We Are The Night (2010)

Directed by Dennis Gansel
Starring Karoline Hefurth, Nina Ross, Jennifer Ulrich, Anna Fischer
Not Rated
Germany 

“People fall apart so easily.”

Like me, you may be saying to yourself, “Just how many more fuckin' vampire movies can my overtaxed brain and strained eyeballs endure?” Well, the answer is at least one more.

Three sexy German vampires – one clearly still stuck in the 1920's, one a bubbly party girl, and the Ingrid Pitt-y leader of their cursed clan – lay siege to a jet on is way to Paris, draining passengers and stewardesses alike before tearing open a side-door and free-falling through the air.

Cue opening credits, as well as heightened expectations. With this decade's glut of tweenage vamps, it feels like a minor miracle to land on a bloodsucker epic with a novel approach to the well-worn subject.

Anyway, we then meet a scruffy, tomboy sneak-thief, Lena, who narrowly avoids getting popped by a good-guy cop named Tom before fucking off to a cavernous underground disco for a dance party hosted by – you guessed it – the toothsome trio. Head vamp Louise akes a shining to her – she's pretty sure Lena is her soul(less) mate – so she bites her.

It takes a good 15 or so minutes of meat-sucking and pimp killing, but eventually, after some kind of ceremonial bath, Lena accepts her fate. Also, they finally start dressing her like a girl, which is nice.

While all this is going on, Tom-the-cop is busy investigating a series of brutal crimes. Are they related to the vamps? Probably. They own a lot of sweet stuff. Like crazy-expensive cars. Louise gives Lena a Lamborghini and then takes them all shopping for diamond-encrusted  watches and whatnots. While browsing the aisles, Lena gets the skinny – they can eat people food for fun, fuck all they want without getting pregnant, do as many drugs as they want without getting hooked and drink their heads off without hangovers. Also, they killed all the boy vampires because they didn't want anyone telling them what to do.

So that's their trip, basically. Undead party girls. They're all terrible dancers, though. You think you' d figure that out after a couple hundred years.

Here's the problem, though. Turns out Lena's not into chicks, which really throws a monkey wrench into Louise's romantic plans. Also, Lena feels nostalgic and goes home to hug her mom and grab some stuff, and runs into Tom. He's fairly certain she's up to antics of some kind. Also, he's sorta into her. She  feels the same way. Too bad she's undead. They have coffee and exchange cute banter while Louise spies on them while hanging upside down on a building like Spiderman, quietly seething. Lena senses her lesbianic pal in the shadows and splits.

Later on, the girls have an impromptu pool party and end up snuffing a couple security guards. Up to this point, Lena was apparently unaware that they kill people for all that  blood she's been guzzling. She runs off and leaves Tom a message. He's on the case. Next thing you know, dozens of cops are storming the vamps' hotel!

Three of the girls barely escape in a hail of gunfire and deadly sun rays – one of 'em isn't quite so lucky – so they decide it high time they got the fuck out of Germany. The plan is to go wreak some havoc in Moscow, but with all the ill-will in their ranks, will they make it? Will they even live to see another sunset? And can Lena find love with a human cops now that she's an immortal monster?

Maybe. Seems unlikely, though.

I gotta tell you, I was pretty surprised by this one. It's flashy, fast-moving, and witty, and the girls are gorgeous. Not exactly ground-breaking stuff, but definitely worth a look.

- Ken McIntyre 

Andy Warhol’s Dracula (a.k.a. Blood for Dracula) (1974)

Directed by Paul Morrissey
Starring Udo Kier, Joe D’Allesandro, Dominique Darel, Stefania Casini, Vittorio de Sica
Rated X
Italy

A Halloween-themed entry for ya.

Appearing in the spring of 1974, Andy Warhol’s Dracula (a.k.a. Blood for Dracula) -- along with its almost-simultaneously-released companion title, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (a.k.a. Flesh for Frankenstein) -- probably stands as one of the most-seen or “commercial” of Warhol’s films.

It’s also most certainly one of the wildest, goriest, sexiest entries in the crowded Dracula subgenre of horror.

