Vampirina – review

Director: Michele Pacitto

Release date: 2000

Contains spoilers

Ian spotted Vampirina on Amazon video and it took only a little bit of time to discover that this is a re-edit of a film previously released as Mistress of Seduction and also Dracula’s Dirty Daughter. The previous release versions came in at around 83 minutes and were essentially softcore flicks from the Seduction Cinema stable.

Vampirina cuts out most of the softcore elements (leaving some nudity, soaping and some really low key seduction/lesbian vampirism aspects). The aim, clearly, was to make it story focused, rather than sex focused but you can’t magic story where there was very little before.

out of the car boot

So, the lead character is Vampirina (Alysabeth Clements) who emerges out of her car boot and rings the number with a classified ad – a girl, Tanya (Michelle Tebow), who is seeking another bi-girl and goth. Despite the late hour, and the fact that she has woken Tanya up, Vampirina suggests going out to a horror movie the following evening. Tanya counters with a suggestion of Ally McBeal on TV (Vampirina then wonders about the goth aspect of the ad). She demands the girl’s address and goes over, breaking in to her bedroom. Tanya pulls a gun, realises it is the woman from the phone and Vampirina puts the bite on her.

Alysabeth Clements as vampirina

Vampirina is looking for a specific man. He killed her father (presumably, but never confirmed as, Dracula) in a past life. She has a picture of him in his new incarnation but doesn’t know where he is. Tanya recognises him as John (Thomas Martwick), the brother of her ex Corina (Gentle Fritz). They visit the sister and, whilst telling them to bugger off, Vampirina is able to make eye contact and get the address through telepathy. They go to the house – note it is daylight.

Thomas Martwick as John

John shares the house with Matt (Justiz Donaldson) and Pat (Josh Dirmish). Matt has put farmyard orientated porn on the telly and Pat is disgusted. After an argument, he moves out of the house – leaving them a roommate short. That’s when Vampirina and Tanya arrive. Tanya introduces Vampirina as Ally and the vampire suggests moving in (after almost breaking Matt’s fingers when she shakes his hand). She then arranges to meet another girl – making Tanya jealous and they leave for Tanya’s house.

sun trap for Tanya

On the way home Tanya is unwell and she vomits blood when she gets home. When she gets back downstairs Vampirina’s guest, Kristal (Kellie Brown), has arrived. Vampirina explains to the dying Tanya that vampires cannot stand sunlight (unless they are of a certain age) and her innards are “on fire” and liquidising. She allowed this to happen partly because Tanya has outlived her usefulness and partly because of the Ally McBeal (though she has arranged for the episodes to be ready for Tanya to watch when she gets to Hell).

vampire coven

Vampirina’s plan is to make John fall in love with her as it would be easy to kill him, or even to turn him, but she wants to steal his soul and for that she needs his love… But, believe me, I can’t see you really caring. The film is clearly done on the cheap and the storyline is perfunctory at best. There is, for example, a trip to a strip club, which fails to have the camera enter the establishment (whether it did in the original edit is not clear but as we get a 3-minute scene in this of the stripper (Diane Skiba), who Vampirina picks up, soaping her boobs in the shower, I doubt the strip club interior location was ever used as there would be little point cutting it). We do discover in that section that vampires dislike blood with steroids.

bloody maw

The acting is, at best, amateurish. Alysabeth Clements does her best to vamp it up but faces the difficulty of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear of rubbish dialogue, plot, direction and filming, I’m afraid. The original aim of the film was low budget cheap sexual thrills and the story, acting and photography matched the original aim. All in all not a great film. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page (for the Mistress of Seduction cut) is here.