Vamp or Not? Death Factory

This was a 2002 digi-cam release written and directed by Brad Sykes who would go in to direct 2004 stinker Bloody Tease. In essence it was a very simple slasher type film, with a supernatural central character, and a cameo by Ron Jeremy – yes that Ron Jeremy. Given it was released by Brain Damage I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. However the premise of the creature did interest me in a ‘Vamp or Not?’ sort of way.

It proved full of cliché, though it also had a twist that they managed to just about hide, though it wasn’t too shocking when it revealed as the clues had been there. Further I was kind of reminded, conceptually – rather than stylistically – of Jean Rollin, I’ll explain that later.

The film begins with a scream. A woman runs but she is with her boyfriend and they’re just playing. They are Alyson (Allison Beal, who would be in aforementioned Bloody Tease) and John (Michael Okarma) and they fall to the floor and make out. All well and good but then she spots the abandoned factory and suggests they go inside.

She is quite taken by the derelict building but he is very nervous. Nevertheless they start getting down and dirty on an old sofa but a metal hand thing opens the door. He’s not sure what he’s seen but he freaks and she tells him to stay there whilst she has an angry cigarette out of the room. Alyson is got. Josh goes to find her and she is there, bleeding to death, when he is attacked and sharp metal nails start ripping his guts.

Rachel (Lisa Jay) has finished her first year of college. She is talking to her long time friend Louisa (Karla Zamudio) and is approached by Derek (Jeff Ryan), all round good guy who fancies Rachel and dislikes Louisa. Also nearby is rocker boy Troy (Jason Flowers) who seems to like Louisa though she is fonder of her knife – guess that’ll come into play later. Another friend Francis (David Kalamus) and his gal Leticia (Rhoda Jordan) stop by and invite them to a party at Francis’ house. Unfortunately the party plan falls apart when he discovers that his parents haven’t gone away but then Louisa suggests the old factory as an alternate venue.

Over at the old factory a hobo named Glen (Ron Jeremy) is drunk and wanders in. Jeremy overacts for fun and it is a lovely camp performance for the whole 2 minutes he is in – it would have worn thin had it lasted longer. Alison is still alive and says they have to get out of there when the creature – clearly a woman – grabs him and bites his neck.

At a different entrance the kids arrive and get ready to party. Of course the factory is in darkness and, having explored with flashlights, Derek goes to find a breaker box – which he locates but finds that there is no juice. It seems strange therefore that there were rooms that seemed rather adequately lit – certainly not needing flashlights. Hmmm...

During their exploration, Troy finds papers and realises that the factory is the old Dyson Chemical plant. According to the press it shut down when there was a radioactive leak. However Troy’s uncle was a cop and he told him that the plant was working on experimental drugs to create bio-weapons and a female tech had been contaminated. There was then an attack and 24 workers were murdered. The police would have suspected the female tech but she had died a few days before the attacks.

When we see the creature attack we realise that she has metal braces on her legs and arms, the arm ones ending in metal claws for her hands. She also has metal teeth that are likened to fangs. She does have a tendency to go for the neck and she often rubs the blood into her face (in an ecstatic way). She starts picking off the friends one by one.

Later we hear that she was called Alexa (Tiffany Shepis) and was indeed the tech from the factory, she was contaminated and her mind went turning her into the creature we see. Whether she actually died or not is not answered but it is explicitly stated that she needs blood to survive. We also discover she is hardy, she is stabbed to death at the film’s climax but then we discover her body was not found and a realisation dawns on the survivor that Alexis is still alive.

So we have a possibly dead creature, certainly difficult to kill, who has talons and fangs albeit that they are made of metal (presumably man made). Most importantly we have a specific need for blood to survive and the consumption of blood is her primary goal. This makes me edge towards vamp.

Now I mentioned Jean Rollin and whilst the film had nowhere near the stylistic vision nor the pathos, Alexa reminded me, conceptually at least, of the Living Dead Girl. As for the film, well it wasn’t brilliant but it was a damn sight better than the later Bloody Tease. The imdb page is here.

