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Picking the rare gems out of a sea of crap.... so you don't have to!

Vampire - Evil Pleasures

Movie Review: Daybreakers

March 5th 2010 02:46


Premise: An infection originally from bats spreads through humanity, turning the majority of humanity into vampires. These vampires then enslave most of the remaining human populace, using them as living blood farms. However, there is not nearly enough blood to go around, and without fresh blood the vampires devolve into mindless mutant bat-people, the wicked looking Subsiders.


Enter Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a human-sympathising vamire blood doctor working for the corporation that runs the blood farms, headed by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill). Dalton sympathises with the humans, and wants to create a blood substitute to eliminate vampire dependance on them as a food source, allowing them to be freed. I won't give away much more than that, but the plot revolves around Dalton's compassion for humanity and his fight for their survival.

Now, this is the Spierig brothers' follow-up to 2003's brilliant horror-comedy Undead (quite possibly the best Aussie movie I've seen), and needless to say my hopes were pretty damn high going in to this one. Unfortunately, this movie is not as funny or as original as Undead. That being said, however, this is most definitely not a bad movie.

Acting: Solid. Ethan Hawke does a good job as the conflicted vampire haemotologist,
and Sam Neill is a great Evil Boss character. The main rogue human (Claudia Karvan) and Edward's polar-opposite brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) both put in convicinging performances. However, my hat goes off (and it usually does) to Willem Defoe as Elvis, the comic-relief gung-ho cowboy human renegade with a crossbow and an attitude. He comes out with some truly quality lines (eg. When Edward asks him "is this place safe?" he replies "Living in a world where vampires are the dominant species is about as safe as bare backing a 5 dollar whore"). You can tell that the Spierigs had alot of fun with Elvis, and the audience does too. He's a pretty central character, and Defoe plays him perfectly (as he usually does).


Effects: Mind-numbingly excellent.
. The highlight in the effects department are the Subsiders, who look truly horrific (like a deformed mutant vampire should). As you can see from the picture, these vamps are pretty nasty, and I love the irony of a vampire plague affecting a plague of vampires. It's a (very, very) welcome break from the la-di-da fairy princess (Twighlight) vampires that seem to have been dominating the scene lately. Creature effects aside, the rest of the effects were top-knotch as well. The gore was plentiful (especially towards the climax), and very well done.

Direction & Script: Normally I would judge these separately, but considering the Spierigs both wrote and directed it, it seems only fair. This movie, while not being genre-defining, is just good. Yes, I do have a few qualms with it; some of the dialogue was a bit thin, and I felt the whole sub-plot involving Sam Neill's daughter, while important, felt a bit rushed. But these are minor criticisms with what is overall a very impressive offering. Not since Eskalofrio can I remember a movie which so effectively used the interplay between light and darkness to effectively shape the mood, and the movie is all the better for it. From what I have read, alot of people think they have spotted a whole mess of plot holes; actually, if you look a little closer these people are, in fact, idiots. This movie has very few problems in terms of the script. For example; in one scene, we see Hawke's clothes in a mirror, as the vampire is invisible, and in another he is adjusting his clothes in another mirror. However, if you pay attention, you will notice that the second mirror is actually a small camera with a TV. It's little details like that that help make this movie great to watch.

So, overall, a great vampire romp. Definitely more enjoyable than watching all the teen vampire crap that has been shoved down our throats in recent times, and easily my favourite vampire flick since 30 Days of Night.
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Movie Review: Bram Stoker's Way of the Vampire

July 2nd 2009 03:32


Premise: Van Helsing kills Dracula, but while he is doing so another vampire turns his VH's into the undead. In revenge, VH makes a pact with the church: He shall be immortal, until he has killed all of the vampire princes.

Fast forward to present day: The vamps are running scared, afraid of incurring Van Helsing's wrath. Then the prince vampire guy gets a taste of blood, and decides to start amassing an army to destroy Van Helsing.

Acting: Pretty shocking all round. Not one stand out performer in the lot, and all standing out would require would be a mediocre performance.

Script: Terrible. Let me rattle off a few examples.

The vampires had been living in fear for many years.... but all it took was for one grunt vampire to steal some blood from a hospital to start a vampire hunting revolution.

Van Helsing is the bane of vampires and has killed countless vamps.... even though he has mediocre fighting ability, and vamps are super strong, super fast and can turn into bats or wolves. Believable, right?

This one is my personal favourite:

"It would be different if they were like wasps, one sting and they're dead, but instead they come back again, and again, and again"

Wasps, as we all know, can sting as many times as they like. It's bees that can only sting once. How did that get through editing?

