Vampire Brides (1994)

The last in my W.A.V.E triple feature. Vampire Brides follows a young woman named Christine whose just broken up with her boyfriend and needs a place to crash. Her Mom (In the film and in real life) won't let her stay there, which is really rude considering this leads to events causing her to become vampire bait. She stays with a friend and one night decides to go out by herself for a drink. She meets a guy and goes back to his apartment. They make out for a painfully long time before he reveals a mouth full of fake plastic vampire teeth. He's tempted to dine but has somehow already fallen in love with this girl he literally just met at a bar. He makes her leave because he can't bear to hurt her.

negative space/sov interiors are dreamy

A few hours later he changes his mind and sends his resident zombie to go fetch her. While in route the girl has prophetic dream where she's kidnapped by the zombie and he carries her to her vampire wedding. In the dream her Mom is there, standing side by side with the zombie. They wed and have a long softcore sex scene in front of the fire. Almost painfully long. We get it, they're doing it.

She wakes up and then the actual abduction occurs. He doesn't carry her down the aisle, but back to the apartment to be chained up. The vampire doesn't want to eat her, just keep as a trophy I guess. He sends zombie back out to fetch her roommate to eat. After this there are several sequences where the zombie brings women, they struggle, apartment vampire man turns them into vampiresses and they attack Christine. The zombie steps in, kills the vampiresses and then all juiced up, goes after Christine. Finally, Vampire Dreamboat decides to show up and punishes the zombie. Where were you five minutes ago, dude? This is repeated three times with different ladies, including her Mom.

 Awkward Death Pose

Strangely, I ended up seeing these three W.A.V.E. films in order from favorite to least. Not to say that Vampire Brides wasn't enjoyable, but the previous two were between 30 - 45 minutes, which is just right for these films. At an unnecessary 80 minutes, we were basically re-enacting very similar scenes like that Vampire Bride shuffle I just mentioned. The score had superb low-fi synth vibes and carried the movie along nicely. Vampire Brides is the earliest of the three, it was nice seeing W.A.V.E. in it's Genesis operating very much like a typical SOV horror movie of it's day. I suspect this pre-dates it's reputation as a fetish film company.

A few things worth noting...

I hadn't really been paying attention to actors names up until this point. The actor, Dave Castiglione, who plays the vampire in 1994 is also the possessed son in law in Blood Sacrifice eighteen years later in 2012. Nice to see a familiar face!

But really I think we all know who the real star of W.A.V.E. Productions. The most reliable mainstay of this fine New Jersey enterprise...

Gary Whitson's brown plaid couch.

Here it is in a different scene/different "location". Or the love seat companion? Either way, this paragon of upholstered treasure is a pièce de résistance!

Here it is again in Blood Sacrifice from 2012 but I have reason to believe this scene was filmed much earlier. That actor, also in Vampire Brides, is close to the same age here. I suspect abandoned footage from the 90's was recycled. It would make sense that the same couch would be present and accessible. I didn't notice it in Eaten Alive so I wondered if perhaps Gary retired his faithful prop/s. I was doing a bit of shopping on the website and noticed this...

One of his most recent films, Bikini Girl Maid Service from 2015, there it is in all it's shabby earthtone glory. You KNOW I will be reporting all future sightings!

That about covers my W.A.V.E. RAVE! Until of course I receive the movies I just ordered!! This has been an exciting week of discovery, again I encourage anyone whose enjoyed these past three reviews to check out their website.

Until next time!

Son of Dracula (1974)

I've been dying to see this for years so it was kind of a big deal to finally receive it yesterday. I'm a HUGE Harry Nilsson fan. Who isn't?! The man was nothing short of genius! He wrote fun, upbeat songs, slow powerful ballads and forever emblazoned himself in pop music history with songs like "Without You" and "Coconut". He even took his awesomeness a step further by scoring some films that would later become cult movies (Skidoo, Popeye and of course the Point which he wrote entirely). His body of work is impressive to say the least. I've always enjoyed the cameos he's made in film and on TV so I was anxious to see "The First Rock-and- Roll Dracula Movie" in which he plays the title character! The first thing I did this morning when I woke up was pop it in the DVD player with child like excitement.

Nilsson wasn't the only driving factor in my interest. It co-starred Ringo Starr who I really enjoy as an actor. After seeing him in my all time favorite Peter Sellers movie, the Magic Christian, I was forever sold on the comedic talents of Ringo. He's a great second banana! Also, it was directed by Academy Awarding winning cinematographer -turned- genre film director, Freddie Francis. Both milestone achievements in my eyes. I was certain I was in for an awesome ride!

As the "story" unfolded I found myself twiddling my thumbs waiting for my attention to be captivated. You know the feeling. You're really interested in being interested but somehow with certain movies it just never happens. The story was a muddled romantic horror comedy about the Son of Dracula, Nilsson as "Count Downe",  giving up his life as a vampire to be mortal with some lady who didn't do a good job drawing on her eyebrows. They flirt with the idea of a "plot" but sadly this movie was a just a big mis-fire. Nilsson has a few musical moments where he plays piano and sings some of his hits but other than that his character doesn't seem to have much going for him to be the leading man. To be honest, Ringo as Merlin the Magician pretty much carried the whole movie, and it was a small part! Between his bits and Nilsson's singing, the movie was watchable. In retrospect I really wonder where it went astray. With such great house names and the director of such films as Tales from the Crypt (1972), Trog, Day of the Triffids and his masterpiece, Girly. All entertaining horror movies. I can only suspect the problem was with the writing. The story lost me a few times and I'm pretty sure it wasn't too complicated. It just didn't work. Sadness! I really wanted this one to be a winner.

I suppose I'd still recommend it to die-hard Nilsson fans. Or Ringo, or Freddie Francis fans. Not a classic by any means, but it's still captures one of the greatest singer songwriters of the 20th century fumbling through a horror spoof and that I can respect! Of course it's in my trade list for those brave enough to make the leap. I'm glad I finally know what I was missing. Sometimes half the disappointment is just having your fantasy of a perfectly wonderful under appreciated gem being dashed by the reality of mediocrity. Better luck next time!