The Wickeds

Director: John Poague

Release date: 2005

Contains spoilers

I came across this over at Scare Sarah and so many thanks to her for highlighting a vampire film I didn’t have – and had never heard of. I am always happy to hear about vampire movies – even if they are rubbish ones!

This does mash up the vampire and zombie genres in a way that might have been lore satisfying had it not been for them changing their mind in respect of lore as they went along. They also throw in ghosts and spirit possession… and Ron Jeremy (I am Virgin, Blood Moon Rising and Death Factory). In this, however, he plays a full role, rather than a cameo appearance.

The film starts with a group of youths driving through the country. They are Alyssa (Kelly Sue Roth) and Bailey (Bradford Sikes) – who are making out on the backseat of the SUV – Julie (Anna Bridgforth), Dylan (J. Matthew Miller), Kate (Gabrielle Dennis), Jake (Justin Alvarez) and the driver Richard (Danny Darder). It is Halloween and they are going to party at an abandoned house that is currently being used to shoot a cheesy straight to video horror flick – at least the script was aware of what it itself was. What the girls don’t know is that they are to make their own party and assume it is a big, organised event.

So, we have the 7 kids going to the abandoned house, made to look ever so cheesy inside (as we see) due to the decorating by a horror film crew who have the weekend off. Suddenly they notice another car and Richard (probably because he can shorten his name to Dick) decides to play chicken with it. They are nearly run off the road and Dylan notes it is going to the graveyard and wants to pound the driver, but is stopped. Hey, that’s chicken for you. Anyhoo they get to the house, break in and Alyssa and Bailey head upstairs for a protracted (cut through the first part of the film), mainly clothed, dry hump.

Over at the cemetery we have Gus (Ron Jeremy) and Billy (Bryan Donoghue) – grave robbing, in broad daylight. Gus is stood at the mouth of the hole Billy is digging and is clearly after something in particular. Billy uncovers the coffin and opens it to find a rather well preserved corpse, we later find out is called Teufel (Michael T Schnieder). He is reaching for the amulet when the eyes open. Gus tells him he is imagining things and to get the amulet. As he touches it the eyes open again and Teufel bites Billy’s hand.

They get out of there, with the amulet, but all across the graveyard the dead are rising. These are standard Romero type zombies; the shamble and eat your flesh variety. Gus and Billy abandon their truck and fight their way through the dead – for some reason leaving the obvious means of escape behind in favour of and heading towards the possible shelter of the nearby abandoned house. Teufel rises and manages to find and grab Billy. Gus puts his shovel through him and tosses him aside, which seems to make all the zombies fall over.

Gus and Billy make it to the house, find the back door locked (the kids do not respond to their calls as they think they are busted, of course our couple still at it upstairs hear nothing at all), don’t bother looking for the front door and get in via the cellar door. Having discovered the kids they go straight to wanting to board up the house. Richard walks outside and is grabbed by a zombie, becoming chow. From here on in we should have a fairly straight Night of the Living Dead set-up, but the filmmakers throw the kitchen sink in and some of what they add is incongruous.

Let us take Alyssa and Bailey, she is topless, they are still dry humping when Bailey is tossed to one side and Teufel comes up between her legs. First question, how’d he get in? Second, how come she was topless, then had a top on and then became topless again? She runs downstairs in a panic, wearing a bra… ok, so she had time and presence of mind to put that on... and says that something was in the room, Bailey checked it out and she saw it and ran – a story different to what we witnessed. Dylan and Jake go to check on Bailey and become trapped in a room with Bailey as the door handle is now electrified and an invisible presence deflects a vase thrown at the window. They smash the window by hand and get outside (and then back in after some zombie baiting) but the incident is never mentioned again and Teufel is seen still in the graveyard!

When it comes to the plain old zombies things are odd as well. They are your atypical shambling types but when Richard returns, at the end of the film, he is much lither than any of the others… now we could argue that rigor mortis has not yet set in but he can also speak and think. Bad zombie, stop being sentient... Then again another one had the presence of mind to steal the grave robbers' keys to their truck. I mentioned the filmmakers tossing in the kitchen sink and we get to see a ghost, as the house was the scene of not one but two murder suicides, and a spirit possession to boot. References come thick and fast, a faux Transylvanian “I vant to suck your blood” is uttered at one point, plus Night of the Living Dead (through “they’re coming to get you Barbara”), Bruce Campbell, Blade and Buffy all get a name check. There is some painting blood crosses on faces and necks that has zero effect later!

