Yet another film with the word ‘Vampire’ in it – fantastic I thought. If you’ve read any of my reviews before you may have noticed that I like Vampire flicks and will always have a go at watching/reviewing them if I get one thrown at me by Vaughan. This was no exception, however I was a little concerned when I read the words ‘…bloodsucking cowboys..’ on the back of the DVD box, but I thought that I would give it a go…
In essence this is a vampire flick (for those of you a little slow on the pickup) and it is set in what appears to be a Western styled hotel/theme park type thing but is actually meant to be a small Mexican town called Fallas. A journalist is sent to this town to find a surgeon. She finds him living in the town, drinking and being ordered about by his shotgun-wielding wife. After being told about the ‘Children of the Night’ that slaughtered all the original inhabitants, she stays in the hotel that just happens to be owned by the couple. Whilst there she starts having what appears to be strange dreams involving two female vampires, but eventually she meets them in the flesh. There is not a lot to this film, the story is a little thin, not really going anywhere but I watched it out just to see where it ended up. It didn’t go far.
One thing I love about the whole vampire mythos is the look. It can go one of two ways: in the first place you have the old, creepy, Nosferatu type with the leering eyes and fingernails that would make certain toilet activities far more difficult than normal; and then you have the other Anne Rice end of the spectrum, where the Vamps are beautiful and elegant and bordering on the perfect. Ok, you have a few grey shades in the middle, but on the whole it’s one or the other. I mean when was the last time you saw a vampire wearing milk bottle glasses and a pocket protector? Or at least that’s what I thought. This film has introduced new looks that in my opinion are by far the scariest. The first of these new styles is difficult to explain – the women are sporting a sort of B-movie-porn-star-meets-uninitiated-punk (with really silly fake teeth) look. The second (that ‘Bloodsucking Cowboy’ that I mentioned earlier) is a bloke in a cape (and yes he does flap it for effect!) with a Stetson and an equally silly grin. Genius.
Throughout the beginning of the film you get to see the vampires as shadows and in windows, but the girls really get to show there talents (ahem) in a couple of scenes toward the middle of this blockbuster. Without going into too much detail I will say that if you wanted to teach your children about anatomy then this film is a good place to start. If you want to teach them how to make an erotic lesbian vampire scene then I would suggest that you look elsewhere.
The only other thing about this film that I feel I should mention is that if you are of a nervous disposition I would steer clear of the end. This is not because of any blood or guts or mushed up brains, but it is because of one particular nude scene involving the journalist, and when you see what she looks like you’ll know exactly what I mean.
My final word is this: There are hundreds of Vampire films out there that you can choose from. If you want to watch a good one then steer clear of this tragedy. It is a disappointment from start to finish and serves better as a biology educational video than vampire based Horrotica.
