The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II

The first Graveyard Shift film was a bit more erotic than this one. And this one is tame. The same actor who played a vampire, gets to play one again, but he's a different character. He is like Dracula in a sense, but as a modern day version of him. He gets be an actor of a vampire movie being made. He kills the actor in the movie being made, and the people are unaware that the actor is a real vampire. He has set his sights on the leading lady. The actor he killed was difficult to work with. So when he replaced him, the others fall prey. When some of the actors and crew members become victims of the vampire, they would take action. The pool table scenes are amazing. That's where all bets are off.

Not as gruesome as the first, but just as horror as usual. It was also not as erotic as the first one.

This one went to the jugular.

2 out of 5 stars.

A pretentious, but at the same time interesting and innovative punk-Goth vampire story under a moonlight sky that's probably a little too sullen and clever for its own good. 'The Understudy' is a sequel to the 1987 vampire film 'The Graveyard Shift', which I have not seen but from what I've read is unrelated even though it has Silvio Oliviero returning as the lead vamp.

Camilla is an aspiring actress starring in a low-cost vampire movie, and she's captures the eyes of a drifter vampire Baisez who's being secretly hanging around the sets. He eventually casts a spell over Camilla, which sees her fall for him with a bite. After the disappearance of the leading man playing the vampire, Baisez with some help auditions for the part and everyone is in awe of his convincing performance, except for Camilla's soon to be husband Matthew.

The idea behind the concept involving a movie within a movie set-up inviting the feeling that life is intimating art in a self-knowing and manipulative manner became a little baffling and loose, despite the straight-forward narrative structure. At times it gets hard to tell what reality is, or what's for simply the camera… cut! These novelties couldn't hide the fact it's a melancholy love story, as the vampire is the desirable temptation and obsessive fixation that drives the Camilla character. The offbeat script is reasonably talky and very ambiguous on Baisez's intentions and past. It heavily relies on Silvio Oliviero's brooding appearance and erotic allurement. It's a serious turn of conviction. Across from him is the beautifully confident and very engaging Wendy Gazelle as Camilla. Mark Soper is solid. Lesley Kelly, Timothy Kelleher and Carl Alacchi are also sound additions.

Director / writer Gerard Ciccoritti's competent steering keeps to the low-budget's strengths, highlighting moody and smoky atmospherics. It's considerably slow-moving, keeping the lurid camera-work within muggy confined sets with bleary lighting and limited FX work to distract. Philip Stern's bluesy music score is sensually sombre, but alluring in its transition to the on-screen action.

A haunting, if overdone low-budget vampire feature.

In my previous IMDb review, for To Die For (1988), I declared my hatred for romantic vampire films. So what do I watch next? Only another goddamn romantic vampire film: The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II, which features another love-struck bloodsucker.

Despite also being directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, and once again starring Silvio Oliviero as a vampire, Graveyard Shift II is a sequel in name only, but it is every bit as pretentious and dull as the first film, if not more so, with horrible characters spouting turgid, often incomprehensible dialogue ("I'm your desire... that makes me real for you", "A star doesn't need flesh, because a star is just a light in the sky").

The film takes place during the shooting of a horror movie about a pool shark vampire, and sees actress Camilla (Wendy Gazelle) falling under the spell of Baisez (Oliviero), the mysterious man who takes over the role of the hustling bloodsucker. What follows is virtually unwatchable nonsense, characters talking utter gibberish and occasionally engaging in artfully lit bouts of soft-core sex (accompanied by nasty wailing saxophone music), with very little in the way of horror. It's self-indulgent dreck from a director with delusions of grandeur (Ciccoritti would soon find his place directing for TV).

A horror film can be many things, scary, visceral, spooky, threatening, disturbing, silly, stupid, over the edge or over the top, just plain brilliant or just bad. But one thing it should never, ever, be is....dull.

And this film is dull, deadly dull, duller than Dullsville, USA. Not sure if it is supposed to actually be a horror film or is as alleged, an erotic tale in a horror film setting. Whatever, with it's laboured sex scenes, awful saxophone based soundtrack, you'd need a shed load of Viagra to get even the slightest aroused.

With the worst of the eighties, BIG hair, supposed sensual smoking and a vampire who looks more like Starsky from the TV series and who plays pool, in one of those 'film within a film,' beloved of film critics.

Sometimes, having the writer director in the same role, makes for a single vision and a strong defined film. Other times, you just get like this, self indulgent drivel.

I was losing the will to live about half an hour into this. There seems to be an ending or sorts, as the vampire has passed his blood sucking and pool playing skills on to his heir, but frankly, it just isn't worth bothering with. Rent or buy any other vampire film but this one!

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

This sequel to the 1987 vampire pic dwells on the behind-the-scenes aspects of horror filmmaking. Direct-to-video release should scare up some genre fan interest.

Silvio Oliviero encores as the real-life vampire who appears on a movie set and replaces the missing leading man (who's actually been killed by one of Oliviero's minions). He causes no end of trouble until the director (Mark Soper) finally figures out he's the real thing. Rather silly plot twist lets Sop4er and Oliviero shooting a game ol 9-ball to determine the heroine's fate.

Canadian helmer Gerard Ciccoritti generally eschews humor here, going for a fragmented structure as well as a dark and dour mood. Cast is effective, especially sexy heroine Wendy Gazelle.