Beverly Hills Vamp

Director Fred Olen Ray is from the same school of film-making as Jim Wynorski (and Russ Meyer before that), where it doesn't matter how terrible the script is just as long as there are plenty of big-breasted, scantily clad women. Beverly Hills Vamp features the likes of B-movie babes Michelle Bauer and Debra Lamb as sexy vampires, but the ladies aren't the focus of the film, Ray placing the spotlight on über-nerd actor Eddie Deezen instead.

Deezen plays geeky scriptwriter Kyle, who travels to Hollywood with pals Russell (Tom Shell) and Brock (Tim Conway Jr.) to try and make a movie; while in 'Tinseltown', the trio attempt to get laid at a brothel where the hookers are actually vampires. Russell and Brock get bitten, leaving Kyle to try and save his pals before they join the ranks of the undead for good.

The awful script pads out the run-time with pointless exchanges of dialogue and plenty of obvious innuendo, Deezen's ultra-nerdy performance proving extremely irritating throughout. Even appearances from the likes of Robert Quarry and Britt Ekland cannot help save the film from utter awfulness - on the contrary, both are terrible, in keeping with the general standard of the whole production.

This movie tries to be as bad as "Dinosaur Island" but only sucks as bad as "The Phantom Empire" The excuse for a plotline plods along, the acting is reminiscent of the 2 by 4 in the wall to my left, and the camera work isn't working at all, my etch-a-sketch showed more talent and innovation even when I left it untouched. The script tries to have a constant stream of jokes, but none of them hits the mark, not even the one they stole from "Leisure Suit Larry". The only good thing about this film is all the nekkid chicks, but we only see them for about 10 minutes altogether out of an hour and a half running time. The rest of the time is spent watching 3 total nerds do nerdish things. The 'plot' follows the 3 nerds that go to Hollywood to try and get their movie made, get shot down immediately and then decide to buy some hookers. The hookers turn out to be vampires and they spend the last hour running about trying to kill the nerds, who are of course trying to escape.

If you like the "So bad it's good" style of film making, then this film isn't for you. If you like genuinely good films, then this film isn't for you, either. Now if you into wasting your time with mind numbing drivel, then this is the perfect film for you.

"Beverly Hills Vamp" is a movie made by Fred Olen Ray after the "success" of his cult flick "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers".

"Vamp" is basically just a retread with vampire hookers instead of chainsaw ones.

The hero is not a private eye in this one. He's a nerd with an irritating high pitched voice. What was the point of having him talk like that? As if we don't get right away that he's supposed to be a nerd.

Ray stalwart Michelle Bauer is in it.

The movie is nowhere near as fun as "Chainsaw Hookers". There is too much dialogue, none of which is entertaining or well written. In one scene, the nerd is in a hotel room and the maid shows up for service. He won't leave so that she can clean the room. She agrees to go away and come back. She does. He's still there. You can clean the room now, the nerd says. I'm on my break, says the maid. End of scene.

I'm not sure if the last part of that was supposed to be funny, or if I just expected some kind of a punchline to justify the inclusion of the maid in the story. That scene adds absolutely nothing to the movie.

Whereas no one is going to nominate him for an Oscar any time soon, Fred Olen Ray is nevertheless overrated in b-movie circles. Fans of cult cinema know his name, despite most of his movies being boring garbage. This one is no exception.

My review was written in October 1989 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.

A pleasant addition to the overworked vampire comedy genre, "Beverly Hills Vamp" is of special interest to industryites by virtue of its non-stop stream of in-jokes parodying the world of low-budget filmmaking.

Helmer Fred Olen Ray, who has bootstrapped his way to prominence in the field of quickie production, pokes fun at himself as well in a film free of the bitterness usually associated with backstage efforts.

Eddie Deezen toplines in his familiar nerd role as a guy who survives an evening with vampire call girls that, however, takes the lives of his two chums, Tim Conway Juniot and Tom Shell. Viewer is taken on a Cook's tour of Hollywood, notably the milieu of producer Aaron Pendleton, who specializes in exploitation movies. Deezen's girlfriend, Brigitte Burdine, shows up to help him combat Britt Ekland, the vampire who runs a BevHills brothel.

With Michelle Bauer, Debra Lamb and Jillian Kesner providing the pulchritude, easy-to-take pic has some clever moments for the fans, including Robert Quarry making fun of his revered "Count Yorga" character. Vampire lore is handled inconsistently, but there are good special effects by Bret Mixon when the creatures disintegrate.

Pretty typical of Fred Olen Ray and all the crap that was produced by small studios in the late 80's for the home video market. In fact it looks like it was shot on video. Either that or 8mm film and converted poorly to video.

There is no plot. The writing is absolutely horrible but that doesn't matter because none of the actors can act. In fact most of the girls were Playmates pulled in at low cost to help the movie sell purely on the babe factor. If you had Cinemax in the 90's you've seen tons of these movies. This one is especially bad. It lacks the ridiculous amount of hot girls the other films manage to collect, it lacks the cheesiness factor of a good Joe Bob Briggs presentation, and theres a lot of long drawn out shots scattered about to pad the run time. Even for fans of the genre there really isn't anything here. I recommend avoiding it unless you absolutely have to see another cheap movie with lesser-known nude models.