Dance of the Damned

A suicidal stripper is token hostage by a lonely vampire who tells her he is gonna kill her at sunrise, but first he makes her teach him about what people do during the daytime, but as it gets closer to sunrise their feelings for each other grow strong and the vampire and stripper form a close bond.

Intelligent, exceptionally well acted and made film by the true master of this genre in my opinion Katt Shea has largely, and unjustly been ignored for no appearant reason. The film features very good characterizations and covers many themes including love, death, guilt, and redemption. Terrific premise also. Seek this out.

Rated R; Nudity, Sexual Situations, Profanity, and Violence.

Jodi (Starr Andreeff), a stripper contemplating suicide, is held captive by a vampire (Cyril O'Reilly) who wants to know what it is like to sunbathe.

Yes, the vampire in Dance of the Damned gets to boff the stripper. I think. Well, it's implied. However, the film is mostly intercourse of the verbal kind, as the bloodsucker chin-wags with his next meal until daybreak.

Not so long ago, I watched To Sleep With A Vampire (1992) by director Adam Friedman, which is a remake of this film by Katt Shea. The two movies are almost identical in every way, with many scenes and much of the dialogue from the original used verbatim in the remake. The biggest differences between the two films are that the vampire in this one has a mullet that would shame Michael Bolton, and that Charlie Spradling, who plays the stripper in the remake, is a damn sight hotter than Andreef.

However, even though I much prefer Spradling to Andreef in terms of visual appeal, I do slightly prefer the original movie overall: Andreef is a better actress and Katt Shea is a better director than Friedman, plus this one has more style, even if it is late-80s style (lots of blue lighting and plenty of widdly guitar, sax solos, and synths). I also liked how, by the end of the film, the roles have reversed, with Jodi desperately wanting to live and the vampire developing a death wish; this might also have been the case with the remake, but that film was ultimately so forgettable I can't say for sure.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for the vampire's plasma ball and his bubbly water ornament. Man, that vampire has good taste in furnishings!

...about an 80's rock star-type looking male vampire who picks up a stripper after hours to ask her plenty of questions that a vampire would yearn to know the answer to and then to subsequently eat her before dawn. Questions like "what does the day feel like?", "what does the sun-light on your skin feel like?", "what does it feel like to have a friend?",... Questions that the stripper has a hard time answering to the vampire's satisfaction and she's rather reluctant to put much effort into her answers given that she knows that he wants to kill her in a few hours.

It's really just about those two characters, not much else. The vamp has got plenty of cool powers, wants to eat her but also wants her company and the experiences of her that he can't have. Also the woman contemplated suicide before meeting him so she repeatedly goes from wanting him to kill her and to trying to save her skin which makes for interesting inner conflicts and thrilling drama.

It very much has this early 90's B-movie kind of look and feel to it that I like so much. Man, this thing is so underground, I'm tellin' ya. Erotic goth sleaze with serious aspirations. Forget Anne Rice? No, but this is just as good. It was directed by a woman which, I think, is very noticeable, in a good way. The vamp is a romantic tough guy with cool contacts, he has super powers, taste in art and is rich because of some "long term investments" (makes sense, huh?). And yes, the woman is way more sickly looking than him, actually, but then he isn't the one who's the smoker (makes sense, yes?). Sounds groovy? It is. Unfortunately although the movie has something that feels like a proper ending I personally wasn't satisfied with it, I could have easily gone for another "chapter" to get some real closure on the story.

A rare little gem that transcends its genre to portray some interesting angles on suffering, the nature of good and evil and death. The fatalistic stripper who believes her life isn't worth living until death looms, the remorseful vampire who needs to feed but feels compassion for his victims are both convincingly played. For my money this film is worth fifty of the pretentious, self-important overblown vampire-chic films like 'Interview with the Vampire'. For a "horror" film this movie is quiet and even a little plodding at times but the understated performances, taut scripting and interesting story (with nice twists on the myths of vampirism) make a worthwhile viewing.

A needless remake "To Sleep with a Vampire" made by Roger Corman in 1992 doesn't nearly live up to this movie's quirky originality.

My review was written in March 1989 after watching the film on Virgin Vision video cassette.

This morbid but engrossing vampire drama is skedded for direct-to-video release this month, but gets brief big-screen exposure at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles.

Filmed back-to-back last year with same filmmaker's "Stripped to Kill 2", pic shares that sequel's strippers milieu. Starr Andreeff is a suicidal peeler, distraught at having a court order barring her from visiting her young son.

A handsome vampire, Cyril O'Reilly is in the Paradise Cafe and senses Andreeff's despair, propositioning her after hours to spend the night with him for a quick g-note; he even promises to kill her at dawn after their confab.

Despite that claustrophobic premise, reminiscent of the launching point of Anne Rice's novel "Interview with the Vampire", pic covers much ground, with an especially atmospheric late-night visit to the beach. Helmer Katt Shea Ruben bears down effectively on the various philosophical questions of the genre: emptiness of immortality, search for meaning in existence, etc.

Punching it across is an uninhibited performance by brunette Andreeff, whose unusual beauty and on-the-edge thesping command sympathy and interest. O'Reilly also is impressive, rising above obvious James Dean mannerisms to create his own persona as the brooding, shoulder-length-hair night creature.

Special effects are modest but fresh. Climax is predictable and undercut by an unintelligible final line of dialog.