Red Lips II: Bloodlust – review

Director: Donald Farmer

Release date: 1996

Contains spoilers

So, a year after Red Lips we get Red Lips 2: Bloodlust. It is a little difficult to tell who a lot of the cast are – apologies for that – as character names aren’t given for most and then those that are they are different or unlisted on imdb! Don’t try to use the credits, they are just as bad. The Credits do suggest that this is in memory of Maria Oritz, who died in 2000 – presumably this was added to the DVD.

in the bar

Anyway, after some opening scenes of lesbians with a vampiric projection upon them, we see Holly (Debbie Rochon, Skeleton Key, Vampyre Tales, A Feast of Flesh and Rage of the Werewolf) walk into a bar and then a girl starts talking to her. Now, we never hear her name but given she is Maria Oritz, and is credited as Caroline we should assume the character from the first film – or maybe not. Anyhoo Holly mentions having just seen a vampire movie and Caroline starts blathering on about wanting to be one and dreaming of it etc and so on.

Jenny Wallace as Melinda

The film then cuts to Melinda (Jenny Wallace, Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls) – though IMDb suggest the character is called Jenny – who is sat with a guy called Ewen (I think and I have absolutely no idea who played him). They are a couple of thieves ready to rob a nightclub, which incidentally is the most unconvincing club set I think I have seen in a film. She has to distract the owner (Rick Martin) while he gets the cash. She needs a fix first.

She goes to the toilet with a single open-plan cubicle and a blonde woman comes in and offers her addictions far beyond drugs. And the blonde is called... Okay, right towards the end her name is given as Caroline – just to confuse matters. An imdb commentator thought she was Natasha – I suspect not, I suspect that Natasha is another character altogether. Thus I think she is Caroline played by Kashmere but I stand to be corrected.

Caroline the blonde with Melinda

Anyhoo, Melinda gets the manager to go into the ladies and Caroline eats him. What has this to do with Caroline the brunette (we will refer to them by hair colour to prevent further confusion) who is in the bar with Holly? I really don’t know. Perhaps it is a retelling of her dreams or perhaps it is just unrelated bunkum. The film keeps cutting back to Holly and Caroline the brunette but their dialogue doesn’t quite fit with the footage we watch. Melinda and Ewen go to a room and have sex until Caroline the blonde appears at a window and Melinda casually knocks his noggin with a beer bottle and pledges allegiance to Caroline the blonde.

in the graveyard

Anyway, Melinda and Caroline the blonde become lovers and Ewen follows them round the city. This becomes resolved, somehow, when they enter a graveyard during the day and the screen is washed with an odd effect. Eventually Caroline the blonde approaches Ewen and kisses him. Does she then attack? The film doesn’t show or tell; she simply walks on with Melinda in the next shot.

projections

They get to a flat and when Melinda asks how long Caroline the blonde has been a vampire she refuses to tell. Their conversation leads to a lesbian rub-down whilst vampiric images are projected over their flesh. I think one film involved may have been a Christopher Lee Dracula (not 100% sure regarding that) but some images were recognisably from the Vampire Lovers - I wonder if royalties were paid?

Anyway, Melinda begs to be a vampire, Caroline the blonde turns her and they go to a cinema for a hunt and this forces us to watch 15 minutes (or at least it felt like that) of a movie within the movie within the movie – some thing about Russian spies and a patient zero causing people to die in seconds by touch. Absolutely no connection to the film and rather pants. Melinda and Caroline the blonde feed on a patron and that’s the last we see of them.

attack

As for Caroline the brunette, given Holly hasn’t run off she seems to be offering a quick bite in the bathroom. Will she attack and will Holly survive? By this point you won’t give a fudge, although the accompanying screenshot will give at least one part of those questions away. Now, I will say that this is better acted than the first film – strange that, after all it couldn’t get worse.

Absolute nonsense. 1 out of 10. The imdb page is here.

Extra Bit – Red Lips: Eat the Living

There is a third film in the ‘series’ – and I do use the term loosely. Red Lips: Eat the Living is a collection of four shorts – dated to 2005 – that are actually all zombie flicks, more or less. Okay they are called Ghouls in one (which is exactly what Romero called zombies in Night of the Living Dead). One of the stories involves a prophetic video tape and one has a more or less normal looking gal who lures drivers in by posing as a hitchhiker, before her zombie family eat the victims. They act fairly much around Romero standard but can speak.

So why mention it here. Well you see the wraparound is vampire… its just… well it is the same wraparound that we saw in Bloodlust – with Maria Oritz (whose character’s name is changed to Daphne according to IMDb) and Debbie Rochon (whose character’s name changes to Debbie, again according to IMDb). Absolute filmic self-cannibalism – though given the subject matter of the shorts that almost seems apt.

For those interested the imdb page is here.