Of course, while Warhol’s name appears in the title and he is credited as co-producer, it’s more of a branding thing than an indication of the celebrated pop artist’s involvement. Such was the case with many of the later Warhol features. (Sorta like with The Velvet Underground and Nico, one might say.) Here, as elsewhere, writer-director Paul Morrissey is probably best understood as the one most directly responsible for the film’s unique take on the Dracula story.

The film stars German actor and cult film legend Udo Kier in the title role. Joe D’Allesandro, vet of numerous Warhol flicks such as Flesh, Trash, and Heat, co-stars as Mario, disgruntled servant to the Di Fiore family. Also among the cast are Bicycle Thief director Vittorio de Sica as the head of the family, and Maxime McKendry as the Marchese’s wife.

The film opens with an extreme close-up of an ashen-looking Count painting color into his face and hair so as to appear a little less corpsey. Italian composer Claudio Gizzi’s mournful, Erik Satie-ish theme underscores the scene’s melancholy mood.

Thanks to the Count’s servant, Anton (played by the bug-eyed Arno Juerging), we learn the Count is gravely ill, in desperate need of the blood of virgins to subsist. Anton suggests a trip from Romania to Italy where thanks to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church the likelihood of finding the requisite virgins -- consistently pronounced “where-gins” by the pair -- is ostensibly greater.

The two of them hit the road, the Count’s coffin in which he sleeps strapped to the top of their vehicle. A little bit like Aunt Edna in Vacation.












We then look in on the Di Fiore daughters working in the fields. Eventually we learn that after previously thriving, the family has fallen on relatively hard times, now only able to employ the one servant, Mario, and thus having to do things like work in the garden themselves.

Saphiria (Dominique Darel, who sadly died in a car accident just a few years after) and Rubinia (Stefania Casini, who turns up along with Udo Kier in Dario Argento’s Suspiria) decide to disrobe to get more comfortable. Having to do manual labor reduces their status, argues Saphiria, thus making the wearing of clothes seem a luxury. “We are workers and peasants,” she says, “and we might as well start acting the part.”












Sounds reasonable.

After predictably shocking their mother and two sisters, the prudish Esmeralda (Milena Vukotic) and the youngest Perla (Silvia Dionisio), the pair decide to behave and put back on their clothes, having been further encouraged to do so by a somewhat pissed-off seeming Mario.

Cut back to the Count and Anton, now in Italy. At a tavern Anton gathers info about the Di Fiore family. He also just happens to be present when a car accident claims the life of a young girl. The resourceful servant soaks up some of the blood with some bread and brings it back to his master for a tasty treat.












Soon our fun-loving pair arrive at the Di Fiores’ with a story that the Count is looking for a wife. It takes a bit of convincing by his wife, but eventually the Marchese agrees to host them in order to allow the Count a chance to meet his daughters and perhaps choose one as his bride. The Di Fiores view the Count as a means by which to recup the family’s fortune, although we know better.

We also know something the Count doesn’t know, too. Namely, that if he’s hoping to find “where-gins,” he’s destined for disappointment as far as Saphiria and Rubinia are concerned, as they spend that evening taking turns enjoying the family’s studly servant.












Afterwards, the girls tell Mario of the Count and the family’s plans. They promise him a job as a butler at “Palazzo Dracula,” but Mario isn’t interested. In fact, he’s disgusted with the girls’ materialistic thinking, and predicts a revolution such as happened in Russia will soon occur there in Italy. (A hammer and sickle sketched on the wall of Mario’s room later confirms his Marxist leanings.)

The Count meets the four daughters.












Conflict is imminent, as the Count is looking for virgins, but, as Rubinia says to Saphiria, “I never want to marry until I find out what he’s like in bed.”

Saphiria isn’t too crazy about a future with the sickly-looking Count. Mom agrees he’s “deathly pale,” but attributes that to his being a vegetarian. Eventually the Count and Saphiria get to know one another, their meeting mostly involving a most-intrusive interview of the girl by the Count, the goal of which is to find out whether or not she’s ever slept with a man.

