Wednesday, August 03, 2016

Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills – review


Director: Dean McKendrick

Release date: 2015

Contains spoilers


And, when I say “contains spoilers” on this one it is so wafer thin story wise that it would prove very difficult not to have spoilers.

There are very thin lines between exploitation, erotic and softcore films. I’d say pretty much this is a softcore film that follows a general porn line of having gossamer thin story segments that segue into a rude section but in the case of this film, it’s strictly a ‘no genitalia on show’ affair and, unfortunately, about as erotic as a brick, to boot.

Vlad and the villager
So, after opening credits showing a cgi graveyard we are in Castle Dracula. Vlad Dracula ( Daniel Hunter) enters in with a villager, Maria (Cassandra Cruz), and in dialogue that is as painfully delivered as it is ineptly written, gets her a drink. She is about to leave and so he mojos her and suddenly we are in the first of a series of sex scenes. At the end he bites her.

Adriana Chechik as Morticia
In comes Vlad’s number 1 gal, or should that be ghoul. Morticia (Adriana Chechik) is somewhat upset about his action – after all they spend a fortune on synthetic blood and his attacking live prey is likely to have the villagers up in arms. As if on cue a vampire hunter appears, in the form of Alexa (Sarah Hunter). Vlad and Morticia hide around a corner and Alexa destroys the now turning Maria with a sprinkle of holy water. Vlad and Morticia have no other choice, they feel, but to go to their summer house in Beverly Hills.

Jane and Stacy
Bob (Brandon Ruckdashel) is a lawyer and his wife Jane (Jacqui Holland, Teeth and Blood & Brides of Sodom) does charity work for the Society to Help the Itinerant Transients (S.H.I.T.). Bob’s colleague Stacy (Jazy Berlin) is involved in the charity but also wants to bed Bob. That evening Jane sees folks (Vlad and Morticia) move into the house next door at night, without suitcases, and believes this to be odd.

no reflection
During the day, Jane and Stacy go over to say hello – but, of course, no one answers. Jane has a snoop around and then goes over in the evening and introduces herself. Having seen that Morticia and Vlad cast no reflection in her compact she makes her excuses and leaves – goes to a bar, gets drunk, meets Alexa (who carries her crossbow in the club, as you do) and then fails to convince Bob that her belief in vampires is not a drunken hallucination.

holy water
She hooks up with Alexa to break into the house in the morning and they put holy water in two empty coffins (we are told later they were decoy coffins). Vlad and Morticia are in the next room but remain undiscovered because bats fly at the girls and Jane legs it screaming. Alexa decides they will have to wait until morning the next day to return, so a dose of lesbian sex seems to be just what the doctor ordered for Jane and Alexa!

hunter gear 
I won’t go on, the story isn’t in any way, shape or form complex. I will touch on lore, which seems to be made up as they go along. So, they must sleep with native earth, sunlight weakens but doesn’t destroy them, holy water does destroy them but crosses apparently have no effect. Their mojo is so strong that they can hypnotically subsume a person’s will almost immediately, which begs the question “why are they bothered about the hunter?” A bite turns.

bitten
As I said, the sex scenes are tamely presented, not overly erotic and thus they seem to go on for ever. If we cut them out the running time would drop to almost nothing. The acting is pants and we get CGI crap bats. This really doesn’t have a huge amount going for it. Morticia announcing “Oi Vey” might be a cheeky reference to the Fearless Vampire Killers. There is little point to this, 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

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