Lust for a Vampire (1971)

A vampire's lust knows no boundaries...

The year is 1830. It has been forty years since the last case of vampirism terrorised the quaint English hamlet near Karnstein castle. But now the heirs of the Karnstein name have shed the blood of a virgin in a sacrifice that will bring back the dreaded vampire Carmilla, who has been dead since 1710.

Under the anagram name Mircalla, Carmilla takes to a nearby women-only Finishing School where youthful blood is bountiful and her vampirism can go unnoticed, with the assistance of a obsessed headmaster desperate to serve her, a love-stricken and fool-hearty author, and a headmistress desperate to avoid any bad press for her beloved, and profitable, school.

Lust for a Vampire is the second film in Hammer's Karnstein Trilogy. The film remains true to the basic line of the rest of the series. Namely, beautiful female vampires who are out to kill, but also have time for some sexy times and a fair bit of wandering about topless on the side. The theme sounds dreadfully kitschy, and in large part it is. But the films remain entertaining and watch able because of their quality sets, costumes, acting, plot lines, and settings.

It would be easy to bank on gore and sex alone, and undoubtedly Hammer was in the business of trying to catch up with competitors in the genre on those points during this period. But the films retain a feeling of legitimacy nonetheless, because of those quality aspects. Let's face it; there's something to be said for retaining a sense of legitimacy as a film despite operating under a title like Lust for a Vampire.

Noticeably missing from this instalment of the series is Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing, who was apparently caring for his ill wife at the time of shooting and therefore had to be replaced. Still, the cast pulls off its roles well. This includes Carmilla herself, played by the very beautiful, and not untalented, Yutte Stensgaard, whose brief career spanned the late 60's and early 70's and mostly included television programmes. It is not unlikely that this is the best thing her talents were put to use in.

The film does, however, have some down sides. Compared with The Vampire Lovers, and Twins of Evil, Lust for a Vampire is a bit slow going at times. Not painfully, but noticeably. There is also an increased focus on the love story aspect between Carmilla and the hopeless author turned teacher Richard Lestrange. The sound track is also pretty awful. In the end Lust for a Vampire is perhaps the worst of the trilogy, but is still a decent film, especially when compared with modern day vampire film turds such as Twilight.

3 "heart attacks" out of 5
Rated R: contains violence, nudity, sexuality.

Tremors (1990)

The ultimate underground movie. It will leave you legless!

Valentine and Earl, a pair of down and out handy men, accidentally discover a giant worm-like creature which has begun to pick off the residents of their small, secluded town. Matters go from bad to worse when a seismologist, who had been sent to the area to investigate the unusual tremors that were being caused by the monster, discovers that it is not alone.

The road is blocked, the phones are down, and the situation looks grim. Now Valentine, Earl, a greedy shop keeper, a pair of gun nuts, an obnoxious teenager, and other members of the towns tiny populace, must find a way to escape without becoming worm food.

From a horror fans perspective, it would be easy to be pretty sceptical about this film. It's written by the same people as Short Circuit. It's directed by the guy who did City Slickers. And it's starring Kevin Bacon of, among other things, Footloose. But don't let those credentials dissuade you.

Tremors is a giant monster movie with a comedic twist. It is far from the only, or even the first (see Blood Beach) giant worm movie to be released. But it might be one of the most fun ones.

The characters, over the top as they may be, are likeable and entertaining. In particular, the main characters Valentine (Kevin Bacon), and Earl (Fred Ward), but also the two survivalist loonies played by Reba McEntire and Michael Gross. By way of useless trivia, the movie also co-stars Ariana Richards, who went on to act in Jurassic Park.

The monsters, which incidentally look nothing like the image on the cover, are rank, monsterous worms with horrid snapping tentacles protruding from their mouths. Everything is pretty tame on the gore front here, but there are some pretty nasty looking worm explosions.

