Way of the Vampire

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.

There are a few good things about this movie, but the negatives are so overwhelming that I could only give it a 1 on the ole 1 to 10 scale. The cinematography is very pretty and the miniature set models are excellent. At least I think they're models. Everything about this movie is so bogus that they may actually be real locations which the directors (yes, it took two directors to cook this turkey) somehow managed to make look like models.

With two directors you'd think that it might only be half-bad. Instead it's doubly pretentious. The lovely Denise Boutte may well be the hammiest actor on planet Earth. Rhett Giles as Van Helsing looks like a reject from the Pet Shop Boys, and his acting is nearly as overblown and stuffy as Ms. Boutte's. Every line by just about every "actor" is recited in emo overdrive.

There were also at least two writers involved. The version I saw had three listed, unless I was hallucinating, but IMDb says two. The third one may have requested anonymity. Or hacked the webpage and erased his or her name. In any case, the dialog is so cheesy you'd think it was written by the teen Gothtards from Saturday Night Live.

If I see one more pseudo-Goth vampire movie with semi-clad model-pretty airheads melting into the arms of Ralph Lauren pretty men in ersatz under-populated nightclubs I'll puke up a kidney. Anne Rice has apparently spawned a sub-race of cretinous filmmakers.

This is the first film I've seen which challenges Uwe Boll's "House of the Dead" as the WORST horror film ever made.

People, that loud whirring and rattling you can hear is the sound of Bram Stoker turning in his grave.

*God* this film is bad. Shoddy camera work, shoddy script, godawful sound which meant that a lot of the time the actors were inaudible (thank god) and the music SOHIGHINTHEMIX it made your ears bleed, and a baddie so lacking in charisma not even tight PVC/rubber trousers could save the day. And the acting - OMG, the acting. The last time I saw acting as shockingly poor and embarrassing as this was Yvette and Derek still trying to pretend they were friends on "Most Haunted Live" this week. Yes, really - as bad as that. I swear to you, the acting in this film is so wooden it's on a par with a Gerry Anderson production - and the way the script was delivered would make even a half-way gifted actor weep. I'd say that words cannot truly describe how awful this film is - though I've had a damn good try - and what's so sad is that the video shop had loads of copies of it. That this mess got made and distributed is even more frightening than the thought of Ricky Tomlinson hang-gliding naked.

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?

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.