Review – House of Darkness

Justin Long seems to have a particular talent for taking uncomfortably awkward social situations and making them infinitely worse, a gift that gets free rein in this relentless tale of a date gone horrifically wrong. Except for a pause in the middle and a brief moment of actual action at the end, the whole production is like reading texts from a douchebro trying to get laid. So In the Company of Men with vampires, a combination nobody asked for. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Scars of Dracula

The IMDb page for this movie is more entertaining than the movie itself. It quotes Christopher Lee as having remarked, "I was a pantomime villain. Everything was over the top, especially the giant bat whose electrically motored wings flapped with slow deliberation as if it were doing morning exercises." And if that isn’t a sufficiently succinct indication of the experience that awaits viewers, the first five descriptors on the IMDb list are “female rear nudity, big breasts, buttocks, climbing up a wall, and cleavage.” See if desperate

Review – Nosferatu (2024)

Director Robert Eggers continues his career as the bizarro world Wes Anderson. His fanatical filtering (goth grey rather than plastic-lens pastels) and obsessive centering of nearly every shot dominate the appearance of this movie so much that they distract from the story and characters, not that the latter represented much competition. Every new entry in the Murnau sub-reddit gets duller and more pointless. If there’s another one – please let there not be another one – it probably won’t even have a vampire. Not that an otherwise-talented actor stomping around in a getup that makes him look like a Russian from a McCarthy-era propaganda cartoon is much of an excuse for a bloodsucking demon. See if desperate

Review – Abigail

The child vampire story gets a “Ransom of Red Chief” twist as a team of mercenary kidnappers fall victim to their own victim. Acting and production values are good, and the script strikes a nice balance between too light and not light enough. Despite some third act problems, the movie overall works well. Worth seeing

Review – Salem’s Lot (2024)

Why is this story so damn hard to turn into a movie? Tobe Hooper’s miniseries from 1979 was okay, but it could easily have been improved upon. Yet here’s another failure to do so. This production manages an occasional scare, but otherwise it’s as dull as the 2004 remake (though thankfully not as terrible as the 1987 sequel). Mildly amusing

Review – The Last Voyage of the Demeter

I’m a huge fan of the idea of taking a small moment from a well-known work and spinning it out into a story of its own. But my enthusiasm for the concept often leaves me underwhelmed by the execution, which was definitely the case here. The tale of the hapless crew of a sailing ship picked off one at a time by a thirsty vampire could have been good. But the plot meanders so much that eventually it stops making sense. For example, our heroes discover where Dracula sleeps during the day. But for no good reason – unless I missed something somewhere, which is definitely possible – they don’t kill him. Production values are good, but that isn’t enough to make up for the threadbare plot. Plus a loss of a point for animal cruelty, including the death of a child’s pet dog. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Renfield

Back in the 1970s, there was a version of Transactional Analysis for just about everyone. Though I don’t remember TA for Vampires, I guess it’s better late than never. The title character (Nicholas Hoult) struggles to come to grips with his codependent relationship with his master (typically hammy Nicolas Cage). The result wavers between clever and annoying. I found it particularly interesting that the story seemed comic-book-inspired even though it wasn’t. Perhaps that’s just how Hollywood works now. Mildly amusing

Review – Morbius

Sony continues to cling to whatever parts of the Spider-Man franchise it still owns. Seeking to cure his life-long blood disorder, Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) instead manages to transform himself into a vampire. Plot’s okay. Effects are okay. A little hard on the animals, though. See if desperate

Review – A Return to Salem’s Lot

Larry Cohen conducts a master class in how not to make a movie. Start by attempting to make a sequel to a production people like, virtually guaranteeing that your work will be found wanting in comparison. Then write a script that makes no sense, moving awkwardly from scene to scene without logic or purpose. Cast Michael Moriarty in the lead so he can demonstrate his aplomb for flat, indifferent delivery of bad dialogue. Then heap an extra measure of disappointment on the audience by putting the vampire from the original in the movie’s poster despite the fact that he appears nowhere in this production (a bit of shameful chicanery continued by HBO for promotional materials on its streaming service). Dull. Not scary. Not even bad enough to be funny. Aside from giving 12-year-old Tara Reid her big screen debut, this movie serves no function at all. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Blood Vessel

There’s the tiniest germ of a good concept here: among the art treasures looted by the Nazis was a pair of ornate coffins containing vampires. Sadly, all the potential that had to weave into an entertaining story is squandered by the decision to stash them in the cargo hold of a deserted ship that happens to end up boarded by the occupants of a life raft. Predictably enough, this hodgepodge of Allied soldiers and sailors spend more time bickering with each other than they devote to doing anything practical to save their own lives. Even the title is a dumb pun. See if desperate