The film is a horror-comedy through and through. Even its darkest moments are quickly relieved by an antic or a one liner. This isn't the one if you are in the mood for a gritty, scary, gore fest. But with that said, Tremors as still a funny, entertaining, family friendly, monster flick. And if you like it and just can't get enough, fear not... three sequels have followed and a fourth is rumoured to be on the way.

4 stampedes out of 5
PG-13 for intense, creature violence/gore and language.

Zombie Lake (1981)

God help us if they rise again!

Zombie Lake is an early 80's French film about a group of zombified nazi soldiers returning from their watery grave to seek vengeance. This review will contain spoilers as I find it difficult to review this film without touching on the full breadth of its absurdity.

The film begins with a beautiful young woman stripping bare and going foolishly going swimming in a grimy looking lake which clearly has a warning sign, which she removes, that warns against doing so. Of course there's a zombie in there who attacks and kills her. If they know there's zombies in there, would they not put up more than a sign?

When the woman is noticed missing, they decide to wait a day and see if she turns up before contacting the mayor. The mayor!?! Have they never heard of the police? Then when she does not turn up and her clothes are found abandoned on the beach, the mayor decides to give it another day to see if she arrives before contacting the police. This case is being investigated about as thoroughly as the Pickton Farm! When they finally do call in a couple of investigators they are bumbling fools who are slaughtered about two scenes later. Meanwhile, many more naked or scantily clad women are killed.

The zombies themselves are of the green face-paint variety with a spattering of latex wounds thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately the make up is not only highly cheesy, but also poorly done. On numerous occasions you can clearly see where the make up ends and clean skin begins. On other occasions you can plainly see that the make up is washing off in the water. They get a couple of cooler looking zombies towards the end, but over all it is pretty bad.

Worse yet, when they kill their victims (who always seem to be women), they always do so by biting them on the neck... often is prolonged, unnecessarily drawn out scenes. The film alternately calls the villains "ghosts" and "zombies"... but never vampires... which their method of attack seems to suggest.

Then we get to the part where the main zombie character, a nazi soldier, is humanized thoroughly. He falls in love with a French woman and they make love in an extremely drawn out soft core scene. It later turns out he impregnated her. She dies, but the baby lives. As the nazi's flee the advancing allies, they have five minutes to stop by the house so he can say bye to them... you'd think they would be in a bigger hurry.

Anyhow, as they flee they are ambushed by the French resistance, who has the decency to rid the planet of every single one of them. Then the resistance decides they have to hide the evidence... but they are in a hurry... so to save time, they just throw the bodies in the lake. Thus is explained how they got down there and somehow subsequently became zombies.

What's worse, the nazi is then humanized yet again when he returns to life and visits the home of his deceased lover, then protects his daughter from the others. Apparently there are good nazi's and bad nazi's... who knew. Apparently there are also good zombies and bad zombies... who knew again! The film would have benefited from skipping the entirely asinine idea of a zombie love story. Plus the undead lover boy in question was the doucheyest looking zombie of the lot, which didn't help matters. I found this humanization, this sympathetic tone towards the lead zombie to be a bit unsettling and rather odd coming from a film made in France, a country which suffered horribly under nazi occupation.

On top of all this, the film is horribly edited. The scenes cut abruptly and don't flow well at all. The dubbing is bad, and the acting is bad enough that it is noticeable even in a different language. The film chugs along slowly, but eventually the villagers unite to destroy their greenish foes. It is in no way a good movie, but yet is somehow watch-able, if only once. One word of advice, however; do not watch this film alone. It would be much more fun in a group as a drinking game.

1 pair of soggy jack boots out of 5
Rated R: contains extensive full nudity, violence.

The Number 23 (2007)

The Truth Will Find You

Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey)gets off late from his job as an animal control officer to meet his wife. While she was waiting, she browsed a local book store and found a book, which she purchases for Walter. It's a novel, a murder mystery, which loops repeatedly back to the number 23.

The book quickly captivates Walter. He becomes obsessed with it. It starts to fill his dreams and he begins to feel that everything in his life goes back to that same number; 23. As his obsession grows, he starts to believe that this is no novel, but rather an account of true events which was somehow meant to fall in to his hands. He feels he must solve the mystery once and for all, and bring the killer to justice. But as he delves deeper into the mystery, the danger posed to himself, and his family, grows.

