Vamps and the City – review

Director: Dennis Devine

Release Date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Oh dear, oh dear… Now I am not a fan of Sex and the City, a show/film series best avoided to my way of thinking, and so a vampire version (or rip off) didn’t fill me with confidence aplenty. The fact that it is of the lowest of budgets didn’t help but I was slightly upbeat by the fact that it was by Cleopatra – known for their Goth CDs – and so expected some positive aspects to the soundtrack.

Alas, this was not to be. A band called Spiders and Snakes appear at the head of the film and towards the end… and quite frankly they were, at best, very sub-Alice Cooper. The rest of the soundtrack was so forgettable that I have, indeed, forgotten it. I should take this moment to thank Everlost, who pushed me in the direction of this doozie.

Noelle Perris as Claire

So, we start with the band and then cut to Sherry (Jade Brandais, Dark House) getting out of the coffin (or crate, to be fair). A female vamp, later revealed to be Claire (Noelle Perris), approaches her and Sherry cannot move. She awakens in her coffin and we discover that she has the dream often but can never remember the face of the female vampire seducing her. Sherry is our narrator.

about to have a cow

Aretha (Heather Howe) is dressed up as a beauty queen as it is Halloween. She is about to chow down on an unsuspecting man in a cow suit (Derek Lui) when a woman bursts in calling her an unholy creature. She is Mrs Van Helsing (Jayne Clement) and poorly delivered over-acting is the order of the day. She is with her son Henry (David Coe), a young man who appears to be challenged mentally and who has forgotten the stake and put tap water in the holy water bottle. She stabs Aretha in the stomach (with a glass, I think) before Aretha makes a speech about vampires no longer killing and throwing the woman out. We do discover that Mr Van Helsing was killed by vampires.

Scarlet and Sherry

So the film splits in two ways, we follow the romantic misadventures of Sherry and her friends. Aretha is a bit of a play-girl, Sherry is dating the married Mr Huge (Justin Ferrari) a sewage magnate with unfortunate smells and large manly girth. Their friends (and roommates) are Scarlet (Tammy De Kauwe), whose fellow has noodle trouble, and Lorinda (Danielle Motley), who has a fellow with one pea-sized and one-grapefruit sized testis. The humour then follows with (what looks like) mayonnaise on her face as a special effect – oh how I laughed, not.

Christina Desiere as Betty

The other path sees the evil vampires, led by Claire along with Scarena (Caitlin Rose Williams), Tina (Sasanna Babashoff) and Betty (Christina Desiere). They wish to destroy the good vampires for giving them a bad name and Scarena killed Mr Van Helsing. Mrs Van Helsing is manipulated into the story, but it saved her sharing a motel bed with her son. Overall there wasn’t really much of a story.

brave vampire hunters

Vampire lore is fairly standard with a couple of non-standard bits that consist of the idea that a vampire victim (who isn’t killed) will act drunk after the feed, forget the events, wake in the morning with a hangover and the bites will have healed and that vampires dream of the time they were turned. This doesn’t explain Sherry dreaming of Claire – as this seems to be a possible future event – but that is a point left unanswered.

Bad effects, bad acting and no real story – the film is poor. However some of the girls look pleasant enough and they seem to be having fun at least. Overall though, I would avoid. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.