When she tells him she’s a virgin, he is initially unconvinced. “Did anyone touch you here... or here... or here?” he probes. And probes. Satisfied with her responses, the Count suddenly proves he’s not a vegetarian after all.












Alas, as we already well know, Saphiria isn’t pure. And thus does the Count find it necessary to send back his meal.












Meanwhile, Mario and Rubinia pass the time making love and discussing class issues. “Right now he’s a disgusting person with money,” says Mario of the Count. “After the revolution he’ll be a disgusting person with no money.” Rubinia nevertheless remains committed to the idea of enjoying the Count’s riches.

They fight some, but ultimately seem capable of overcoming their ideological differences.












Afterwards Rubinia gives her 14-year-old sister Perla a little lecture while she tries to “wash away this peasant smell.” Perla isn’t convinced by Rubinia’s modern views towards sex. Rubinia responds with one of the film’s many campy bits of dialogue:

“As long as you clean and wash yourself up after each one, it’s okay. You just have to smell fresh!”

Rubinia then meets with the Count, and again the meeting mostly consists of Dracula interviewing the Di Fiore daughter about her sexual history. Things seem to be going well between them until Rubinia takes a peek in the mirror into which the Count is gazing.












“You have no refraction!” (It sounds like she says.) Soon Dracula is feasting once more. And once more things don’t go as he would’ve hoped.












Dude’s gonna need a Zantac or something. Seriously. That’s some wicked reflux he keeps having.

The Marchese has to go to London for business. (Actually, it is suggested later he’s going to London to gamble, which started the family’s troubles in the first place.) The Marchesa is left feeling distraught over the failure of her two daughters to satisfy the Count as a possible bride.

A conversation with the Count causes Mario to become suspicious. There remain two more daughters -- both “where-gins” -- but now it is starting to look like a race to see if Mario can get to them before the Count does.












I’ll let you see for yourself how the story ultimately plays out. Some genuine suspense as things race to the end, with a fairly jawdropping conclusion. There’s more sex. And violence. And some blood for Dracula.












While its commentaries on class and/or “modern” decadence are more than a little muddled, the film is nonetheless an entirely entertaining, irreverent take on the genre. The acting is often way, way over-the-top -- especially Udo Kier’s performance -- but clearly intentionally so. There’s enough Dominique Darel and Stefania Casini on display to warrant the “X” rating the original cut received on its premiere. And the audacious, ultra-gory finale should leave most who come to a film like this satisfied.

In the DVD commentary track, Morrissey notes near the end that he enjoys straddling that line between “serious and silly” or “meaningless and meaningful.” Probably as good a place as any to place Andy Warhol’s Dracula.

- Triple S

Dracula AD 1972 (1972)

Directed by Alan Gibson
Starring Stephanie Beacham, Caroline Munro, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing
Rated PG
UK

"The operative word is....ecch!"

In an attempt to seem relevant to the 'kids', stodgy ol' Hammer films decided to update their musty Drac-flicks by dragging Christopher Lee's regal vamp into the psychedelic 70's and pitching him against his old nemesis's shag-haired, great-great-great grand daughter and her gang of funky friends.

The prologue is classic Hammer stuff. Back in Victorian England, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Dracula (Christopher Lee) battle it out on a runaway stage coach. Drac ends up impaled on a wheel spoke and then burns up into ash. The end.

Fast Forward exactly one hundred years. Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame) is a skinny, decadent glam-rocker with a gang of sexy followers (including Caroline Munro, Marsha Hunt - the girl Mick Jagger wrote Brown Sugar about, Janet Key, and the gorgeous Stephanie Beacham as Van Helsing Jr.) who gets his kicks crashing parties and splitting right before the cops show up. And, indeed, that's what he's doing when we first meet the Satanic bastard.

US hippie-prog jam band Stoneground (Faces were asked first, but reportedly, Rod Stewart read the occult-ridden script and balked) thunders through a couple groovy numbers at an upper-crusty party full of old squares while Jack and the gang dance, make out, gulp expensive booze, and generally have a swell time. This scene is fairly amazing, with lots of way-out fashions, including a very fetching aqua-blue hotpants/halter top outfit on one uncredited  dollybird, and some pretty effective rock n' roll.