The Number 23 is a mystery/thriller that places comedic actor Jim Carrey in to a serious role as an obsessed self-assigned investigator. He pulls it off pretty well. The rest of the acting is pretty strong as well. The film also features a fairly strong plot and a successfully executed mystery which is not definitively revealed until the last minutes of the film - even if you are sure once or twice that you know what's up. An unlikely, but entertaining movie.

3 dog bites out of 5
Rated R for violence, disturbing images, sexuality and language

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Even the Dead Can Love

Marcilla, the young beautiful daughter of a Countess, is taken on as a house guest by General von Spielsdorf. Soon after her arrival, villagers begin to turn up dead. As the General's own daughter falls ill and becomes weak and pale, whispers begin to spread through the village about the legendary Karnstein family - vampires who once terrorized the land.

Marcilla soon finds a new family to take her in and becomes close with their teenage daughter who soon begins to meet the same fate as the General's daughter. von Spielsdorf becomes suspicious and seeks the assistance of Baron Hartog, who once laid waste to the Karnstein's, and now believes one may have survived.

The Vampire Lovers is the first of Hammer's Karnstein trilogy. As noted in my review of Twins of Evil, Hammer attempted with this series and some other films of the day to break in to the modern horror market, which was evolving quickly around them.

As such, The Vampire Lovers is chock-full of beautiful scantily clad women, sexuality, and increased violence. By today's standards, and even by those of the 1970's, the violence is actually quite mild. The sexuality, on the other hand, is perhaps less so. There's nothing particularly explicit going on, but these films are noted for their strong themes of lesbian sexuality, and they definitely pushed the envelope in terms of same-sex action in non-X rated movies at the time.

Unfortunately it is all presented in a pretty negative light over-all. Even though the film makers clearly cranked up the sex volume on purpose to draw in viewers, lesbian sexuality is definitely presented as something that is tied in with evil and villainy - the demonic Marcilla corrupting the young daughters of the village. Not exactly your positive messaging to say the least.

Otherwise, The Vampire Lovers is an entertaining film. It has all the makings of the usual lovable Hammer flick; great sets, wonderful gothic atmosphere, a trustworthy cast of the usual suspects, and a reasonably well thought out plot. Generally a well done, compelling opening shot to one of Hammer's later film series.

3.5 decapitations out of 5
Rated R for violence, frightening scenes, sexuality, nudity.

Army of Darkness (1992)

In an age of darkness. At a time of evil. When the world needed a hero. What it got was him.

Having been sucked through a vortex and in to the dark ages, Ash finds himself captured by knights who believe him to be allied with an enemy kingdom. But they soon come to believe he is the chosen one, sent from the heavens to defeat the Deadites who plague them.

In order to do so, and to get back home, Ash must quest for the Necronomicon and speak the magic words that will free it in to his possession. But when something goes wrong, he accidentally unleashes an army of Deadite soldiers led by an evil version of himself. Now he has to stop the Deadite conquest using his limited 20th century equipment and technology, combined with the weapons and tactics of the day.

Army of Darkness is a direct sequel to Evil Dead 2, which ended with Ash finding himself stranded hundreds of years in the past. The film is a bit toned down in terms of gore, and continues the trend of the previous film in terms of increasing humour. Yet it does so in a way that, unlike some series that went a similar direction, remains appealing and a lot of fun. Ash is now the bad ass he has been gradually becoming, and is placed in a situation which forces him to take on the stereotypical heroic quest and battle against evil.

While Army of Darkness is a great film, it still doesn't compare to the original Evil Dead. But we can all tingle a little with excitement about the recent news that there will be a new Evil Dead film released in 2013. Reportedly it does include Bruce Campbell, although details are few and far between as to whether it will be a new sequel, or a remake/reboot.

5 S Marts out of 5
Rated R for violence and horror.