Honourable Mention: Van Von Hunter

Van Von Hunter is a parody manga that was released in three volumes by Tokyo Pop. The series concentrated on Van, a vanquisher of evil and there is a vampire element in the series with one of Van’s nemesis being the Count Disdain.

So why is this film an honourable mention?

Well it starts with a trailer, one could call it (though later we discover that it is meant to represent a full film). In the green screen produced film we see Van (Yuri Lowenthal, Dear Dracula) fighting evil in his native land of Dickay and that evil is a vampire menace – thus we get plenty of fangs flashing. When the film comes to an end we see a riot in an anime convention and the cast and crew that have created the film leg it.

a vampire

The idea is that Van von Hunter vanquished all evil in Dickay and, looking for a new challenge, travelled through a portal to Earth (and ended up in Hollywood). In a bar he gets drunk and regales two guys with his stories – they happen to be the creators of the manga Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch. Later he is found by a film student Patrick (Travis Stevens), who makes the strangely dressed and sword carrying Van the subject of a documentary (which is what we watch).

Yuri Lowenthal as Van

He discovers that Tokyo Pop are casting for a Van Von Hunter film and persuades Van to go for it… something that he would have failed to be cast for but Tokyo Pop realise that the writers have plagiarised his life. What we get then is the filming of Van Von Hunter, the failure of the film, Van’s quest to go to Japan and subsequent enlightenment.

So vampires only at the head and it is a spoof film within a spoof documentary. The actual film is definitely too long but was an interesting idea. The imdb page is here.