Unfortunately, the cops show up, and the party is over. The kids gather at a local Clockwork Orange-y coffeeshop and ponder their next move. Jack - actually a witch of some kind in disguise - convinces the gang to meet him at a 'desanctified' church the following evening to, you know, goof around. They agree. "Might be good for a giggle."

Jessica Van Helsing goes home and bones up on the black arts in her grandpa's library. He catches her and starts blathering about the Van Helsings' long-standing commitment to fighting occult-y evil. Grand-dad is, naturally, played by Peter Cushing. Jess laughs him off and heads off to the church.

You see where this is going, right? The gang thinks this is just theater, but Johnny actually performs some sort of Satanic resurrection. It involved Caroline Munro on a stone slab, getting bright-red blood poured all over her heaving bosoms. Dracula returns, bites and drains Munro, and begins his usual reign of terror.

Cushing teams up with a couple of dubious cops to battle Dracula. Jessica gets snatched by Johnny and also ends up on a stone-slab. Her bosoms are quite heaving, as well.

Various bits of vampiric mayhem ensues, and then you get the usual gooey meltdown. The end. Until next time!

Listen, the fine folks at Hammer were many things, but hip was never one of them. The clothes, tunes (beside Stoneground, Manfred Mann guitarist Mike Vickers provided the with-it soundtrack) and hair (future Dynasty star Beacham's grown-out shag-mullet is a wonder to behold) are all expectionally groovy, and Neame makes for a fantastic low-rent libertine, but director Gibson cannot wait to get back the talky stuff.

Every ten or so minutes, Cushing pops back up to lull viewers to sleep with endless explanations about Van Helsings and Draculas and the devil and all the bullshit we've heard on zillion times before, already, in 1972. Also, bringing the Dracula mythos up to date is a fine idea, but why not take it all the way? No nudity in 1972, Hammer? No gore? I am aware that Hammer's blueprint was understated horror, but less yapping, more blood, and a little celebrity skin, and Dracula AD 1972 would be a bonafide 70's horror classic.

Still, a fitfully entertaining vampire romp slathered with tasty crumpet. Worth the effort for the camp value and a few seriously far-our set-designs.

- Ken McIntyre

Vampire Sisters (2004)

Vampire Sisters
Directed Joe Ripple
Starring Darla Albornoz, Jeanie Jameson, Syn Devil, George Stover 
Unrated
USA

"I feel like a hooker."
"You should. You look like a hooker."

The name Don Dohler oughta strike fear into the hearts of Z movie-watchers everywhere, if the ultra-dismal Fiend (1980) is any indication of what the cat has up his sleeve. If you haven't had the displeasure, you're probably better off- I think that film has the ability to literally bore you to death. Luckily, the Dohler-penned Vampire Sisters- while being about as by-the-numbers, softgore schlocky as ya can get- is still about 666 times more watchable than Fiend, and, if you're in a god enough mood, it may even provide a few ghastly chuckles, or perhaps an equally ghastly boner.

The premise- the whole  plotline, really- is neatly summed up in the film's title. Darla Albornoz, Jeanie Jameson, and busty goth pin-up queen Syn Devil (who I interviewed a few years back) star as the sisters in question, who run a pay-porn website together. Their highest paying customers are privy to special "Bonuses", which means that when they get hungry, they invite said shlubs over to their non-descript suburban home and suck 'em dry. Literally. 'Cuz they're vampires, see?

Although I am confused as to why the guys that are paying the most to see their dirty pictures are the ones that get offed- you think they'd wanna keep those guys around to help pay the rent- the rest of the film is a very linear affair, with dope after dope (a few chicks, too) arriving at the house, getting' teased by the sexy gals, and then getting stalked, slashed, and vamped. Occasionally, there's a hint of wit- when vet Dohler actor George Stover shows up at the girls' house, he brings 'em a box of Stover chocolates- but there's very little in the way of character development, and the only way to distinguish between one girl and the next is exactly the way you do it in porn flicks- hair color and breast size. There's a sub-plot involving a private detective (or undercover reporter, maybe, I couldn't really tell which) who decides to infiltrate the vampish cabal, and there's a monster in the garage, too, but otherwise, it's a standard blood and jiggle-fest.