Lore wise we discover that Teufel was a black magician who drank human blood to gain immortality. The amulet was cursed and it was said that should it be removed he (and those around him) would rise and take revenge on the wickeds who disturbed his peace. There is some cock and bull about them all being wickeds due to their breaking and entering, but it seemed a stretch to explain why the kids were being got also. He bit Billy and, when Gus put the spade through the vampire, Billy swallowed some of his blood. Thus Billy eventually turns though he has standard fangs. Dylan surmises that Teufel isn’t really a vampire but some sort of special one like Blade as he can go out during the day – no, he was a vampire and lets leave it at that.

The film is poor, make no mistake, the acting is rank poor – only Ron Jeremy making a passable stab at it. Though the kids were annoying, perhaps that was acted. The stage set of the house looked crap – this is the only straight to DVD film likely to dress a house like that. The lighting was below par, hell the whole thing was poor but I have seen worse. For a moment I thought we might get a similar type of plot device as Graveyard Disturbance, alas it was not so. Then again, perhaps if they hadn’t thrown in the kitchen sink they might have been able to tighten this up. As it is we are tripping over ideas that go nowhere. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Tales from the Crapper – review

Director: Various

Released: 2004

Contains spoilers

I have not been too complementary about Troma films – after all they are crap (though they have been known to pick up some gems from other production companies on occasion). However there is a certain something about some of them, in the right company, with the correct amount of foaming or distilled beverage imbibed. They will never be good films (generally) but they can be amusing.

This is neither a great movie, nor amusing. This is an anthology film with all the merit of a dead racoon, splattered on the highway and allowed to rot and then bake in the sun. Yes, it is that bad.

The first story – the Case of the Melon Heavy Alien Man Eater was so bad I jumped through it. This is followed by the vampire tale, Tuition of the Terror Twat. It actually starts off with a sliver of possibility, as we see a man handcuffed and a dancer who then takes his face off. It is gory, but the gore is reasonably done.

Just in case we are not sure what we are dealing with the camera then pans across his eviscerated corpse until it rests on a section of gore and arrows appear pointing to tell us “important: Vampire bite!” So there you go, the film is part of the vampire genre and so I have to watch the damn thing!

Essentially the story is that Timmy loses his college tuition and orders a stripper, Amanda (Julie Strain, Morgana and Blood Thirsty). He is so drunk he has misread the amount and can’t pay her but his friends take her home then have the idea of having a stripper party to raise money for Tim’s tuition.

The party goes ahead but, of course, Amanda and her two friends are vampires and a wholesale slaughter of all the guests is the order of the day. There really isn’t that much else to say, a whole lot of gore and nudity and nothing even floating near the area of plot. Lloyd Kaufman states (in a voice over) that plot is unnecessary where one has lesbians. That may well be true, to a degree, but this completely misses that degree.

The only other thing to mention is the cameo by none other than Ron Jeremy and Ron Jeremy spotting seems to have evolved into a new sport on the blog. There really isn’t anything else I can summon up to say about this filmic car crash.

0 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.


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The Death Factory Bloodletting – review

Directed by: Sean Tretta

Release date: 2009

Contains spoilers

I looked at the movie Death Factory as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ That film was a shot on cam effort with a load of disposable teens, Ron Jeremy and a creature that had been created by a chemical contamination, we were unsure is she was alive or dead (she was certainly hardy), she had funky eyes, claws and talons made of metal and needed blood. Having decided that was a vampire film – genre unusual as it was – this sequel falls straight to review.

For sequel it is and although Brad Sykes, who wrote and directed the first film, does neither in this, Alexa is back – though this time played by Michelle Mousel. She is the same metal enhanced blood fiend as before (actually there is some minor lore expansion that we’ll get to) but most else has changed. It is a new factory, the disposable teens (and Ron Jeremy) are gone and the film owes much to the Hostel series.

