject a bit of mood here and there. Her work certainly eclipses much of what Full Moon did - with a lot more money - during the early 1990s. The only really amateurish parts are the action scenes; the gore is pretty convincing, but the slow-mo and synthesized suspense music are silly.

No doubt the people who will work to track this movie down are the same people it was made for. So you'll probably like it, you wacked-horror buff. Just be prepared for a movie that's less violent and OTT than "Subspecies," and a bit more grounded in the real world. Well, the real world, plus one hammy vampire.

Anyone who's read my Subspecies reviews knows I'm a big fan of those films and of the work of Denise Duff, so I was really looking forward to the arrival of this project. Well, I have to say it's not great, but I'm willing to cut Duff some slack; it shows a lot of style for a first project, she's clearly been a careful student during her projects with Full Moon, and I'll definitely be interested in any further directing work by her.

Though at FM she only worked on the Subspecies series, this movie seems more influenced by FM's other, more Gothic vampire epic "Vampire Journals", with James Horan as Jonathan almost a dead-ringer (sorry) for that film's Jonathan Morris as Ash (hmm, name coincidence?). Good-guy vampire Jonathan, whose lover Caroline died in his arms at the hand of a jealous husband, seeks her reincarnation and finds her as modern-day Victoria Thorn (Duff). No doubt Victoria is the one: she's not only been having nightmares of Caroline's death using the exact same footage we see in Jonathan's flashbacks, but she also has a jealous husband, this one a murderous psycho who's just gotten out of jail and serves gruesome notice that he has no plans to respect the judge's restraining order. --You can see exactly where this is going to go, but it's fun to watch it get there. Duff knows how to sell a vampire film: she wants to make a Gothic romance, but also knows you have to toss in some gore and nudity to keep the stake-and-slash crowd happy, and manages a fair (though not ideal) balance of the two elements. It's also a kick to spot the little Subspecies homages tossed in here and there, like the documentary on "Prince Vladislas of Romania" and the Nicolaou's Used & Antique Books shop. --The pacing's slow, some of the acting is dire (especially: Duff really should have reined in Mr. Thorn's teeth-gnashing psychotics), there are some awful lighting/scene matching glitches, and the token attempt at historical backstory is so lame it made me cringe (excuse me? crossbows and voodoo priestesses only 100 years ago? That's 1903!) But overall I enjoyed it; Horan and Duff are likeable and convincing in the leads, there are some nice visuals, and I'd call it well worth the time of any fan of Full Moon's vampire tales. I congratulate Duff on getting this project on the shelves and hope she will direct again in this vein (--sorry, couldn't resist).

(p.s.--I *loved* the careful note in the end-credits assuring the viewer that the role of "dead cat" was played by a slipper.)

This was a surprisingly good vampire film. If you like Denice in the Subspecies movies you will not be disappointed. She did an admirable job of both Director and lead Actress. It has the feel of a mid-1990's Full Moon picture, dark and gothic. A nice twist away from the standard script that one would expect. The romance is heavy in the plot, but I think it worked quite well. Geoffrey Lewis plays a memorable and often funny role as the mortician/coroner. The performance by James Horan as the sole Vampire was amazing...he reminded me very much of Jonathon Morris in "Vampire Journals" directed by Ted Nicolaou.

Song of The Vampire has been released on DVD as "Vampire Resurrection" from Shadow Entertainment. It contains over 30 minutes of Deleted & Extended scenes, Bloopers, Trailers, Photo montage, and full-length commentary by Denice Duff ... what more could you possibly ask for?!?!!!