Vampire Hookers

This film is almost never funny intentionally. All the laughs come from the rushed dialogue, the odd pauses and fast responses, the awkward cuts and the I don't really give a crap about this shot attitude present in 80% of the movie. Is the acting bad? The worst. Is the Story bad? It's Vampire Hookers, the story is the title, if you don't want a laugh at that idea don't watch this movie. Fart Jokes Included.

Take one word from group A (Ninja, Robo, Samurai, Vigilante, Zombie, Vampire, Alien, Cyborg, Barbarian) and one from group B (Cop, Princess, Assassins, Hookers, Warriors, Strikeforce, Muthaf***kers) and you'll have yourself a movie title that sounds awesome. Get Ciro H. Santiago to direct it, and it'll be crap.

Vampire Hookers, for example, has the potential to be a hugely entertaining piece of bloody, sexy schlock horror; in the hands of Santiago, though, the idea becomes a dreadfully unfunny camp comedy/horror full of juvenile humour (bumbling 'Abbot & Costello' type sailors; a flatulent vampire; lady-boy gags), embarrassing performances (poor old John Carradine as a poetry spouting vamp), and cheap props (styrofoam 'stone' blocks), but zero gore.

About the only thing Cirio does right is to cast three absolute stunners as his titular ladies of the night and get them naked a lot—although, somehow, he even manages to botch a scene in which the lusty bloodsucking babes tag-team a lucky sailor: torturously long and amazingly unerotic, it's hard to believe that anyone can make a three-on-one sex session seem so boring!

Vampire Hookers has two comedy American sailors go ashore in San Francisco, not California but The Philippines, looking for a good time (women and booze). They cross paths with a vampire called Richard Reed (played by horror legend John Carradine), his three sexy female vampire companions plus a funny character called Pavo (Vic Diaz). Pavo is not a vampire himself but he does sometimes wear false fangs, sleeps in a wooden box and farts a lot! Yes, this is a horror comedy, sexploitation, Grindhouse flick. I have been watching horror movies for over 40 years but until a couple of days ago I had never heard of this little movie. In addition to farting gags there are corny one liners throughout, "It's not my eardrums I want blowing", sailor - "That is not death, it's murder", vampire - "It's not murder, it's dinner!", and so on, and so on. I believe that horror/comedy is quite a hard genre to get right but credit to the makers, they did a fairly good job here. The film is very rich in colour and the vampire scenes reminded me of Euro Gothic horror, nicely shot. One sailor gets to make love to the three vampires, all at the same time. There is topless nudity and oral sex is implied, the scene goes on for a while but it is very soft in nature. Throw in a very catchy end credits song I found Vampire Hookers to be fun and utterly trashy in equal amounts, certainly not a classic but worth watching for a few good laughs, plus of course for the late Mr Carradine.

Vampire Hookers is certainly a bad movie but that is part of its charm. If you are a fan of 70's T&A films, this one will should appeal to you. I first saw it at an old downtown theater that ran mostly B horror movies and soft core porn. That was many years ago so I guess something about this film impressed me as I have never quite forgotten it although some of the people in the cast would probably like to.

My main question is, what is John Carradine doing in this? I know he was at the end of a fine career (hey, the guy was in Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath for crying out loud) but Vampire Hookers?!? I can only guess that he either A. needed the money, B. wanted to help out a producer or director friend, or C. lost a bet in a poker game with this film's producer.

I haven't figured out yet whether "Vampire Hookers" is the most retarded movie of all times, but I can most certainly confirm already that it earned a spot in the top ten for sure. Basically this means that I cannot possibly reward it with a rating higher than 2 out of 10, but – and this is contrary to all genuine bad movies with a similar rating – I don't want the rating to discourage anyone from watching it! Quite the opposite, in fact, "Vampire Hookers" comes with my warmest recommendation in case you're an avid fan of cheap and sleazy 70s exploitation cinema. Why? Simply because it's pure brainless and unscrupulous entertainment with a non- existent plot, lunatic characters, infantile toilet humor and gratuitous sex; that's why! Cirio H. Santiago was the contemporary king of Filipino exploitation rubbish and here he even managed to cast John Carradine in a top-billing role. However, like in most of the films released during the last decade of his career, he only just stands around with a disinterested look on his face and whines his lines almost inaudibly. He depicts a sort of fancy white-suited vampire patriarch living underneath a graveyard in a Filipina coastal town, together with his three beautiful, luscious and voluptuous…err…brides! They have local slaves, aspiring vampires actually, that lure horny men to the graveyard so that they can feast on their bodies and blood. When their supervisor doesn't return after a wild night of fun, two worried Navy Sailors start their own investigation. The screenplay of this lousy but charming flick is full of bad jokes, but you'll laugh out loud anyway because the comical situations are so cheesy, inappropriate and misfit. The type of humor featuring in "Vampire Hookers" is probably best illustrated through the character of the exploitation regular Vic Diaz. He plays a fat and filthy henchman who farts continuously, and when he discovers he finally receives vampire fangs, he gets so ecstatic and jumpy that the walls of the entire underground lair come tumbling down. Also, and this is truly remarkable, Cirio H. Santiago proves with "Vampire Hookers" that even 10-minute sex orgies featuring three beautiful women can be overlong and boring; especially when they keep their panties on!