The Last Sect

The Last Sect is about a group of female vampires that have been roaming the earth for some time, the last vampire sect in existence. Sydney is an artist that gets drawn into the sect by Anastasia, the head vampire, who sees in Sydney the future of the sect. Carradine plays the vampire hunter Van Helsing who tries to stop the sect before it can indoctrinate Sydney. The vampires have a website that transmits live feeds of the vamps biting a helpless male trussed up on a table. People pay to get extras and give their name, address, and blood type of course. Some lesbian soft porn and some soft bondage. Slow moving most of the way through, but some pretty good surrealistic scenes.

The plot is a bit shallow in comparasion to some big blockbuster vampire films, but the group of actors involved make the best of the dull characters they are playing. I found the film to be a bit surreal and random with very little lasting impressions but I couldn't actually turn it off so it had something which kept me interested. I wasn't expecting too much from this film even though the thought of lesbian vampires would be enough to keep most males intent on watching for something, but this wasn't it for me. The set-up of the film was a little grey combined with the weak story a lot of people with short attention span will switch off within 30 minutes and I can not give anyone a reason to watch this film to the end other than it kept me glued but not in a good way.

Give it 30 minutes of your time and make your own mind up.

Eleven minutes of this was eleven minutes too much. I wish I had a time machine, so I could go back in time and find the script for this movie. I would lock it in a lead box and throw it in the sea. The really deep part of the sea. Apparently I have to write ten lines for this to count as a review. This already means that I have now wasted fourteen minutes of my life on this excrement. If anyone reading this enjoys quality cheap Canadian horror, look no further than the classic Ginger Snaps - a cracking werewolf movie from the nineties. Now that is how you make a cheap, sexy horror film. The Last Sect? More like The Last Sh*t. No wonder David Carradine decided to kill himself. I feel like heading for the cupboard myself, and I only had to watch part of this muck.

Sometimes you know what you're getting into - and you know you're going to regret it - but something compels you to proceed nonetheless. So it was with 'The last sect.' It's not just that this is bad - it's not even perfunctorily entertaining.

It's difficult to tell whether director Jonathan Dueck or screenwriter David Robbeson is more responsible for the tawdry pablum on display here. Highly stylized, slightly animated text appears on screen to establish the setting for each scene, and other computer-rendered effects are just as unsightly. Dialogue is at turns annoyingly crass, mundanely banal, simply dull, and or excessive to the point of being superfluous. Scenes in general are mostly either pointlessly ham-fisted and over the top, or direly soporific in their dearth of eventfulness. Characters are presumably supposed to demonstrate poise or emotional conflict with their careful, calculated delivery and body language, but instead what comes across is that that the scenes are so bereft of substance that the cast were instructed to draw out their acting at any given moment so as to give the pretense, and fill time.

Star David Carradine is reduced to a mere shell of what presence or strength of character he has previously demonstrated elsewhere. This version of Van Helsing is an educated, experienced, yet somewhat addle-minded and tiresomely verbose old man who for almost the full movie is given nothing more to do than to speak loquaciously, providing lore and exposition. In fact, the entire first two-thirds of the film are characterized by almost nothing but dialogue, with meager, piecemeal plot progression in that time. Even as we do get small bursts of stimulation in the last interminable length, the feature remains devoted to listless dialogue above all.

To be clear - it's not just Carradine. The whole cast are forced into lacking, sluggish, drowsy performances that make one wonder if everyone took sedatives before the cameras started rolling on any given day. Julian Richings provides a more dynamic display of acting (and action) than Carradine as hunter ally Karpov, but still with the impossible constraints of utmost sloth. Most of the vampires are given nothing to do but look pretty and occasionally bare very plainly artificial fangs. Natalie Brown, as protagonist Sydney, is at least provided a character experiencing a complex range of emotions, and she does the best she can to inhabit that role - but then she's hamstrung as the camera inelegantly cuts elsewhere. Deborah Odell, as sect leader Anna, theoretically should be imposing and impressive - but again, the issue of being coerced into drawing out each scene to inflate the film's sense of drama.

I appreciate the work of those attending to wardrobe and costume design, hair, and makeup, and set decoration. I think the basic concept of the story has potential, and there are bare-bones sketches of a scant few good ideas. But the chemistry between Brown and Odell as scene partners, the import of Sydney's inner conflict, the climax, the slyly winking ending - 'The last sect' is so heavy-handed in the advancement of its lethargic tedium that scenes and interactions are stripped of their potential impact. I genuinely feel bad for everyone in front of the camera.

Incredibly, this isn't the worst movie I've ever seen. But it surely seems to me like the filmmakers were trying to make it so. I had low expectations, and they were squarely met, but I'm still disappointed because there was just enough possibility with this cast that even just a small measure of tweaking to the screenplay, and a bit more careful consideration overall, would have gone a long way toward making the feature worthwhile. As it is, what we get is just a laborious, drab slog. Even if you're a diehard fan of vampires, or someone in the cast, I can't imagine recommending 'The last sect' to anyone at all.

The journalist Sydney St. James (Natalie Brown) is writing an article for the magazine where she works about the on-line dating agency Artemis that is specialized in women. She schedules an interview with the owner of Artemis, Anna (Deborah Odell), and she visits the mysterious woman with her photographer Sam (Sebastien Roberts), who is fascinated by a site called Vampire Web. Sidney feels a great attraction for Anna, who is actually an ancient vampire called Anastasia. Meanwhile the vampire hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (David Carradine) is advised by his assistant Tone (Jordan Van Dyck) about the correlation between Artemis and the Vampire Web, and Van Helsing explains that in every turn of millennium, the vampire sect needs to regenerate, using a woman for this purpose. Van Helsing calls his partner Karpov (Julian Richings) and together they go to Artemis to fight against Anastasia and her sect.

I bought this DVD first because I love vampire movies; then the art of the cover of the DVD is extremely attractive; and last but not the least, the name of David Carradine in the credits is a plus. Yesterday night, my wife and I tried to watch this movie but we took many naps so boring it was, and in the end of about 45 minutes running time, we decided to stop "The Last Sect" and watch another one. Today in the end of the afternoon, I have decided to watch this movie again from the very beginning (my wife simply gave up), and I could prove that it is one of the worst vampire movies I have ever seen. The story has a terrible screenplay that develops the plot in a very low pace in three or four locations without the atmosphere of a vampire movie. David Carradine seems to be bored with his lines and the weird Jordan Van Dyck, whose character seems to be a gay living with Dr. Van Helsing but never his assistant. The story has no horror, no tension, no suspense, only some lesbian daydreams and Internet footages with the classic vampires. The lead actresses (Natalie Brown and Deborah Odell) are sexy and gorgeous, but even their sex scenes are boring. In the end, "The Last Sect" is recommended for insomniacs and more effective than sleeping pills. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Última Seita" ("The Last Sect")