Teen Vamp

Actually that film is quite safe. Okay, this was cheaper looking than I was expecting. And I wonder how they managed to rope in Glu Gulager? Reminded me of a two-bit horror-comedy (which doesn't always gel) take of Jim Carrey's 'Once Bitten', but set in a Bible Belt town during the 1950's.

A nerdy, unpopular teenager (Beau Bishop looking too old for the role... unless it's an in-joke) is transformed into a glowing green eyed vampire after spending a night with a lady of the night in a sleazy motel. Suddenly he's the talk of the high school, and his dream girl wants to get to know him. Still kooky, but a little darker and deadpan where the cheap look and execution plays to its advantage. The material's humour can be flat and have you cringing with dry character exchanges, but there's a weird vibe in its attempts of horror which can go for the jugular. Starts kinda slow, but once blood sucking begins. It gets better as it moves along with the odd surprise or two up its sleeve.

My review was written in May 1989 after watching the movie on New World video cassette.

Only related by title to New World's "Vamp", "Teen Vamp" is an amateurish, Southern-fried horror comedy with little to offer home video fans.

Shot in Shreveport, Louisiana, on an evidently threadbare budget, pic wallows in '50s nostalgia for a nonstory of nerd Beau Bishop transformed (very unconvincingly) into a leather-jacketed hip dude after a prostitute at a road house bites him.

His vampire status is taken very matter-of-factly by all concerned, except his pretty girlfriend Angie Brown, who demands he bite her too!

Cornpone approach to the vampire genre doesn't work, and isn't helped by amateur sound recording, poor makeup effects and a far too talky script. Guest stars Karen Carlson as Bishop's mom and Clu Gulager as a hammy minister have little to do. Bishop's charmless performance is a drag.

There is something so strange about this production. The film stock they used is definitely not the same as is used by mainstream filmmakers. It looks almost like Super 8mm or something primitive and cheap. The performances are all beyond awful, like they cast good-looking non-actors to act in it. As far as Clu Gallager's presence, I suspect somebody got the man drunk and tricked him into signing a contract to appear in this seemingly student-film production.

But as poor of a film as "Teen Vamp" is, I still give it 6 stars here, first, because it is so weird and obscure. And it has some other qualities too. For some reason I found it kind of erotic, despite the fact that there is no graphic sex. The vampire is a strange looking guy who is obsessed with an unattainable female classmate who snubs him for being a loser. But when he is transformed into a blood sucker with creepy white eyes, she suddenly gets all hot for him. Simultanaesly she shows that, even though she is a pretty blond airhead, she actually has a fascination with evil. She even takes him to an abandoned house where a man decapitated his twin babies and switched their heads! Also, you keep expecting it be a comedy, but it never really gets there. Instead it remains quite dark and sinister. Others bitched about the make-up effects but I thought they were fine, and the white vampire eyes were suitably creepy. And I'm surprised nobody mentioned the heavy atmospheric quality it has. The washed out film stock, the 1950's cars and clothes, and this seedy quality somehow comes together nicely. The actor they cast as Murphy the vampire is suitably skinny and creepy-looking, but also kind of sexy. He reminded me of Ryan Gosling, if Ryan Gosling smoked a lot of crack and had some mental issues. Weird, very obscure title, that I'm sure is not easy to find. But worth searching for if you are obsessed with vampires..or just truly strange cinema.

'50s high-school loser Murphy (Beau Bishop) plucks up the courage to ask cute blonde Conny (Angie Brown) for a date, but is bluntly turned down. Instead, he pays a visit to a local whorehouse where he hooks up with a leggy brunette who turns out to be a vampire looking for virgin blood. Having been bitten, Murphy transforms into a cocky, leather-jacketed bloodsucking hotshot who is strong enough to deal with jock bully Bucky (Evans Dietz) and cool enough to attract the attention of the once unattainable Conny.

No doubt inspired by the success of Teen Wolf, as well as teen-friendly vampire films Vamp, Fright Night and The Lost Boys, this low-budget horror/comedy fails on every level: it's not scary, it's not funny, the central character is unlikable, the love interest is a psychotic cat killer, and the plot is all over the place, even throwing some ghosts into the mix. There's little gore, and the only nudity on display comes from Bucky: a lingering shot of him from behind in the shower, and an extreme close up of his bare ass (making the film perfect for a double-bill with that queer horror classic A Nightmare On Elm Street 2).

After lots of quite frankly plain embarrassing silliness (Clu Gulager, what were you thinking?), the movie closes on a happy note, with everyone who was turned into a vampire reverting to normality when the hooker vamp is killed (all except for Conny, who is presumably still a nutjob). About the only good thing in the whole movie is the simple but effective look of the vampires: contact lenses and fangs and a bit of slap to make them look pale.

During the days when the video rental store reigned, this obscure horror comedy actually managed to get two releases on VHS (though the second time was on a budget video label.) But watching the movie, one has to ask why ANYONE would think that this movie was releasable in the first place. It's not that much of a step up from what teenagers would make with access to a video camera. The movie looks really cheap for the most part, maybe because some expense was made to set the action in the 1950s, a decision that has absolutely no bearing on the story - it would have been easier to set the story in modern times and use the saved money to punch up the look (and audio) of the movie. Also, the movie tries to be a comedy, but there's nothing funny about the screenplay as written, and things are made worse by the fact that director Samuel Bradford (who also wrote the movie) doesn't seem able to set up any gags with any skill or energy. In fact, the whole movie moves in a sluggish and endless manner. And don't get me started on the fact that the actor playing the title character looks about 30 years old instead of a teenager. This is one movie that was made to gather dust in thrift stores.