Metamorphosis

Being a big fan of Christopher Lambert and of "traditional" type Vampires, I was delighted to hear a couple of years ago that 'Metamorphosis' was happening.

Although the writers of 'Metamorphosis' were enthusiastic to portray an "original" take on Vampirism like most modern movies featuring our fanged friends do, they are still beautiful, genteel ladies and gentlemen and not a street-gang speaking in "cool" Buffy-type slang.

Mostly shot in Hungary straight after Lambert's 'Day of Wrath,' Christopher clearly enjoys playing the bad guy here, and gives us a performance that I would describe as Lord Rayden in a nastier mood. As usual, his character is a mix of dark and light, but I wish the script had allowed a bit more of an insight into his character as the write-up on the official site indicated there might be.

Irena A. Hoffman is everything you could want in a seductive Vampire, and I look forward to seeing her in other things. Scenes with her or Lambert as the main focus are certainly the most enjoyable in the movie, as the three American tourists (in real life, one Canadian, and two English) aren't very interesting.

Corey Sevier is adequate as Keith, but Jennifer Higham and particularly Charlie Hollway are stuck playing irritating, unfunny characters.

The rest of the cast is filled out by some suitable looking Hungarians, and the production is assisted by the use of genuine medieval locations.

Metamorphosis is a little light on blood and Vampire action, and struggles a bit to keep it's plot moving, but I enjoyed it.

When you make an American movie in Hungary with the budget to buy an old car, you get a movie like this one. Amazingly enough, it starred Christopher Lambert and it also had a little bit of originality in the script.

Three things were good in the film: the vampire girl was cute as hell, Cristopher Lambert was funny (also as hell, him being a vampire too, heh) when talking to the German girl and making fun of crosses and bibles and the last was that the "romance" in the movie reminded me of Quest for Glory 4, for which I keep a fondness in my heart.

The rest was absolutely wasting time. Not completely unentertaining, mind you, I could watch it and not feel bad about it.

Bottom line: for a low budget film, it was pretty good. Don't expect horror in it, the vampiric aspect is mostly a philosophical thing. Don't expect action, either, as only editing would make the moves of old Lambert and too young Irena Hoffman look anything but slow. There is almost no sex and the dialogues are ridiculous. So what did I like about it? it was not as cliché as I expected. And did I mention Irena looked sexy and reminded me of the vampire in Quest for Glory 4 ? :)

I've seen films shot using phome cameras that are better than this. This was just a BAD movie. The acting was terrible. What was Christopher Lambert thinking. Not that he's a critically accalaimed actor or anything. The writing was terrible. Scenes were stitched together with some not making any sense in sequence of events. I love vampire movies and some of them are pretty cheesy but entertaining at least. Not this film.

Abysmal. Horrible. Plain awful. These are just a few words that come to my mind when I think of this movie.

Let's take a closer look:

ACTING - practically non-existent, wooden,amateurish overacting;

ACTORS - horrible 1990s choice of actors and characters (three utterly annoying American tourists) and Christopher Lambert. Yes, that Christopher Lambert, who once was a big star (don't ask me how he ended up in this piece of junk);

PLOT - makes little or no sense (not to mention the terrible distortion of historical reality and truth);

SETTING - probably the only positive think in the whole film;

ENDING - clear and predictable after some 30 minutes into the film; etc.

I could go on and on, but there's no point to. It's simply one horrible horrible film which should never have been made. And Mr. Lambert should fire his agent ASAP and start making decent films again.

In the Seventeenth Century, while Hungary is fighting the Turks, the population of a small village in the Carpathian Mountains faces the evil Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Adél Kováts), accused of drinking and bathing in blood of virgin women. Count Thurzo (Gábor Koncz) imprisons the Countess in the tower of a monastery and brings her daughter to live with him. In the present days, Keith (Corey Sevier) is writing a book about Countess Elizabeth Bathory and traveling through Hungary with his friends J.J. (Charlie Hollway) and Kim (Jennifer Higham) researching her life. While trying to find the monastery, he meets the gorgeous and seductive Elizabeth (Irena A. Hoffman), who guides the trio to the place. Keith and Elizabeth fall in love for each other, and after a car accident, they have a supernatural journey with revelations and fatalities.

"Metamorphosis" is an original romance through time, space, life, purgatory and death. I am a fan of vampire movies, and I particularly liked this underrated movie. The story is not gore, actually it is a romance, and maybe that is the reason to have such a low User Rating in IMDb. The unknown actress Irena A. Hoffman is extremely beautiful and has an excellent performance in the role of Elizabeth, showing a great chemistry with Corey Sevier. Unfortunately, the annoying and silly characters of J.J. and Kim irritated me most of the time with their ridiculous lines and plays. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Metamorphosis"