14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vampire as Rotten S.O.B. Extraordinary, November 14, 2000
This review is from: Vampire [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I think I've seen just about every well-known [and several not-so-well-known ones, this one included] movie about the legendary bloodsucking Count Dracula or his cousins, but this one gives a slant to the old tired plot that doesn't get a lot of attention: vampire as Rotten S.O.B. Extraordinary. Even Bram Stoker in his novel gives the Count a moment of pity at the end of his tale-- a look of relief and peace as the stake is driven in into his heart at the very end. Ever since then we've seen tormented vampires who hate the evil that they must do to survive, their terrible lonliness and separation from the rest of humanity. Only the very old "Nosferatu", made in the 20's, created a real villian. And he was ugly to boot. The old Hammer films with Christopher Lee also created the vampire as a good-old-fashioned villian, but who had a dark attraction that he was able to make good use of. It was, all the same, the kind of attraction, the horrified fascination, for his victims like that of a deer caught in the headlights of a fast-moving train.
Here, in this treatment, we have a vampire who is so totally without any bit of good in him that he is truly Evil. He is a Fiend, blood dripping from his fangs [which we never see]. His vengeance is so horrible on the people who stand in his way that is it reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. It goes without saying that this vampire has enormous, even overpowering sex appeal, but it also is plain that his female tools or victims [usually both] are no important to him than lab rats. He is a serial killer more than the quasi-romantic image of the good man who happens to be a vampire; his killings are not the result of some awful childhood or catastrophic emotional event. He is a monster. Our sympathises are not with him, but with his victims.
Real monster movies are actually rather rare. This is one of them, and even though the posse of vampire killers are such flat and 2-D characters that it makes the vampire look complex by comparison, the film is worth watching for its different treatment of the vampire as villian. Richard Lynch, who is far from conventionally handsome, has a horrifying way of grabbing your attention and keeping it squarely on him. It's partly the fascination of the rabbit by the cobra, but also the unconscious fear of the power of sexual attraction. The novel "Dracula" fairly pants with sexual heat all through it, to an amzaing degree considering it's overwrought, even purplish Victorian prose. The Victorian age was famous for it's amnesiac denial of sexual drives, while the studied avoidance even vague sexual terms in polite conversation ["limb" vs. "leg"] drew attention to it...the 12-foot aligator in the living room. In this case, it's the 6-ft naked sexual aggression of a man-like beast. You'd like to ignore it, but you can't. This is the jet engine that drives the immense popularity of the vampire myth. This movie, unlike many of it's kind, lets you feel the power.
I wish this movie was available for purchase. It hardly airs on TV anymore. No true vampire/Dracula afficianado should count his or her education complete without seeing it.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely wonderful!, April 15, 2005
This review is from: Vampire [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This has been a favorite of mine since I saw it as a kid when it first aired on TV. Actually a backdoor pilot for a proposed series, the story holds up quite well on its own. Richard Lynch plays what could've been a standard stereotypical vampire role (seduce and slay) and does a great job; making him a charismatic figure, but never letting the viewer forget that he is, first and foremost, a killer. The scene where he races from the police station across town as sun is about to rise, smoke starting to billow from his body, is quite striking. Certainly, it has the look and feel of its time, but that doesn't detract from its style.
I've always regretted that this never became a series (like Night Stalker did).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
VHS...still not bad, December 1, 2008
This review is from: Vampire [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This movie was nearly impossible to find. While the quality was not great, I was so glad to find it at all.
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