But, you know, I like blood and jiggling, so this one was alright with me. Don't expect a nightmare of depravity- or hardcore goreporn- but if yer lookin' for a goofy, kinda sexy, old fashioned b-movie, then you just found one.

- Ken McIntyre

Sorority House Vampires From Hell (1998)

Directed by Geoffrey de Valois
Starring Kathy Presgrave, Yvette Davis, Eugenie Bondurant
Unrated
USA

"I had more fun at my last drive-by."
"HAHAHAHA!"

The movie opens with a ten-minute credit sequence featuring a hot chick with big boobs dancing around in a front of a TV while ear-gouging industrial rock plays on the soundtrack. Of course, you could always hit the mute button to escape the garbage-y music, but it won't even do you any good, because the video image is so saturated (on purpose) and blurry (maybe not on purpose), that you can't even pop a decent boner. Originally, Sorority House Vampires from Hell was released in 3D, so I think that's what's up there. If that's the case, than this sequence - and the others like it - are completely useless, since 90% of the available copies of this fucking mess are in blotchy 2D.

Oh, and also, I think there was a shot of flame-haired porn starlet Annie Body sucking on a metal phallus of some kind in there, too. Dunno. Anyway, fast-forward through that part.

When you get to the story, you will first be alarmed/panicked by just how cheap the fuzzy camcorder image looks. It is much worse than the home movies your dad took on the family's first video camera in 1987. It's also, at least briefly, in washed-out black and white. Impossible to say if this is on purpose. A girl walks through a cardboard graveyard and runs into another girl, this one in a cape and cowl. Then a third girl springs up from her grave and tries to bite the other two girls. And then they haul ass out of there.

Turns out the first two are sorority pledges, and the sorority house is in the middle of the woods, the very same woods where an anorexic vampire hangs out. A couple end up fucking in the dirt near the vamp's grave; she manages to chomp them, and begins to gradually return to her former form - a too-skinny, wisecracking clothes horse. She quickly acquires a biker chick Renfield and the two traipse around the immediate area, snacking on coeds and trying on lingerie.
Meanwhile, inside the sorority house...well, it's actually impossible to tell what's going on. There is a shower scene, but it's shot too ineptly to do you much good. There's some lesbians and a little S&M, but not enough. There's also a subplot with a bungling Dracula who makes Wall Street jokes. Etc.
Eventually, the skinny-bitch vampirella recruits half the sorority and most of the local yokels into her zombie army, and they take over the world.

Or they don't. I mean, this thing is impossible to sit all the way through, so anything could have happened.
The opening and closing sequences - with the naked girls, flashing lights, and headache-making racket - are quite redolent of legendary psychedelic schlockmeister Jess Franco's work. I'll give Mr Valois that much. But all the ponderous spookshow antics and anti-comedy in-between are just too painful to endure. The only reason I ended up buying(!) a copy of Sorority House Vampires From Hell in the first place is because it's supposed to feature the lovely JJ Rodgers, star of Amazon Warrior, but she is nowhere to be found. Apparently, she's in some other cut.

So that sorta sucked.

All in all, a pretty miserable experience.

- Ken McIntyre

Twins of Evil (1971)

Directed by John Hough
Starring Mary Collinson, Madeleine Collinson, Peter Cushing
Rated R
UK

"The devil has sent me twins...of evil!"

Mary and Madeleine Collinson were two button-nosed identical twins from Malta (apparently it's a tiny country in Southern Europe) who initially made a splash when they arrived in late 60's Britain and shot a few racy 8mm loops with Satan-bearded nudie-cutie pioneer Harrison Marks. They quickly graduated to full-length softcore scuzz (Groupie Girl, 1970; She'll Follow You Anywhere, 1971) before landing this plum gig at the then red hot House of Hammer.

