Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires: The Curse of Ed Wood - review

Directed by: Tim Swartz

Release Date: 1999 according to disc, 2003 by IMDb

Contains Spoilers

The best I can say about this film is that it should win an award for the name. Other than that…

We begin in a movie lot and then get a voice over about a man who seeks deviant pleasures, a man who is known as Beelzebub or simply the Beast. The voice over refers to Mr Creepo, the host of the film, who we then see entering a cemetery in order to raise the spirit of Ed Wood in order to save the movie production. He appears a couple of times in the proceedings, although to associate the name Ed Wood with this film is to do the B movie director a disservice.

We cut to a house and then a softcore lesbian scene, enacted between Lilith (Stephanie Bloode) and her lover (Theda Baire). What to say about this? Erotic… no. Sexy… no. This is a dismal scene with lots of stroking and badly dubbed gasping. Occasionally we see two red lights (I guess they were meant to be eyes) and a bat, which is screenshot here. At least Creepo has the good grace to admit that the bat was shabby in the centre part of the film.

The next day Lilith asks for commitment and her lover says no, so she walks out. Cue scenes of her in the city and awfully 80s soap opera music. She is approached by Carmilla (Lolita Langsuir), a strange girl with, as the screenshot demonstrates, the largest chin in the vampire movie industry, who speaks in third person for no good reason. Cue skipping through a graveyard, into a crypt/dungeon and another tame softcore lesbian encounter, this time with red filters on the lens or red lighting. This ends with some biting then… I can’t go on describing this. Suffice it to say Carmilla has chosen Lillith as her mate, there is a vampire slayer named Muffy (Circe) – oh gee that’s a funny name – who enlists the help of Lilith’s lover in order that they might save Lilith. There are several softcore scenes including a tame S&M scene and a bloodbath with two girls that is actually a water shower with a pack of blood hung up nearby and squirted. The twist ending is so obvious that if you don’t spot it I’d give up watching films.

Let’s get to the really bad parts. The acting is so bad it just cannot be described. The film quality is awful. There is a section of the film where sound is lost and you can only hear scrapping of the mike and I don’t believe it was an issue with the actual DVD but a problem on film.

One vampire gets staked and the stake is held at her breast by herself – at one point you see her lift it up from her body. She burns, and the screenshot here illustrates the 'quality' of that 'special' effect.

We get repeated setting shots of the same statue and sunset scene. There are cheap plastic fangs on some of the vampires and in one shot they come loose and the vampire pushes them back up by tongue. We see a newly turned vampire rise from the grave, but it is actually, and very obviously, from a pile of leaves.

In the fight finale we see Muffy, who has the power to turn water into holy water (!), turn her back to camera and we can see the mike pack on her waistband. The list could go on and on.

Now, even worse… the desecration. There is a scene where Muffy gives us the background on vampires to a series of stills, including stills from Nosferatu (1922). Before I declare “How dare they!” to that, I’ve got to say that referencing Carmilla was an even greater sin.

I suppose this could have been so bad it was funny, but it was just painful. I kept checking the time, to see how long I had to endure this, as I watched and the only reason I didn’t switch this off was because I was reviewing it; having spent money for the dubious honour of watching this wouldn’t have been enough to make me keep it on. Pendulum Pictures should be ashamed of themselves for foisting this onto the Brutal Bloodsuckers DVD and thus an unsuspecting public. There is nothing in it to recommend this movie, 0 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.