Vampire Blues

The previous detractors have it right.

There is almost no plot, and the video appears very cheap.

The low level of dialog renders the movie quite amateurish. The 'silk screened' video effect on the characters' bodies, or overall, was bizarre, but did not help much. The overly guttural growls and vampire slurping worsened the cheap effects.

If the same plot were 'fleshed out' with more drama, more dialog, and less flesh, I would probably appreciate it much more! The result is a a very dull film with almost no eroticism.

Please, Mr. Franco, put some meat in the plot!

Sleaze auteur Franco's reputation among genre critics is both mystifing and touching. People complaining about Hammer's latter day efforts - not to mention Coppola's Dracula, an artsy big budget Hammer Gothic with Bava - prefer films of THIS director? Head cratching stuff. On the other hand, he had never pretensions of Tarantino - who makes exploitation trash-n-sleaze with big budget - while giving me faith that some day I can publish my personal home video and call it a movie!

So, to Vampire Blues. It's a mix of vacation video and porno close ups, terrible effects and decidedly unglammed female cast. Everyone looks extremely unattractive - including the heroine.

Oh well, Countess von Murnau is great name for a vampire.

To Jess Franco I plead: please don't ever turn out a vile, unwatchable piece of trash like this ever again. This is your yellow card, one more screw up like this and it's game over.

Alright, the plot: Vampire chick seduces younger, hotter chick, witch-lady chick tries to prevent.

Even compared solely against the director's own material, this is bad. Almost the entire running time is composed of LLLOOOONNNGGGG slow-mo and optically distorted shots of the (unattractive) vampire chick doing a strip tease. The actress could have been any individual person's dream girl and it would still suck, an hour of that just isn't interesting.

Furhtering the matter is the non-existent script (you know they made up the limited dialogue on set), the bad acting (except for Romay, schlocky as ever), the cheap film stock, and the horrid editing.

Franco completest (like me) should still see it, ever one else should decry it's existence.

1/10

Daughters of Darkness meets Female Vampire. How in God's name could you mess up a film with heavy close-up nudity and much lesbianism? Here's how. Make your film look like the world's worst vacation video, add some horrible in-camera effects and loop the same crappy song 87 times through the film. Please Jess I'm begging stop using the camcorder and pick up a Panaflex. And while your at it write a script. Unintentional laughs abound.

In the long filmography of Jess Franco, this direct-to-video cheapo is obviously just a minor work. "Vampire Blues" tells about a tourist (Rachel Sheppard) who has daydreams about a vampire lady seducing her. The strong points of the movie are: first, Lina Romay as the fortune-teller; she has a strong presence. Second, newcomer Rachel Sheppard brings an innocent beauty into the flick, just the kind of victim a wicked vampire would look out for. Third, certain obsessive shots (the mysterious house up the hill, the palm trees) create a surreal atmosphere typical for Franco. On the other hand, the weak points are the video effects (which seemed fashionable in 1983 maybe), the vampire lady who looks like a retired porn actress, and the minimized story. Many viewers will dislike the slowness of the movie as well as its bizarre colors. I suppose "Vampire Blues" could have done well as an experimental 30 minute video, but there is not enough substance for a 90 minute movie.