Honourable Mention: Scared Stiff

This was a 1987 Hong Kong movie directed by Liu Chia-Yung and it has a distinct vampire section within it – and in this case Western style vampires. The film itself is about Dai Wai (Michael Miu) who shares a place with best friend Harley (Eric Tsang, The Dragon Lives Again & Vampire Family). The film opens with Harley’s dream, which is semi-sexual until Dai Wai enters the dream and nicks the girls Harley was about to be raped (his word) by.

It seems that Dai Wai can enter his friend’s dreams. The two men get accidentally caught within an armed robbery that subsequently leaves Dai Wai seriously injured. Indeed his heart stops and blood pressure drops to nothing, but his brain activity continues. Figuring he has a strong will to live, Harley is brought in by doctors to elicit an emotional response and bring him back to life. His case is then referred to a researcher who is looking at telekinesis (which Dai Wai demonstrates by popping a researcher’s blouse button with his mind), but more importantly entering dreams.

Shirley Kwan as the vampiress

Using technology and his natural abilities he is told to enter the dream of a mentally ill patient (Wu Ma). We see him in the dream and in there the patient is a vampire hunter and at first produces a small nail and tiny hammer, but this is for a really tiny vampire, which can be lifted between finger and thumb. Normal hammer and stake are needed for the life size variety.

the vampires

He gives Dai Wai a card and tells him not to match the letter on it with a vampire. He firstly meets a female vampire (Shirley Kwan), she produces a card with an O where his says A – a reference to blood type one assumes. When he meets a male vampire (Wing-Cheung Cheung), the fiend has every type on card and goes for him. Eventually, at dawn, they end up at the coffins and he stakes her, whilst looking away but, because he isn’t looking, he misses the male vampire altogether. It ends up with him pulling a curtain, though the sunlight is less than effective, and then making a cross by carrying the dreamer. He is bitten before he awakens…

Dai Wai and Alice

It is, of course, all a dream but a traumatic experience for Dai Wai. The research assistant, Alice (Emily Chu, Vampire’s Breakfast & Return of the Demon), keeps him coming back and each dream session ends with him screaming – though we don’t see those dreams. Dai Wai and Harley eventually become embroiled in the machinations of some corrupt cops who intend to eliminate any potential witnesses to their murderous activities. From a TMtV point of view the vampire section is a chunky segment, played for laughs with a surrealistic overtone, but ultimately it is a fleeting visitation.

The imdb page is here.

On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK