Way of the Vampire

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?

Dr. Van Helsing, vampire hunter, is granted immortality by a religious sect that will only let him die after he kills the last vampire. That's the plot of the film right there. I didn't put it in a nutshell for you, dear reader. THAT'S the whole plot. Now what did I think of the film? Well, between the horrid editing, the putrid acting, the 'anti-action', the sound problems, and the WIDE open ending, this is strictly amateur hour. Vampire flicks have made for some simply dreadful films in the past and this, my friends, is one of them. It's a travesty of the current state of B-movie straight to video horror that I don't even consider this one of the worst vampire flick out there.

My Grade: D-

Where I saw it: Starz on Demand (available till September 15th, 2005)

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.

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.