The Jitters

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on Prism video cassette.

This mixed-up attempt at a live-action comic strip heads to video stores with no warning on how fans are to react to an overly goofy fantasy effort.

With Japanese funding, American production and Toronto Chinatown setting, John Fasano's film is a mishmash to start with. He doesn't help things out by overlaying a noisy musical score and sound effects track that either drowns out or distract from the dialog exchanges.

Wacky premise concerns the Chinese undead known as Gyonsii, a group of vampire-like beings trapped in limbo on Earth (between heaven and hell). Heroine Marilyn Yokuda's toy store-owner dad (Handy Atmadja) joins the zombie ranks when he's murdered by sneak thieves, the leader wearing a Batman t-shirt (in timely fashion).

Yokuda and her Caucasian boyfriend Sal Viviano team up with a pair of young magicians to sort out the undead and avenge daddy's death. Gimmick of the vampires hopping along lets the viewer know quickly it's all tongue in cheek. A silly scene of a zombie suddenly turning into a reptilian monster is inserted as an excuse for the makeup effects crew to trot out pulsating bladders and dribbling goo.

Performances are hard to judge thanks to the soundtrack overlay. Best thing in the pic is a fancy cartoon opening credits sequence; end credits are unreeled slowly to pad the abbreviated running time.

John Fasano,the man behind "Rock'n'Roll Nightmare" and "Black Roses" directed also this silly trash.This film is bad,but I found it to be genuinely enjoyable.The acting is horrible-James Hong's("The Vineyard") performance is actually the best!Of course jumping Chinese vampires are laughable-"The Jitters" is the kind of a movie that certainly will leave you amused.Pure fun,if you like trash cinema!

The 'hopping vampire' genre is uniquely Chinese, so this Canadian/Japanese co-production feels altogether wrong. Set in Chinatown (New York?), the film sees a vicious street gang causing trouble for Frank Lee, the elderly owner of a really crap looking gift store. Somehow, the old man has amassed a small fortune and the gang wants to get their hands on it.

When Frank is killed by the thugs, his daughter Alice (Marilyn Tokuda) vows to keep the shop open with the help of her boyfriend Michael (Sal Viviano); however, matters take an unexpected turn when Frank returns from the dead as a 'Jiangshi' (hopping vampire)...

My god, I thought some of the Hong Kong hopping vampire films I had seen were bad, but this one really scrapes the barrel. The acting is atrocious and the action is pathetic. At least the genuine articles have a degree of charm about them - this one is bad in almost every way, the one redeeming feature being a special make up effects sequence that deserves to be in a better movie. The plot is extremely slim and the whole thing is wrapped up with a terrible showdown in an alleyway that is so dark that it's hard to see what is happening (not that I could really give a damn - I was just happy that the end of the film was in sight!).

The Jitters (1989) is a truly awful movie, there are no redeeming features whatsoever, some films are so bad they are good, or at least funny, but this film is just BAD!!!! I love horror movies, low budget is fine by me, but come on they have to be entertaining and ooze class, this film sucks in every respect, boring, with dull characters, awful acting, no suspense, no laughs, no nothing, it's as simple as that!!! A film about jumping/hopping Chinese vampires, you can freeze them by sticking paper to their foreheads, yes thats right, good huh!!!! I heard that the director of this actually made quite a fun horror movie called "Black Roses", well anything will be better than this rubbish but i don't think i want to see anymore of his work, it could be painful. 2/10 for the jitters and i'm being kind!!!!

Pretty bad movie, although it wasn't so bad that I hated it.

I've seen a few "Chinese vampire"/"hopping zombie" movies (both terms are used to translate the word kyonshi/gyonshi/jiangshi - spelling variations due to variant transliterations). Some are straight horror or horror/action. Many are horror/comedy. This one falls into the latter, although the comedy is pretty lame.

As an American (or Canadian)-made Chinese vampire movie, you'd expect it to introduce these creatures to an unfamiliar audience. It does, to some extent, but you wish it had been a better movie. Possibly the directors and producers thought this could be a big hit after Gremlins (1984) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) (incidentally James Hong is in both the latter and The Jitters). I don't know how much distribution film prints might have gotten, but the video is fairly scarce now.

The opening titles are done over drawings of Chinatown, with the credits drawn in. An animated Chinese vampire hops through some of the streets in the drawings. That was neat.

A woman in Chinatown helps her uncle with his shop. She has a white fiancé. The Uncle has some trouble with a mostly white gang. He fights them off, but they return and kill him. They don't leave with much money, and are sent back by their leader to find the stash he supposedly had. Enter the zombie! The Uncle is now a Chinese vampire, hopping into the store wearing some traditional Chinese clothing, and he now has fangs, a strange growl, and pointy ears. A Buddhist monk shows up and pastes a prayer or some strip of paper with Chinese writing on it onto its forehead, which stops it.

The woman and her boyfriend learn about a place in Chinatown where Buddhists collect these Chinese vampires, apparently to help them eventually be able to pass away properly. The gang continues to make trouble.

One of the gang members who dies from a vampire bite comes back later as a vampire himself, and he turns into an even more dangerous monster when exposed to mirrors. I'm reminded of Gremlins again.

Better to stick with Chinese vampire movies that come from China and Hong Kong.