Although largely forgotten by everyone except for hardcore horror/sleaze scholars at this point, the Collinson sisters were two of the most remarkable actresses of the sleazy 70's. The sheer sexual potency of these exotic ingénues cannot be overstated. They were gorgeous, voluptuous, ethereal creatures, literally stunning to look at, and genuinely bewitching. A man could forget his name and worse in their company. Given these hypnotic powers over my weak-willed gender, it is entirely appropriate that their finest cinematic hour would be here, in a film about two irresistible twin sisters leading hapless Puritans to their Satanic undoing. That shit probably happened everyday back in Malta.

The scene? Like all Hammer scenes, really. Foggy and Victorian. Peter Cushing - already ancient at the dawn of the 70's - stars as Gustav Wiel, a maniacal witch burner specializing in young, pretty harlots. As our story opens, he's yanking one such forest-dwelling cleavage queen out of her hovel and setting her alight with nary a whiff of evidence of any devil-doing. He's got a gang of black-cloaked goons with him as well, and surely, they'd burn down the whole fuckin' village where it not for fear of incurring the unseen emperor's wrath. Said emperor has a best pal in town, Count Karstein (Egyptian actor Damien Thomas), a flouncing Satanic dandy fond of ravishing the local nubiles, usually moments before that asshole Gustav shows up to barbeque them.

Aside from his close ties to the big man around town, the Count is also a vampire (aren't all Counts?), which may explain the piles of bloodless corpses littering the nearby woods. This is all quite vexing, as you would imagine, for Man-of-God Gustav.

Into this Draconian nightmare enters Gustav's nieces, Maria and Frieda Gellhorn (Mary and Madeleine, respectively). Identical twins from liberal Venice, the matching head-turners have been dumped into Uncle Gus's bony lap after their parents suffered an unfortunate and unexplained fatal accident. Gorgeous, flirty, and fashionably attired, the girls cause an immediate sensation in the village. At first, the colorful sisters attempt to fit in with their drab neighbors, even joining a choir class taught by local stud Anton Hoffer (David Warbeck, RIP). This half-hearted attempt at assimilation is abandoned almost immediately by Frieda - clearly the evil twin - who starts rebelling against her tyrannical uncle and the evangelical villagers. She sneaks out nightly to God-knows-where, leaving her innocent, virginal sister to endure nightly thrashings from Gustav for her absent sister's insolence.

Inevitably, Frieda crosses paths with the lecherous Count, and he smooth-talks her back to his castle on the hill for a little drinky-drink. Once she's in his grips, he reveals his true nature to her, and pitches the wicked sister on joining him, pushing the immortality angle. Of course, she could still be staked or beheaded, or fatally wounded by a crucifix, and sunlight is no help either. So, there's a lot of stipulations to this particular brand of eternal life. Still, she's pretty evil already, so she goes for it.

Lacking the Count's sense of decorum, the be-vamped Freida goes on a murder spree, and quickly finds herself being hunted by her own dear uncle. The undead can be pretty crafty, however, so she manages to pull the ol' switcheroo with her long-suffering sibling. Will Gustav and his henchmen figure out which one's the virgin and which one's the vampire, before an innocent girl is staked and baked?

I will leave that for you to find out, but I will say that the grand finale is full-on Gonzo, with startling lashes of gore, a gruesome decapitation, and a gooey vamp meltdown. I guess the latter detail is a bit of a spoiler, but honestly, how do these things usually end? Dracula always dies at the end of a Hammer film, even Hammer films that aren't even about vampires.

One of the bloodiest, hammiest, and horniest of Hammer's horrors, Twins of Evil is a minor masterpiece of campy 70's horror, and one of the best evil twin movies ever. Not counting evil twin porn, of course. That stuff rules.

Sadly, this was the Collinson sisters' last film. After a minor US media blitz - including an October, 1970 Playboy layout and a memorable spot on Johnny Carson, the twins withdrew from the spotlight and went on to marry rich dudes who live in castles, not unlike Count Karstein. Mary lives in Malta, and Madeleine in Venice. No word on whether Maddy's still the evil twin, but she probably is.

- Ken McIntyre