Twilight Vamps – review

Director: Nicholas Medina

First released: 2010

Contains spoilers

The blurb on the back of the Twilight Vamps DVD first asks, “Who doesn’t like a good vampire Nudie Bar movie?” and with an opening like that you just know what you are going to get… No… well let us take the director.

Nicholas Medina. Never heard of him? You have, my good blog readers for this is a pseudonym of none other than Fred Olen Ray, master of cheese and pointless sex scenes! You know what though? This was fun and it was fun because it was entirely cheeky (and occasionally for being funny when it shouldn’t have been). Take the credits that inform us that the film is based on the famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe – now that is cheek.

After the drawn-effect credits we see the bordello like Nudie Bar, Shadows, and it is constructed via computer graphic! Once inside there is a girl a-dancing and guys throwing money at her. Now that has got to be the acting gig of the century, just sit and lob money on a makeshift stage in, what looks like, a converted warehouse. These girls are talented though, money is thrown down upon the stage and yet later one removes her skirt and a bill is already tucked in her thong!

So, upstairs in the VIP lounge, a guy (unnamed) is having naughties with a dancer, Amanda (Dena Kollar). Yes Fred treats us to many a simulated sex scene in this film, it is chock-a-block with them – but we’ll get to those soon enough. After they have finished said girl sprouts fangs and bites him. In comes Tabitha (Brandin Rackley, Vampire in Vegas) and they have a laugh about how much money they drained from his credit card downstairs and his, now unneeded, wallet.

Meet Jack (Frankie Cullen, Vampire in Vegas) he is getting ready for work when his girlfriend, Louise (Beverly Lynne, a perennial Fred favourite), comes down. He has been working every hour god sends and she, apparently, doesn’t work. Thus he hasn’t had any for a month and so suggests a little hanky panky before work. No, she hasn’t showered but… he’ll get some later that night.

At work his boss (Ron Ford) informs him that his work is not up to scratch compared to Roger (Tony Marino), who has just been promoted above Jack. Roger later suggests that they go to the new place Shadows to celebrate. Jack turns the offer down… after all he is on a promise. Let us just mention the dialogue and delivery. It isn’t good acting but it is fabulous… it is like Fred said, give me more cheese and the cast complied, all the way to camembert. It is sooo cheesy it is wonderful. Anyway, Louise phones him and says her friend Kyra (Jenaveve Jolie) has a fever and she’ll be going to care for her that night.

Actually, Louise is a lesbian, only with Jack to take him for his money but this leads us nicely into discussing the sex scenes… Louise has two, one with Kyra and the other with random gal Tammy (Michelle Maylene). Now the Kyra one was funny. Kyra was down on her, so high up that she could only have had her tongue in Beverly Lynne’s naval. Then we see Louise use her hand on what is clearly the upper thigh rather than anywhere intimate. That was amusing, but nothing could beat Jack at it with two vampire girls (a rocking threesome, as he describes it, straight to camera) and one is meant to be giving him head… except the camera moves round and we get a clear shot of his still flaccid bits, nowhere near mouth or hand in a… flesh coloured cock sock! Laugh, I almost wet myself. This film has its tongue shoved firmly in its cheek, but nothing else!

So… Jack and Roger go to the club. Tabitha makes a play for Jack and Angela (Christine Nguyen) goes off with Roger. Jack turns down Tabitha due to having Louise at home… but then gets a Dear John letter (and his savings emptied out). He has to i.d. his friend's body the next day and, later, the cop – detective Simpson (Ted Newsome) – fails to connect Roger's drained body with the other killings that have occured and arrests Jack. Before then Jack returns to the club and is told that it is Tabitha’s night off but given her address, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, how cheeky is that!

He is drugged by Tabitha and yet manages to have sex with her before waking at his desk unharmed. It is then he is arrested and has the blinding realisation that the girls are vampires! Where he gets this from we don’t know, but Simpson doesn’t believe him. Angela materialises in his cell and will help him on two conditions, firstly he leaves town and never comes back and secondly he rocks her world, so to speak, in the cell.

He doesn’t leave town though, rather he becomes amateur Van Helsing, researching the undead – in the big book of vampires. The level of the film is shown when he tries to find a stake, pulls a t-bone out of the fridge and wonders how it will help. He also discovers that holy water is useful against the legions of the night and, luckily, he has a bottle of holy water from Lourdes on hand, as you do.

It is, unfortunately, out of date… but I can spoil that it still works – for this is how he kills vampires in the film. That is about all the lore we get. Angela appears in his cell during the day but also makes a comment about Cancun not being good for vampires, presumably due to all the sun. All in all, this adds nothing new and exciting into the genre (and let’s face it the Nudie Bar seems to be a Fred favourite location, be it straight or gay).

I have mentioned the cheesy acting and I have mentioned the awfully simulated sex. Yet I sat with a big ol’ smile on my face because this film knew exactly what it was and revelled in it, making no apology. It was disposable fluff and was damn funny with it (as I say, often unintentionally but… well I’d like to think that Fred and the film editor noticed the cock sock and left it in for a laugh). The actual film stock quality was rather good. This didn’t feel like a camcorder classic.

It is not a good film, but it is disposable fun. 3.5 out of 10 is probably too generous a score but I can’t bear to give the film less. The imdb page is here.