Vampirella

Vampires from outer space that are honourable citizens and no longer kill to feed themselves! Vlad (Roger Daltrey) - a renegade vampire, kills Vampirella's father and flees to Earth and joins nasty vamps as we better know them. Vampirella pursues him in seek of revenge. Sounds trashy? Yes it does! However, while this film will never rank amongst one of the great classics, it does provide 80 minutes worth of mindless viewing that is not entirely unsatisfying. Talisa Soto (Vampirella), apart from being a stunning beauty, carries this film quite well often with a semblance of some good acting skills. Roger Daltrey is Roger Daltrey. Some of the support acting is scarily awful at times but, as B Movies go, this is not the worst I have seen by far.

Vampirella for those not aware was a comic book that for its t&a levels became rather cult.

During the mid 90's there was an influx of superhero comic book adaptations and Vampirella was certainly an odd choice.

It tells the story of Ella (Vampirella) from the planet Drakulon (Or something to that effect) who is out to avenge her fathers death against the evil Vlad (Yeah really).

Soto is an awful actress, sided with The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey as the antagonist and a cameo appearance by the tall man himself Angus Scrimm. For those unfamiliar with Soto she played Kitana in the live action Mortal Kombat movies where she was equally dire.

Vampires in space, vampires with black cloaks with red inner lining, vampires that insist on hissing and showing their teeth and for the love of all 3000 gods they couldn't even get the iconic Vampirella outfit right.

Cringe inducing and I think 3 is being excessively flattering.

The Good:

Decent soundtrack

The Bad:

Cringe inducing fight scenes

Talisa Soto is a poor actress

The very definition of cheesy

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Some comic book characters should be left on the pages

Soto should have transitioned into modelling

What would one expect from a film (even if based on a comic book) that has a vampire named Vlad coming from the planet Drakulon -- a planet populated entirely by vampires?

Pretty much from pressing the play button on the VCR myself and the two friends I watched this were in stitches, laughing till we cried. The acting probably isn't the best in the world, the costuming is at times camp (though who are we to complain about a babe running around in a bikini with a golden bat drawing our attention to her crotch -- when it isn't focussed on her ample cleavage or her gorgeous eyes? Oddly, the guys in the film don't seem to notice this), only it was the special effects that first set us off as the guns started shooting -- or whatever it was those guns were meant to be doing.

The script, well...we don't get _MST3K_ in this country so I don't know if _Vampirella_ has been given that treatment. No matter: Without straining our brains we were doing a good job of supplying our own commentary as this film sets itself up for that constantly. Though _Vampirella_ simply doesn't need the witty comments for you to end up rolling on the floor do add them; the audience participation really adds to the enjoyment. Get your mates around, pop the tape in the player, and let the hilarity ensue.

This had all the elements of a cult classic but was ruined by the makers of this film. Film starts off with a rogue vampire named Vlad (Roger Daltrey) who is about to be sentenced by the high council but his cohorts bust him out and kill all the high elders. They jump on a ship and head to Earth. The stepdaughter of one of the elders seeks revenge and makes her way to Earth also. Vampirella is played by Talisa Soto and she runs around in a fairly skimpy red outfit and tracks down Vlad and the other vampires that were involved. She meets Adam Van Helsing (Richard Joseph Paul) who works for PURGE that is an outfit that combats vampires and at first he is not sure if Vampirella is working with Vlad to infiltrate their unit. This film just doesn't capture what the comic book had done successfully. First, the outfit that Soto wears in the film is not as skimpy or revealing as the one in the comics. So they have her wear more clothing! Secondly, there is very little blood shown which is surprising since more than 50% of the characters are vampires. The sets are cheap and they just don't have any scenarios that make the film stand out. Its so run of the mill! Their is only two quick scenes where two female vampires get topless so cult status is pretty much out the window. Here's a film made by the Roger Corman group and directed by Jim Wynorski so you would think that some sort of bloody and sexy exploitation film would have been made. But no! For you trivia nuts out there, a young man is named Forry Ackerman and of course he is named for the creator of the comic book and also "Famous Monsters of Filmland". The real Forrest J. Ackerman makes a cameo in a bar. Director John Landis plays an astronaut and actor Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) plays Vampirella's stepfather and high elder. Film had real potential for cult status but for some strange reason the makers decided to ignore that and go the extremely safe route. What a shame!

I've been an avid Vampirella fan since she first appeared in comics, so when I saw the video, I wondered why I had never heard of it before or saw it on DVD. I finally knew why: the movie is a totally disappointing experience. The costume of the main character isn't nearly close to the original (as portrayed in the comic books), and Talisa Soto (no matter how truly beautiful she is) is not the most appropriate leading lady for this particular role. From the look of the comics, we can figure out that Vampirella is a mixture of Slavic and middle east ethnic features (not a bad thing for any girl, because it's truly exotic in nature), and Soto is a Latin beauty. Not quite a match in casting, at all. For those viewers who aren't familiar with the characters from the comics, the movie is boring and slow paced, with loose references to the comic and really cheap costumes (the experience is even worst for those who knew the characters before hand). Also the visual effects are quite poor, to say the least. However, Joel Goldsmith's score is excellent, and it's really about the only production value on the film. I'll give this movie a 5, just on the basis of the music track alone, and I wouldn't mind at all to have it on CD, because it's truly enjoyable.