VampireMovies

Darke Reviews | Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

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Ah 1992 how I look back on you as one of, if not the favorite summer of my life. Lifeguarding at a pool surrounded by cuties, A League of Their Own, Bram Stokers Dracula, and a movie with a ridiculous title but that I was required to see by an unwritten law of the undead – Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Written by a man whom at the time no one knew, some guy called Joss Whedon (heard of him since then?) who had this concept of mixing horror with a level of self aware ridiculousness and a storyline at the time we had never seen before. He sold his idea to the studio 20th Century Fox, who bared their teeth and showed him just what kind of damage they are willing to do to his ideas in the years to come.

Fran Rubel Kuzui (director and producer), who still has film rights to the name, concept and characters treated the introductory work the way Vlad Tepes treated his dinner guests. Turned this intresting concept into raw camp and borderline schlock with no love for the writers intent, vampires, movies, or actors.

Let us add to the butchering a well known actor who refused to concede on anything and to this day Whedon dislikes by the name of Donald Sutherland. We will fill our movie out with Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Rubens, Rutger “I’m here for a paycheck” Hauer, Luke “90210” Perry, Hilary Swank in her first movie role, David “Scream” Arquette, and Kristy “I’ve done nothing you know since” Swanson. Let me also include Thomas “Punisher” Jane (in his first movie), an uncredited Ben Affleck, Ricki Lake, and Seth Green Stir it together in celluloid for 92 minutes and you have a beautiful mess that somehow ended up being as entertaining as it was horrible.

The effects are sufficient for the time especially when you consider the ridiculousness the studio went for over the semi-serious tone that was intended. Make up wise it is oddly better than average with some small attention to detail that might be overlooked. The look of the vampires were comical but at least they had fangs and drank blood.

While the final product was utterly ridiculous, it does have some beautiful gems of dialogue and moments where you can’t help but laugh as you’re rolling your eyes at it. Swanson actually despite everything shows more growth during the film than many movies can claim for their heroine. She has moments where her acting shines showing the vulnerability of a teenage girl faced with a completely strange world and how she deals with it. She captures a bit of the fear and incredulousness at her new situation along with her transition from vapid and shallow to the savior of the school and Slayer. There are plenty of subtle nuances in her performance and a delicate fatigue she brings as the movie progresses to it’s climax.

Thankfully, for vampire fans everywhere, five years later Joss Whedon once again gave the concept to Warner Bros who let him hold to his vision and gave us the Buffy TV series we all know and love.

So 21 years after release where does that leave us for TL;DR?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie needs to be watched at least once. Embrace the ridiculousness and praise the Whedon that he was able to salvage the characters to become an amazing seven season show.

Buffy is and always will remain a guilty pleasure movie of mine, while not good, still highly entertaining with one liners I quote to this day.

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Tomorrow’s review realized if it wasn’t fun – whats the point.

Darke Reviews | Kiss of the Damned (2013)

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If you know me – at all – you know Vampires are what I live, breathe and bleed. So when I hear of two indy vampire films being made and released in the early part of this year that take the subject matter seriously I get interested. Neil Jordan’s Byzantium and Xan Cassavetes Kiss of the Damned, two films barely released within the US market. Why? They weren’t marketable to what american audiences are asking for. While I have not gotten my hands on a copy of Byzantium; I was lucky enough to find Kiss of the Damned on Netflix.

Writer/Director Xan (Alexandra) Cassavetes, clearly has a similar passion to mine on the subject of vampires. While I am loathe to admit it, I can see some inspiration in her work from the Twilight films; however where the vampires there were fangless, bloodless and nearly sexless, Xan’s vampires are the complete opposite. They are erotic in a way we have not seen since the late sixties and early seventies vampire films now plied with modern sensibilities. Though I did say she may have taken some inspiration from Twilight, as there appears to be a nod or two in the direction of Forks in some of the dialogue, it is also evident she loves the pulpy, sexy, Vampire films that all but ended after The Hunger.

Kiss of the Damned brings those 70’s erotic horror styles and melds them with strong european (mostly french) film styles of the current era. The Vampires here are sexy, they are vulnerable and they do love their blood. These stylistic choices are definitely not for all audiences, which can and do often slow the pacing to a crawl and bring imagery that goes too heavily into the abstract art than clear visual film presentations.

The story you ask? It’s a love story (of course) in which succesful screen writer Paolo (Heroes Milo Ventigmilia) encounters the enigmatic beauty Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume – you’ve never seen her in anything, I promise). It’s love at first sight, followed by first bite as the movie waste little time in having the lovely Djuna turn her paramour. The rest of the film deals with his entry into the world of vampires and the appearance of Mimi, Djuna’s gothic lolita sister. Mimi’s presence seeks to turn Djuna and Paolo’s, much less the local vampire communities world upside down.

The acting was everything I expected from a foreign film, subdued, nuanced and elegant. Stylistically it’s a world I think I would like to escape to given the opportunity and I rank it up there with the great gothic vampire films mentioned earlier. There are also some interesting sound choices for the music that some audiophiles will be intrigued by. Cinematically, however, as I mentioned the film veers into art more than story telling a few times and while sometimes appropriate it can be distracting. It does not skip on the gore and the make up work is above par for what we get these days.

So for the TL;DR crowd, the part you’ve been waiting for.

If you are a vampire phile like me , this one is not to be missed.
If you like erotic and or romantic horror, check it out.

Otherwise, sadly, the studios were right, this one is not for the mass market. A shame that as I truly did enjoy the first real vampire film I’ve seen in quite some time.
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Hint for tomorrows review – Is that gasoline I smell?