Review – Dracula Untold

The producers poured a medium-sized budget into this mix of the historical Vlad Tepes and the vampire Dracula (predictably heavy on the vampire side). The action sequences are fun, but the plot is strange and confusing, especially when it doesn’t follow its own limited logic. Mildly amusing

Review – Fright Night 2 (2013)

The plot here is a mash-up of elements from the original Fright Night and its original sequel somehow distilled down to the worst parts of each. It’s humorless at best and at worst downright annoying. I understand from long experience with the sub-genre that viewers simply have to tolerate at least some wrangling over the “vampire rules.” But the end of this picture takes the crap well beyond the usual level. By the time we’re done with “the main vampire can become a super vampire but only if she bites but doesn’t kill a virgin born on the first night of a full blood moon and then the virgin has to kill her own true love in a pool of blood” nonsense, we’ve attained “vampire infield fly rule” status. Sadly, this spirit of ridiculousness pervades the entire production. See if desperate

Review – Priest

I liked this marginally better than I thought I would. But given that it was about a bleak future in which anti-vampire commandos battle to save the world from bloodsuckers, I figured I’d hate it. Indeed, I watched it solely because Brad Dourif was in it, an appearance that turned out to last no more than a couple of minutes. The vampires themselves were disgusting, vicious, blind monsters, which made them substantially more frightening than the usual crowd of moody goths. Otherwise, however, this was another plate of dull leftovers. See if desperate

Review – Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Clearly they don’t make these things for me, and other than special occasions (such as being in a hotel room with limited channel options) I tend not to watch them. I should also admit that I’ve skipped one or more chapters, so if something crucial to this one was revealed in one of the other sequels, I missed it. That said, the only above-and-beyond objection I had to this round is that Stephenie Meyer seems too willing to paint herself into plot corners and then escape by inventing some new vampire and/or werewolf rule that allows her to wiggle out. Otherwise this is a reasonable example of what it is. See if desperate

Review – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

This was better than I thought it would be, which to be honest isn’t particularly high praise. When the title character performs the title task, this is a fun horror/action picture. I could do without the axe-twirling nonsense – seriously dude, are you a vampire killer or a cheerleader? – but otherwise the fight scenes were well assembled and the monsters were sufficiently creepy. However, trouble arises when the script tries to mesh fantasy and history. I was particularly put off by the notion that Lincoln started the Civil War because vampires were pro-slavery. Not that I’m against wholesale slaughter of Confederate vampires, two birds with one stone there. But it slows the plot’s pace down to a crawl until the bloodsucker slaying starts up again. Mildly amusing

Review – Taste the Blood of Dracula

Who knew the whole mid-life crisis thing went all the way back to the Victorian era? Sadly for these three gentlemen of a certain age, their thrill-seeking takes the form of a Satanic ritual that revives Dracula (Christopher Lee). Which of course ends badly for them. Mildly amusing

Review – Underworld: Awakening

What best betokens this experience: the “not screened in advance for critics” note on IMDb or the fact that more than ten percent of the movie’s 88-minute running time was taken up by the end credits? The latter tends to suggest that complicated CGI was a lot more important to the video-game-cut-scene scheme than plot or character development. The former implies that the studio knew it had a piece of crap on its hands and wanted to avoid as much negative press as possible. I’m genuinely surprised that with all the gooning over Twilight and similar productions that this vampires-vs.-werewolves series is bucking the romance trend and going with almost solid mindless action. See if desperate

Review – Daybreakers

I’ve griped in the past about vampires and rule obsession, but this picture really goes overboard with it. Vampires have taken over the world, and they’ve consumed almost all the humans. Bereft of fresh blood, the masses are beginning to degenerate to monster form. Vampire scientists race to find a blood substitute and/or a cure for the whole vampire thing, and small pockets of human resistance try to survive. They spent a fair amount of money on the production, which made it a little better than it might otherwise have been. Mildly amusing

Review – Fright Night (2011)

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop comparing this to the original version. To be fair, the remake does a better job in some areas. Special effects are more sophisticated now than they were in 1985, and they’re better at not overusing them. Imogen Poots is a bit better as the love interest than awkward-as-a-heterosexual Amanda Bierce. And on several points the two productions break even. But casting Colin Farrel as the bad guy was a colossal error. Chris Sarandon was suave and creepy as Jerry Dandrige, while Farrel is just a soccer hooligan with equal appetites for blood and beer. The “blue collar” approach fit better with the basement-full-of-victims approach, but then that was the problem. Mildly amusing

Review – Subspecies

I dunno. Some crap about a vampire fighting with his can-pass-for-human brother over some kind of a rock full of blood (disproving the old adage, I suppose). Script that kills time. Actresses willing to take their shirts off for the camera. What else could a 12-year-old boy want? Wish I'd skipped it