Way of the Vampire

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.

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.

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)

Imagine a movie with terrible actors, ghastly bad special effects, an anorexic plot, and no budget.

This is worse.

Please don't get me wrong...I love vampire movies...but this is one major waste of money..both to make, and for ANYONE to pay to see.

As I watched the movie, I could see the director coaching the actors, "ok..now look scared...now...look horrified...now succumb...now go limp. It was painful to watch.

Have you ever put "fake fangs" in your mouth to finish your Dracula costume at Halloween? Do you remember how funny you sounded talking with the prosthetic teeth? OMG...the actors lisped their way thru their lines like kids who have just put in their first cheap vampire fangs. Do you think the director/producers/anyone notice this? I am guessing not.

The dialog was shallow and seemed penned by a teenager. (The producer's 8th grade child maybe?) The volume of the voice recording was out of balance with effects and background music. In order to hear and understand the dialog, you are required to elevate the volume so high that the "special effects sounds" become deafening.

The action was limited, and the combat second rate. The actors lacked the combat/martial arts skills you expect to see in a movie of any caliber. The vampires movements were inconsistent and downright silly...sometimes they moved like listless zombies, other times like speed freaks, and still other times they "slinked" with bended knees, swaying arms and drunken swaggers as if trying to pretend to be cats.

If this had been a movie with which I was in any way affiliated, I would never include it in my resume. Further, I think I would change my name if anyone ever discovered a connection! Rating: Less than 1/10 (if that is possible)

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.