It begins with Ana Romero (Claudia Vargas) making a video, if you are watching this – she says – I am already dead. I am sure that the surname of the character was no coincidence. Cutting back 6 months we see a man, Denny (Noah Todd), driving a van whilst listening to evangelist type radio. He seems to be agreeing with what is being said. He reaches a decommissioned brick factory. Inside the factory are four homeless adults and a baby. He gives them sandwiches and then notices a syringe. He kills the four adults for being junkies. He then takes the baby to the van and gives it to Alexa who is in back. We get a shot that shows us she sees in a red tinge. A flash up on screen says that he is big brother and she little sister.

Then we jump forward 6 months. A girl is chained in the factory, she only wears panties. A flash tells us that she is Jane Doe (Shareese Hegna) – the object. She has whore written on her hands. Over a tannoy he tells her that prostitution is a sin and we see that Alexa is forced to watch extremist religious programming. The girls is killed by Alexa.

Getting right up to date we go back to Ana. She crushes a pill, boils it down an injects herself between the toes (there is a reason for this extreme home made pain killer). We discover that her daughter had been kidnapped and used in a kiddy snuff film and she has spent two years tracking down the killer. She has become a major trader on an illegal marketplace called Gorehouse – under the pseudonym Massive 9. The paedophile goes under the name Rubber Love (David C Hayes) and they have both been invited to a bloodletting – essentially an invite only live snuff event.

Ana goes to the meeting place where she is gagged and bound, having given her user name and two passwords, and taken to the factory. It is clear that the person taking them is Denny – though he wears a balaclava. This is where the film owes something to Hostel. In the factory are White Manson (Shane Dean), a Nazi, Black Johnson (Kareem McRoy), a white slave trader, Slutty baby (Jeanna Cocker), an extreme acts whore, Gretel (Nadine), a dominatrix with her slave Hansel (Joth Andrews) and anarchist Cockmaster (Josh Bingenheimer) – as well as Rubber Love and Ana. They all have paid to see an extreme killing but this twists the Hostel formula and they are to be the ones killed.

Ana manages to slope off and retrieve a gun that she had stashed in an intimate area – hence the pain killer I assume – and take out Rubber Love but Alexa had already been released and Denny, along with his assistant Sid (Timmy Ponticelli), have set this up to kill the sinners – as well as running Gorehouse to find said sinners. There isn’t much to say, except that the film does play with the loyalties between individuals in quite nice ways, until the end which I have to semi spoil because of the lore insight.

We see, through the film, that Denny has programmed Alexa using implants in her ears that give audio punishment and inflicting extremist religious views on her constantly. He forces her to punish herself at times. He is actually her brother – not mentioned in the first film – and does not suggest she was a researcher at the Dyson factory but intimates that she was a test subject for their compound – designed to heal wounds and kill pain. The trouble was the test subjects all developed anaemic shock – hence the blood drinking, though flesh eating seems more the aim in this film.

We also discover that the blood itself is not enough to keep them going – they also need the compound. Whether this is just to heal wounds (Alexa is given some when she is injured) or generally wasn’t all too clear. However Denny has a supply of the chemical. He was obviously a religious nut before he found her and, when he did – presumably after their sister was killed ala the first film – he decided to use her as an instrument of God’s wrath.

Now the ending spoiler. Because there is still the compound available other creatures such as Alexa can be created. Ana is injured and manages to get a dose of the compound. The reason I mention this is because it shows how these are created, by the individual spewing blood from the mouth as the compound takes hold. Very soon Ana’s eyes change, her vision has shifted into red and she is now one of them. She is still able to think, remember and speak. She is also capable of rational thought.

Obviously she doesn’t have the talons or teeth – they are man made (I’m still assuming Alexa made them for herself). However there is no loyalty between them and Alexa and Ana end up attacking each other. This I mention because we see how such a creature can die. Alexa ends up impaled – which brought to mind the idea that a vampire would be staked, traditionally, not to kill it but to immobilise it, and then has her head sawn off. Beheading seems to do the trick.

