| Enter the LaNd of your nightmares! |
| Club Vampire |
Club Vampire
Reviewed by Bomba
Directed by : Andy Ruben
year : 1997
Written By : Andy Ruben
Tagline : Check your Soul at the door
Cast:
John Savage .... Zero
Starr Andreeff .... Corri
Mariam Parris .... Alko
Michael J. Anderson .... Kiddo
Diana Frank (I) .... Laura
Ross Malinger .... Max
Viktoria Chapman .... Melanie
Sarah Shackleton .... Punk Girl
Tony Ervolina .... Suave Man
This is a bad movie. This is a very very bad movie, but as bad as this movie is, I will refrain from using the obvious, easy joke. Ya know the "this movie sucks…." Deal? Get it? Sucks like a vampire does only in a different way? You know that "it's funny because vampires suck blood and this movie sucks ass" joke? Anyway I will not be using that joke because it would be just too easy. It will be tempting, but I will try my best not to use any "suck" puns.
Anyway "Club Vampire" is a movie best viewed by no one. I understand that "no one" was actually the target demographic of this movie so I guess they succeeded in that respect. Club Vampire tells the story of a new age vampire named "Zero" coming together with a stripper/lousy-mother named "Corri" who becomes a vampire.
We begin our "movie" with a shot of Corri and Zero sitting on a beach at dusk. They don't know each other yet. The vampire is trying to build up a sun tolerance to allow him to live a more normal life and the girl is just waiting to go to work at the strip club. Cut to scene of a strip club. Normally this would score points for a horror film, but this particular club has the most unsexy, lousy, un-erotic, non-exotic dancing going on that I have ever seen in a movie. The nudity is downright boring in this one and I'm not joking. The girls aren't even so much dancing as they are just doing random stuff. All of this "random stuff" is set to either lousy jazz or vaguely Arabian sounding music. Apparently the producers didn't want to pay the licensing fee for "pour some sugar on me." Anyway the whole club comes off as a dirty vaudeville act under the influence of acid. It's the type of "entertainment" that one might have seen at Club 54 30 years ago. Give the director credit here because it isn't easy to make nudity suck.
Anyway Zero, the new age vampire, is named is played by John Savage who has obviously come a long way since he was in "The Deer Hunter." He follows the stripper only to see her attacked by one of his vampire friends. Ya see all the vampires hang out together, kind of like a family. Anyway the stripper gets turned into a vamp herself and stuff happens. I don't wish to go into the plot anymore than that because there is truly no reason to.
This movie contains lots of things to make you hate it. First off Corri is a truly bad mother. Not only does she encourage her kid to smoke at one point, she also pukes up all of her own guts (literally) on the floor and just leaves them there, only bothering to cover them up with a freaking blanket. How filthy! Not much of a homemaker I guess. In her defense her kid is brutally annoying. The club that Corri works at provides a lot of boring nudity, really bad music, and even worse trippy-wavy-screen-lighting-effects that make the movie seem like a bad 70's film, as opposed to a bad 90's film, which it is. Unfortunately for you, the viewer, these trippy-wavy-screen-lighting-effects (that the director obviously thought "were so cool") are present throughout the film even when they are not at the club. They, of course, are extremely annoying. Also, oddly enough, the outside of the club looks like a carny ride. I suppose this would draw people in until they saw exactly how boring the nudity going on inside was.
The effects in this movie aren't very special. They are even worse than would be expected from a movie of this caliber. The director relies heavily on the jump cut effect, wherein he stops the camera, has the actor walk somewhere else on or off-screen, then restarts the camera to make the character look like they have teleported. It's pretty sick because my brother, cousin and I used to make these silly movies with my dads video camera when we were like 10, and we used the same effect with more success.
Oh and by the way, I should mention that the vampires in this movie DON'T HAVE F*CKING FANGS!!! Sorry about the outburst but come on, vampires are different from movie to movie but one common trait is that they ALL HAVE F*CKING FANGS!!! Okay I'm good now. The other effects in general are few. Really there aren't many at all. The vampires were obviously limited in power based on the budget, and they don't get to do anything really vampy. They don't turn into bats, they don't fly, they don't EVEN HAVE F*CKING FANGS!! Sorry that was a relapse. All the vampires do is teleport around with that jump cut effect. I've never even heard of vampires teleporting before this movie but apparently they do it all of the time. At one point Zero and Corri use their vampire powers to jump really far. We aren't sure exactly how far they jump because this is of course done off screen to save a little cash on, ahem, jumping far effects. Anyway they don't seem to jump too far, just a bit further than a track star could do I suppose. What a bunch of sorry excuses for vampires these guys are. This movie even uses the "Hollywood meat-slapper" over-done punching noise effects.
The acting is as bad as one would expect, and much worse in some parts. For his part John Savage creates a not entirely unlikable character in his portrayal of Zero, and does his best to add a few laughs and carry this movie, but this movie could not be carried by Lou Ferigno. The dwarf from Twin peaks is in this movie also. Admittedly it was nice to see that the guy is getting more work, it's just a shame it has to be in "Club Vampire." The other actors are abysmally bad. One of the bad vampires is reminiscent of Kelly Osborne. Truly how much worse does it get than that?
Anyway it should surprise few that Roger Corman was the executive producer of this cinematic catastrophe. This is one of those movies that looks like it was made 30 years ago when actually it just came out in 1997. The whole thing sometimes reminded me of a Pat Benetar music video, especially with some of the music they used which was very Benetar-esque. For my money "the Lost Boys" is the best of the modern vampire movies, and "Club Vampire" is the worst. Only see it if you feel you should be punished for something, because although Vampires suck blood, this movie just plain sucks. DOH, I promised myself I wasn't going to use that joke.
HELPER CHARACTERS!!!!
"You cal THAT nudity?!?!??!?!" - Sally
"Poor John Savage, and to think he was in 'The Deer Hunter' " - Samuel