Vampire Trailer Park – review

Director: Steve Latshaw

Release date: 1991

Contains spoilers

I always say that comedy is subjective but despite not matching my humour this straight to video 90s flick did actually manage a level of charm that I didn’t expect. Not that it is a great film, indeed it is anything but a great film, however it is certainly a cut above some of the 90s straight to video fodder.

It is floating around online in rather low resolution and that, of course, does not help its cause and, to be fair, in the first 5 minutes this was going straight towards a place in my bottom 100. Read on, however, as it managed to escape that fate.

the first victim

So, it starts in a trailer court and we see a woman walking along. She has a paper bag of groceries and is going to be cooking a fish as she has a date with a nice man. We go into pov and hear a laboured heavy breathing. She is attacked and then, as she lies with her neck bloody, we hear a retching sound and a splatter of blood hits the victim. Another trailer park, more laboured breathing and another attack, on an elderly man. His dropped newspaper says about a vampire killer and the 5th attack. Blood is vomited across it.

Ethel Miller as Aunt Hattie

To be honest it was the annoying laboured breath sound-effect and the pov in this entirely no budget affair that was pushing me to already, minutes in, consider the magic zero score. The next scene has a woman leaving a trailer park; unable to convince a friend to leave as well, she admits she has hired a detective and a psychic. She walks away and we get the breathing and following pov, until the vampire (Patrick Moran) pukes and she, still unawares, gets away. He crawls to a car and climbs in, we hear the driver, later revealed as Aunt Hattie (Ethel Miller), say she wishes he were a vegetarian. The car follows the woman, passes her and stops, the door opens and she looks in…

the client

The detective is Andrew Holt (Robin Schurtz, Vampire Cop) and his partner, the psychic and medium Jennifer Baiswell (Kathy Moran), are looking for their missing client. They find her in a building site, dead and drained. Blood spatter nearby suggests to Holt that the vampires they are dealing with vomit. Holt goes to meet a cop who gives him a file but, officially, the cops aren’t investigating! He returns to Jennifer who becomes possessed by her grandmother – who was a victim of the vampire (presumably some time ago). She gives them a cryptic clue that will lead them to the Twin Palms trailer park.

Robin Schurtz as Holt

Now as it happens the owners of the park, harridan Wilma (Elizabeth Ochoa) and her lothario (with the geriatric female residents) husband Buddy (Michael Street) are offered ¼ million dollars for the land – but they have to clear it of residents in two weeks. Unfortunately they can’t just evict them as they are life lease holders – so they have a lot of residents to kill in order that they will get the offered money. It also happens that Aunt Hattie decides to move there with her nephew (the vampire) to use the place as a buffet and then Buddy meets wannabe Bonnie and Clyde, Buzz (Bently Tittle) and Jana (Blake Pickett), and hires them to do some killing.

put 'em up, vampire

There isn’t much lore offered. The vampire was a plantation and slave owner who died in 1746 and Hattie became his helper when young – realising that she will be replaced eventually but content, it seems. He uses TV to hypnotise people and crosses apparently are apotropaic. Why he vomits is not explained – he complains about low grade food and she mentions a ‘sign of disorders’. However the annoying laboured breathing is cut after the opening.

Kathy Moran as Jennifer

It really isn’t great. The story sags with holes, the comedy is mostly a miss and the performances amateur at best but… As I say there is something at least a little compelling about it, an earnestness there despite itself. For that reason, I’m content to boost this up to a magnificent (for this) 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.