Spoiling that aspect of the end does not spoil the twists, however, which were fairly nicely done – but the ending seemed to rumble on and on and the last bit seemed an adjunct to the ending too far. The film is better shot than the original, though it is by no means perfect and, by the very nature of the subject mater it touches on, it is a lot darker.

However, that is as much a problem as a plus. The annoying teens might be gone but we do not really have a focus to cheer on. Most every character is nasty… we want them all to die. The obvious character to cheer on is Ana – but she became the very evil that killed her child in order that she might find her child’s killer and has become the moist prolific trader in disgusting media – what about every other exploited innocent that she traded in to get to the bloodletting? This is underlined in the fact that she not only became a monster in actions but physically also becomes a monster. The film answers this by showing us more of Ana’s video log/confession where she suggests the end justifies the means – this made her, to me, as unsympathetic as every other character.

I was quite taken with Claudia Vargas performance, however, and felt that Shane Dean did rather well also. However there were also some mediocre to poor performances in the film as well.

The film, for the faults, kept me entertained – which is the main point – if not enthralled, at least until the final adjunct to the movie. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

I Am Virgin – review

Director: Sean Skelding

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

Ahh parody, sometimes the heart’s blood of comedy and at other times a damp squib. I am Virgin parodies I am Legend, the movie rather than the book one feels, with a lot less than panache.

The film starts with TV broadcasts re the vampire apocalypse. We never know how it started, just that people became nymphomaniac vampires. We see a vampire burn up in the sun (the only such event we see in the film) and then we hear a report that they are drinking the blood of normal humans – the only direct reference we get to blood drinking.

Meet Robby (Adam Elliott Davis) the last man alive. We find him in a bar surrounded by a bevy of half naked vampires and he wants to tell us how he got there. Segue to a few days before and Robby, along with Billy the Bassett Hound, is a survivor of the vampire plague. Still human and virgo intacta. We see his day to day life.

The days are spent perhaps supermarket shopping or playing crazy golf (I told you it was an I am Legend spoof, didn’t I…). When he gets petrol he leaves cash for a non-existent attendant. Then he either goes into (or follows Billy into) a dark building and… catches vampires at it in either guy/girl or girl/girl situations and… voyeuristically watches them whilst we get a 'no genitals on show' sex scene.

There is no vampire slayage at any given point in this, Robby’s plight strings together some lowbrow sex scenes. We do not see a vampire die (bar the sun death in the opening scenes) or bite anyone… methinks they missed the point of vampire movies. Or perhaps not, but the sexploitation of this actually crosses the border into low level pornography, almost saved from that label by having the spoof of I am Legend and a rough approximation of a story.

Robby spends his nights in the basement – watching porn – having spoken to a freaky looking blow-up doll (whilst playing chess against it), made dinner and recorded his vlog. He sprays vinegar over the lawn and car to hide his trace and miraculously, after 3.5 years, the electricity is somehow still on and the web still up! He also thinks about mom and dad, and the virtues they instilled in him (sex is dirty and he has to wait for the one).

Becoming more and more frustrated he meets a vampire called Paul (Ron Jeremy, Death Factory and Blood Moon Rising) who tells him of a colony of survivors up north – but advises Robby not to go up there. They kicked him out for having sex with vampires and they are all puritanical. He also gives him the secret of the vampire plague. Having sex with an infected won’t infect you in turn, feeling guilty about sex (after the act) does that.

Will Robby finally get some? Will he keep his humanity? Do we really care?

As I say, this is an excuse for a series of genitally modest sex scenes so the vampire lore is as already described (bar the fact that they all have pronounced veins at the temple and perma-fangs). Bizarrely they did actually capture a feeling of desolation in respect of the city – despite the too obviously matted over moments. Also, quite bizarrely, Adam Elliott Davis is rather good as Robby – making him personable to the point that we do give at least a bit of a stuff about him!

But the spoof aspect and the comedy aspects fall flat and whilst this is a cut above Seduction Films (it has locations and everything) it isn’t a wonderful vampire film. 1.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

The Lair – season 3 – review

Director: Fred Olen Ray

First aired: 2009

Contains spoilers

So the supernatural soap opera from gay TV channel “Here!” gets a third season. It has also increased in length. The first season was just six episodes and the second season nine episodes in length. This third series increased to thirteen episodes.

