Red Scream Vampyres (2009)
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With an abandoned train station as their haunt and an endless supply of hitchhikers to provide sustenance, a lovely lesbian vampire duo seduces then savages their victims in this erotic gore fest from director David R. Williams. Things get complicated for the ladies, though, when one of them falls in love with an intended victim and a pair of scholars of urban decay decide to explore the bloodsuckers' lair.
--TMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: July 9, 2009
Over the years, I've received countless films from people who weren't familiar with my tastes, and I believe that I have given each and every last one of them an objective review here on this site. After all, how was Joe Director supposed to know that I hate romantic comedies / martial arts films / vampires / and the various other things that just do absolutely nothing for me? As a result of this, I've gotten pretty good at putting myself in other people's shoes and reviewing films accordingly; a film may personally bore me to tears, but looking at it from the perspective of its target audience, I can usually find something positive to say about it. I tried to do this with Red Scream Vampyres, but sadly, it just wasn't happening: I don't know who this was supposed to appeal to and I truly don't see how it could satisfy anybody looking for ninety minutes of entertainment in front of the tube.
As for the storyline, we've got two lesbian vampires - Elenora (Valeria Dombrovschi) and Theodora (Satu Rautaharju) - who live in an abandoned train station, where they spend their days picking up hitchhikers to feast upon. Theodora eventually picks up a hitchhiker who she starts to fall in love with, causing her female lover to become increasingly jealous over the next few days. There's also a pair of college kids who are majoring in urban history and who are dead set on gaining access to the vampire's home to do some research. That's your plot for the eighty-five minute movie, and if it sounds a little thin, well... that's because it is.
So, here's the deal: I hate vampire movies, and I've mentioned that already in this review and elsewhere on the site. However, that does not mean that I can not enjoy a particularly good one, nor does it mean that I will be overly hard on a release of average quality. It simply means that I would not have picked this movie up on my own accord, but since it was sent to me for review on the site, I felt obligated to pop it in and give my thoughts here on the site. I'm going to repeat myself here, but I want to make this crystal clear: I could have put aside my prejudice when viewing this movie if I felt that it offered something special for fans of vampire flicks, and hell, I could have made a case for it if I felt that it was simply an average film in the genre. I'm not going to do that here, because quite frankly, I can't find much positive to say.
The most obvious problem, in my humble opinion, is the heavy reliance on post-production techniques to give the film a "style" of its own. Hardly a scene goes by without some sort of effect being used on the footage, be it a red filter, a blue filter, black-and-white, color drain, sped-up footage, slow-motion footage, grain, and numerous other things of that nature. Maybe it's just me, but personally, I just want to watch a damned movie... not see a tech demo for whatever software that they used to edit this film.
It's hard to get involved with a film's storyline and characters if you're constantly being assaulted by these types of effects, but it's doubly hard when there's not much there to begin with. In terms of an actual script, I would venture to guess that there was enough material for a thirty, maybe forty-minute movie at best. Unfortunately, this is padded out to eighty-five minutes courtesy of a good deal of the aforementioned slow-motion shots and scenes that have zero relevance to the film as a whole.
Wait, let me correct myself: having the vampire's boy-toy meet the college kids served the purpose of setting up their eventual second "meeting" later in the film - that's common sense. However, having the three of them sit around and chat about the town's history was downright useless, even if that is what those kids do for fun. Having a vampire pick up a hitchhiker to bring back to her place, toy with, and eventually feast upon served the purpose of showing how she gets her meals... but did we really need a drawn-out scene with them idly chatting about nothing before getting down to business?
Another thing that bugged me about the film was the music. Now, there were bits and pieces of a legitimate score sprinkled throughout the film, and I had no problems with that music - in fact, some of it was quite good. My problem was with the death metal music that was used much too often throughout the film, even in spots where it was entirely inappropriate and downright baffling. I can see using it during a bloody attack or a vicious beatdown, but why would you use music filled with obnoxious screaming and blaring guitars to compliment a sex scene that is playing out in slow-motion? Am I just missing something here?
The only positive things that I can say about the film is that the female leads were quite attractive, they showed some skin (not much - maybe thirty seconds total throughout the film), there was one impressive gore scene found towards the end of the running time, and I enjoyed the opening scene with the vampires "hatching" from some sort of bloody membrane egg thing. With that said, I can't really recommend this disc based on a few shots of boobies and a pair of nice scenes. 2.5/10.
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#1:
Lucid Dreams
- added July 15, 2009 at 5:14pm
Good review like always Chad. When can we get a
good vampire flick again.
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