Moving on: effects.
Unrealistic, but probably the highlight of the movie. The camera rarely stays focused on the gore for more than a split second, so we don't have time to fully appreciate the dodgy gore effects. Although the quick flashes of gore get a little annoying, when you stop the movie to see how poor the effects are, you see they really are best served not being scrutinized too closely. That being said, there are a couple of decent gore scenes, and all good vampire movies need a little bit of gore.

Overall: Tries to ride on Bram Stoker's Dracula's coat-tails, but falls far, far short. A pretty abysmal effort, and not worth your time unless you are starved for vampire action and have seen every other vamp movie you can get your hands on. Even then, probably still a waste of time.

On a side note: As a general rule of thumb, Eagle Entertainment should be avoided at all costs. I had never heard of them before, but they market this movie, along with House of the Dead, Dracula 3000 and Alone in the Dark. I rest my case.

Oh I almost forgot. Half the reason I got this movie in the first place was because of the mean looking bat on the front cover, and the other half was the triple-crossbow (which reminded me alot of the triple-barrel shotgun from Undead). Both are on the cover, yet neither appear at all in the movie. Lying b@$&ards.

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Movie Review: Rise: Blood Hunter

June 14th 2009 09:32
Take 2:



Premise: A reporter (Lucy Liu) is converted by some vampires, and then seeks revenge. Nothing new to see here.

Some movies, while belonging to a genre, are simply so different that they stand apart because of their individuality. The uniqueness of it is interesting, and it is this effect that they are going for in Rise. The violent, lifestealing side of the vampires are given a back-seat, with the sensuality and depravity is thrust forward. The vampires don't have fangs: instead, they are portrayed as basically nymphos who like blood orgies.

Unfortunately, Rise completely misses the mark. Sure, trying to put a new spin on a cliched vampire movie might seem like a good idea, but for this to work you really need the camera-work and scripting to back it up. Genre-defying movies have to be good, and this one isn't.

First up: The story isn't shown chronologically. The movie begins somewhere about 3/4 of the way through the actual story, and then alternates between following the story from there and telling the beginning of the story. To be fair, when this technique is used, it can be remarkably effective. Anyone who doesn't agree... go watch Memento and get back to me. However, really this technique is only well implemented when coupled with a clever script, and here it isn't. When done right, it can confuse and disorient the audience. Well, I was confused and disoriented alright, but it wasn't intentional. It was solely due to the clumsy handling of the switch between timeframes. Sure, I caught on after a while, and I don't pick up on these things well, but the way they handled it still sucked.

Moving on: Lucy Liu should not be given leading roles. I don't know what it is about her, but by the end of the movie I wanted her to die. No, scratch that. I needed her to die. She just... I don't know exactly what it is... but she annoys the crap out of me. If anyone else has seen this, please tell me if it's just me.

In fact, most of the acting in this movie is pretty rotten. About the only saving grace is James D'Arcy, who plays a pretty convincing vampire villain. Other than him... no one worth mentioning.

One thing that irked me though was how this movie tried (and failed) so hard to be a hip new vamp movie. Like I mentioned, the vamps don't have fangs. They also seem to have had the vampire-powers things completely toned down, to the point that they are barely vamps. In fact, it's possible that they aren't. They don't actually say the word 'vampire', and they seem to get their kicks out of necrophilia as well as blood-sucking. However, it's pretty obvious that they've vampires, and the goal of being a unique vamp movie falls short as a lame attempt to do something different, and failing.

Oh, and another thing. A movie with 'blood' in the title, you expect a lot of blood, right? Well, there's alot of blood... and that's about it. Basically the highlight for a gorehound will be seeing Lucy Liu with blood all down her front, a blood-smeared car window, or blood spattered walls. No gore, no vampires tearing people apart, no stakes, no vamps dissolving in sunlight, nothing! In fact, the closest we come to a juicy vampire bite is seeing Lucy Liu smother a guy with a pillow and then bit his arm and suck blood out of that... and even that isn't totally convincing.

Mmm... Breasts.
About the best thing this film has going for it is nudity. There are naked breasts all over the place. In fact, it's actually ludicrous as to the amount of boob-watching that goes on, and I got a kick out of seeing how quickly they could introduce girls and get them naked. It never really goes into exploitation territory, as the nudity always has a place, but still... that much breast is no coincidence.


So in short... avoid this one, unless you are looking for an excuse to make your conservative partner watch some softcore porn.
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Posted By: Someone - Category: Vampire, Sub-Par Horror
   




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