Way of the Vampire

(I don't think this contains spoilers, but if it does,it wan't intentional, and I'm sorry.)

I just rented this movie. Thinking that, ya know..Vampire movie..Bram Stoker..BRING IT! After "Bram Stokers' Dracula" in 1992, I figured "Bram Stokers' Way Of The Vampire" should measure up to the same high standards right? RIGHT?? Uh..no! We started watching it, had to jack the sound WAYYYY up to even HEAR it, and then my roommate tells me that we've rented it before!! HUH? This is a VAMPIRE movie! Something I LIVE for! And I don't remember it? Can I just say..you know it's bad when...! Unfortunately, like most movies you don't initially like, it DIDN'T get better the second time around! The sound was terrible. The acting was either non existent or over blown. (with maybe one or two exceptions) The vampiric dialog? All I could think was who wrote this UTTER rot?! The rest of the dialog was ranging from maybe OK, to weak, to downright SAD!

I checked out the actors on the database, (this one, as I've found no other better as of yet) like I do for almost all movies I watch, and found that this movie was either a jumping point for brand new actors, a fill in for trying-but-not-quite-making-it actors, or a last ditch effort for dieing actors from a third rate soap opera! The nudity was OK I guess. There was T&A to be seen. And it was nice, as far as nudity goes. But like EVERY movie not a hard core porn, for some reason it's OK for a woman to go Full Monty, but a man? *gasp* SHOCKING! And simply NOT DONE! And it's not even that I WANT to see some guys dangly bits! That's not the point! (seen one you've seen em all) MY beef is that they won't SHOW them. That it's OK to bare a girl but not a boy.

Perhaps I've wandered off the path. Slightly. A bit? OK maybe a LOT! *snickers* I had a point I'm sure! Now where did I put it...*checks pockets* Ah yes..On the whole? This movie was very disappointing. A rather black mark on vampire movies as a whole, and NO credit to Bram Stoker what-so-ever. If it had been slightly worse, it wouldn't have been worth the film it was printed on. I know I've seen worse, but Way Of The Vampire was high up there in the "WHY did I rent this" stakes. In short? And pun intended... It sucked!

I admire the reviewers of this abominable film who actually watched it all the way through.

Thirty minutes was too much for me. It is, without any shadow of a doubt, the most puerile and baseless horror movie of all time. It makes 'Killer Tomatoes' look like Oscar material. The acting is unbelievably bad, the editing pathetic and the storyline must have been written by a seven-year-old. One can only wonder at how movies like this get made. A total waste of money, effort and intellectual rigour by everyone involved.

In short, this film has no redeeming features whatsoever.

Although I'm not sure how. I think the copy I got from the store was burned incorrectly since the sound was all screwed up. Not that it mattered, since the dialog was pretty bad and generally the delivery of those lines was worse. The vampires, when they could be heard, had horrible lisps. You'd think that after an eternity as a creature of the night they'd learn how to speak properly through those big teeth of theirs. Not that this movie didn't have its accidentally funny moments. At one point Van Helsing reassures his lady love that nothing can happen to him since he is surrounded by giants and then the shot cuts right to what looks to be the sorriest looking bunch of "giants" ever to grace the screen. They all look either hung over, half asleep, or just plain annoyed that they have to go around slaying the children of the night in a potato sack. It does have nudity however! But not enough to make up for the fact that the vampires all look like two dollar hookers, the sound sucks, and the overall look is just plain cheap. Did I mention that the sound sucks?

There's not much I can add to all the other reviewers' comments, which were--if anything--too kind. This is the movie Ed Wood would have made if he had a competent cameraman, because the cinematography is actually very good, which is the only--let me emphasize, absolutely the ONLY--good thing about the movie. Otherwise, this is one of the few films I've ever seen where you can't point to at least one aspect of it and say, "Well, at least that wasn't too bad"--because EVERYTHING about this film is bad. Not just bad, but atrociously, horrendously, brain-destroyingly bad. Acting, writing, "action" scenes, etc., have to strain mightily to reach the level of the Christmas play in which you played a candy cane back in third grade--and they don't succeed. Much has already been written about the shoddy-beyond-belief sound, and there's nothing I can add to that except to say that the producers' unwillingness to hire a competent sound man, which resulted in much of the dialog being unintelligible, is one of the few things they did right.

All in all, a virtually worthless movie. Although there's a fair amount of female nudity, it's really not worth sitting through this stinker to check it out (jeez, I can't believe I just discouraged guys from ogling naked chicks; if that doesn't give you an idea of how much this flick sucks, then nothing will). If tenth-rate swill churned out by incompetent, talentless slugs is your cup of tea, even you won't like this movie. Avoid it at all costs.

The general premise is decent enough - Van Helsing from the Dracula novels made a deal with God for immortality until all the major vampire lords are destroyed.

And presumably, he kills off most of them. The rest sort of go into hibernation, living off of animals and such, not humans. Until the present day. When one of them decides it's sick of hiding and start preying on human's again.

The trouble is, most the movie is actually pretty dull. Most of it deals with either Van Helsing or the Vampires getting ready for the final showdown. And when it finally happens, it's not exactly the final scene of Enter the Dragon.

It's somewhat cheesy in places, but I've seen worse. Much worse. There is some nudity and gore but very little on both accounts.

The supporting actors are pretty bad, but I thought the guy who played Van Helsing did a pretty good job. He looks a bit too much like Methos from Highlander, though. And I enjoyed the vampire's 2nd in command. While she overacted a bit, she was very attractive and has good screen presence.

The sound on the DVD I rented was screwed up. The dialog was much, much softer than the sound effects, music. And apparently no subtitles.

I probably wouldn't say you should buy it, or even rent it, but if it's ever on cable, it's probably not worth changing the channel to avoid. I would give it a 4 out of 10.