Season 2 felt a little overfull with concepts and confused, throwing ghosts – in the form of Frankie (Brian Nolan), werewolves and triffid like orchids into the mix. This series we get magic rings, the cursed head of a sorcerer and a gorgon (we’ll get to all that later). But somehow it didn’t feel as diluted or scattergun as season 2. Fred Olen Ray actually held the plots quite tautly together comparatively.

For the lair is written and directed by the aforementioned Fred Olen Ray, who we have met several times on the blog. Also we have been meeting up with Ron Jeremy quite a bit of late and he continues his incursion into the horror field (not that the lair is that horrific) by cameoing in this as a delivery man.

At the end of the last series Thom (David Moretti) had rescued vampire leader Damian (Peter Stickles) from being walled up and the evil vampire Colin (Dylan Vox) had been dealt with in a rather final manner. Thom’s ex-lover Richie (Bobby Rice) had ended up as the vampires’ slave and, at the beginning of this series, we see him find and pocket Colin’s amulet (that might or might not represent their power, the series is still vague) and collect up his dusty remains.

Now, this is a soap opera and so when Richie starts claiming that he is getting phone calls from Colin on an old fashioned, not to mention disconnected, telephone you’d have thought they’d have paid attention for the very same sort of thing happened during the soap opera Dark Shadows. As it is Richie helps one of Colin’s henchmen resurrect the bad vampire, in a rather effective throat slitting scene. Colin immediately… goes on to take over a rival business.

However, Thom is having problems. Loving Damian is literally killing him and he also wonders whether he is being mind controlled into loving the vampire, so the ghost of Frankie comes up with a plan. A recently released book on island legends talks of the disembodied head of a sorcerer that was buried with a magic ring. The ring grants immunity from magic and should Thom wear it and his feelings not change then they are truly his own. The head – incidentally – is able to grant one wish.

Unfortunately a mysterious man called Athan (Steven Hirschi) has turned up on the island and is being so stoic behind his shades that the Terminator would seem animated. Why the shades? Athan is a two thousand year old Greek who was cursed by the Gods and so is possessed by the spirit of Nanas – the only male gorgon. A brave and unusual monster choice but, truthfully, plastic snakes killed the effect.

Occasionally Nanas takes over Athan and kills – by turning the victim to stone. Athan wants the head for the wish, to rid himself of the curse, and his presence has left Sheriff Trout (Colton Ford) with the problem of stone bodies – that have fingerprints matching those of missing persons and (inside) have perfect replica stone organs. Trout actually reaches a gorgon conclusion rather quickly. The good sheriff has other problems as well. Someone is lurking round his house and he has been remembering a lost love who we never heard of for two prior seasons – one who was murdered and his suspected killer is back on the island.

Finally, if Damian didn’t have enough problems with Colin and his slightly too camp to be menacing persona, more trouble comes looking for him. So far the island seems to have had a total of two women connected with it (and the mainstay character of that gender, Laura, has left this season). Suddenly there is a new woman on the island, and she’s a lesbian vampire (Sybil Danning, Pale Blood) pissed at Damian.

As I said, the actual stories are much tauter this season. The acting isn’t brilliant, dangling around the overtly melodramatic and soap opera but, hey, that is what this is. There is a sex scene per episode that did nothing for me, but it is nice to see a little bit of balance in the genre when it comes to such things, especially from the very director who just loves his nudie bar movies.

Lore wise we get a very definitive answer in respect of religious items. We also get a definitive reason why some vampires dust and some don’t – those that don’t have just had sex. Okay, it’s not a brilliant answer but it is an answer nonetheless. Also, that damned painting of Damian actually has a real part to play in this series – but I won’t spoil how. Colin also seems to be able to phase or move faster than sight or vanish – it isn’t really clear which.

We even get left with a real, honest to goodness cliff hanger. Okay, the series is not perfect but it remains a guilty pleasure. By design, one of the campest genre things out there at the moment the show revels in it, knows what it is and has managed to escape taking itself too seriously. 4.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.