carlykristen

Officer Johnson (Tommy "Tiny"Lister) is tracking down a string of murders in Las Vegas and his son-in-law just happens to attract the attention of the local vampire ring. When his partner is murdered and a vampire is caught, Will he finally believe? Or does it take a super sexy nun to show him the vampire fighting way? Well, it is obviously the second option.

To start off, this is a great cast featuring "Tiny" (Friday), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), Daniel Baldwin (Vampires), Glenn Plummer (Saw II), and Kurupt (rap group, Tha Dogg Pound). There is also an appearance by K-ci & Jojo. And I did a bit of snooping around here and noticed an A. Demetrius Brown listed as Writer/ Executive Producer. Now that means he is either the guy serving time in prison or the kid from the band B2K that broke up.

Combining hip hop, vampires, Las Vegas, cop melodrama, and blaxploitation, this could have easily have been a failure. But it wasn't. Surprising, the production values were very high with great locations, fantastic musical backdrops, and an amusing cast.

There are some scenes and dialogue that are obviously corny. For instance, why would the vampires feed in public where they can, and do, get caught? And they break a rule that vampires cannot enter a residence unless invited. And that Black nun sure was sassy for a follower of the lord. But the silly scenes are overshadowed by some funny moments, like when a girl is running to her truck to get away and drops her keys right as she gets in. But before I could roll my eyes, she swung the door knocking the vampire over and took the keys from him. There is also a scene where Roundtree karate kicks a vampires head right off! There is a brief topless vampire orgy scene for anyone interested in that. Gore includes a decapitation, vampires burning in the sun, neck suckage, and bullet wounds. I just wished there was more of it and they focused less on the young kids. The "flying vampire" effects were simple, but effective too. Instead of hooking someone up on a wire and swinging them around, they added some effect afterwards to blur out the image and make it appear as though he is moving extremely fast.

IMDb will have this listed as Vegas Vamps (2003), but the actual DVD release is Feb. 27th 2007 under Vegas Vampires by Code Black Entertainment and runs at 89 minutes. The film quality is good and if it was shot on video, I couldn't tell. The SFX was good when it occurred, which wasn't enough.

DVD Extras: N/A. It was a screener and I cannot find any info from other sites.

Favorite Quote: Girl accidentally runs over her boyfriend in truck and asks him, "Oh my god! Are you okay?" Boyfriend replies, "No, you just hit me with a truck dumbass." Bottom Line: Pretty tame blaxploitation vampire flick with some fun to be had though.

Rating: 7/10

by Molly Celaschi

Brenda (Linda Blair), head of the Satins girl gang, is on a mission of vigilante justice after the Scars gang attacks her deaf (& mute) sister and kills her best friend. You see, the Scars like to cruise for dates (aka grab completely random women off the streets and rape them). When the sniveling whiney thug suddenly gets "rape buyers remorse", the cat is let out of the bag in more ways than one.

Linnea Quigley plays Heather, Brenda's deaf younger sister. Heather gets raped, and the most disturbing part, well besides the obvious reason that it is rape, is that she is a young girl and deaf. Quigley is anorexic and this is pre-op breast augmentation, so she is barely batting an A-cup average here, making her look like she is thirteen years old. The rape is played out in the worst way possible with her innocently twirling around like a little ballerina before she notices one of the Scars gang members checking her out. He talks with her in a friendly manner; tricking the audience into thinking he means her no harm. But all the thugs show up and rape her in the bathroom. While she is laying on the floor, head thug Jake makes sure to kick her so hard in the head that it puts her in a coma. And this disturbing scene is cut in with the goofy "girl fight" in the showers, which was hysterical. So I am watching a terrible rape scene, then cutting to girls bouncing around in showers and pushing each other, then back to the child rape again.

The next victim is Brenda's best friend, Francine. Her crime and reason for punishment? She cut Jake with a knife when the guys tried to molest her and beat up random guys in a club. Francine is pregnant and getting married to her man. After trying on her wedding dress, she is chased down by the Scars gang. Jake catches her, throws her over an overpass killing her, then tosses her wedding dress over too. Could these scenes be any more vile? Sure they could be, but you can give credit to Steinmann for trying his sick best.

Now after the whiney little punk in the Scars gang feels guilty for his rape and assistance in the murder, he confesses to his crime and Brenda is all over it. Stacked with big breasts and a crossbow, she hunts down each member one by one. Cue "Justice for all, You get what you get when you've broken the law" and she is off on her killing spree with some great one liners. Linda Blair won the Worst Actress Razzie Award for this role in 1986. I can't blame them for awarding her with it, but I have to say that her over the top performance added some much needed humor to this otherwise dreary film. The last part of the movie is the most fun to watch, but sadly with all her tough womaness, she still resorts to the Please-don't-hurt-me-after-I-tripped-while-running cliché at the very end. Oh well. She did kick @ss most of the time and all the dudes get their payback.

I'm not sure if the movie was meant to be serious or funny. I would like to think it was the former. During a classroom scene, a teacher asks, "What does Sex and Death have in common?" And although she doesn't give the answer, the movie does to some degree. One of the students says that sex and death are forever, so you could argue that the sex crimes against Heather will last forever while the deaths of the Scars gang are equally eternal as well. As Brenda is torturing Jake, she says, "This will not be quick."

There is a highly interesting cast presented for your enjoyment as well. John Vernon (ANIMAL HOUSE, KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE) plays the principal. Maybe the film was meant to be one of those LEAN ON ME knockoffs. Who knows? And Brenda's best friend Francine is played by Lisa Freeman (BACK TO THE FUTURE, Friday THE 13TH Part 4) and the recognizable, even in the background, Marcia Karr played the lead in KILLER WORKOUT and starred in CHAINED HEAT as well.

But some silly problems occurred like the boom mic popping into the scenes (watch the P.E. gym scene). Also, Heather is described in some parts/descriptions as being a "deaf-mute", which doesn't sound correct. A Deaf-Mute is an inaccurate and offensive term since deaf and people have functioning vocal chords and "mute" means without voice. So for her character to really be a mute, she must have damaged to her vocal chords, which was never explained in the movie. Meaning if she really wasn't "mute", then she could have screamed during her attack, therefore making Brenda's dramatic line "she couldn't even scream for help" devoid of any validity. In addition, Quigley clearly wasn't trained to be a deaf person. She just kinda wandered around quietly with no mannerisms and didn't bother to learn sign language.

It is also worth noting that the superior Tom DeSimone (HELL NIGHT, THE CONCRETE JUNGLE, and some gay porn) was the original director, but quit after a few days. Steinmann (a weak Friday THE 13TH PART 5) came aboard. Not sure if Steinmann was the original writer or if he received writing credits after having to rewrite some scenes when the director and a few actors left the production. But rewrites would explain why some people disappeared from the film halfway through. The seemingly important classroom, hallway, and locker room scenes were all left hanging. I feel like this was meant to be a commentary on the trials of high school life.

Bottom Line: Incredibly gritty look at mean streets and high school drama while maintaining funny 80's movie staples. In the vein of YOUNG WARRIORS.

Rating: 9/10

by Molly Celaschi www.HorrorYearbook.com