WATCH NOW
This is very much a Jeff Rector project which he developed as a co-director and co-writer, but more importantly, he plays the protagonist Richard. As is often the case, some aspects have their strengths, in this case, the intro to the film is very good, being an out-of-the-ordinary comedy, and yet was so weak at other steps that it was simply painful. But let us start at the beginning and focus on the prologue.
We begin with a montage of Los Angeles, accompanied with a narration from Richard. He is ready to tell us something, but first I cannot help but ask Richard why do you think a business man would say “if only they knew what was out there?” There is a reason I ask that. Meanwhile Richard is indeed a business man who is marking his first wedding anniversary in a lonely fashion because his wife Janet (Alison McCurdy) is out. He receives his credit card bill and sees a charge from a hotel. While phoning the hotel, he learns that his wife has been staying in it, supposedly with him.
Distraught, he attempts suicide, but the gun is empty and the noose pulls the lamp off the wall. Then, he watches the infomercial for Kiss of Death Inc a company that promises to turn people into vampires. Armed with a plan to disinherit his wife, become undead and get revenge, he calls the company. We then witness his sadistic daydreams of murdering his wife and her lover. He kisses his wife goodnight the following night as she heads out to see her affair, then sits down and prepares to educate himself on vampires before his appointment with the company’s representative. We are treated to spectacular black and white fantasies in full Lugosi style, ending with him getting staked in the heart.
On arrival, the representative, Lilith (Tane McClure) makes him a little anxious, so when she materializes from the mist, he reflexively raises a cross. After being reprimanded for his rudeness, he admits her inside, only to be shocked that his wife’s misdeeds are public knowledge. After biting him, she leaves him for dead- to become undead.
It is at the, quite comically uninspired Coffin Stuffers Funeral Home, where Janet discover in a rather rude fashion, that she has been taken out of the will. With no money of her own, her surfer boyfriend Jonathon (Kato Kaelin) dumps her, and she finds herself having to explain to Mr. Vincent (Carrel Stricken yes, Lurch), the funeral service she is unable to bear, and so he has to surrender to a cremation, while meandering through the process. We hear the sounds of a shriek and a set of flames erupting. At this point, things have taken a dark twist. I chuckle and move with the film as it presents me with the, ‘Oh, that’s messed up’ elements of it.
Things get worse. Fast forward five years, and we see the same funeral parlor where Richard’s remains are still left unclaimed, while in attempts to remain a float, the home facility sells out the corpses to Satanists. The body the workers have procured is of less use and Mr. Vincent along with his assistant is permanently eliminated. Blood from the newly crowned corpses stains the Richard’s spilled remains on the ground, when his spirit comes alive.
Richard has no idea, but the revenge he seeks on Jonathon results in the actions of Kiss of Death Inc. creating a vampire epidemic. Luckily for him, the government assembled a group of vampire exterminators known as S.T.A.K.E. And now, there are no vampires left alive. Richard’s story is just starting for him. All he wanted was to find Lilith, and instead, he gets sent to a club where he finds survivors, but almost becomes the victim of a snuff film. Reeger and Peters, the cops on his tail, manage to catch up to him, even after being outside of their jurisdiction.
It is just Richard’s luck that the jurisdiction isn’t with them. It lies with Jake Hardcastle, and yes, Sam Jones from Flash Gordon. He is a tough man marked with the loss of his family who were killed and turned by vampires during the uprising, which only leaves him to put a stake drenched in the blood of all the vampires used in the shooting. Hardcastle may look mean and tough, but his speeches and my oh my his marine pep talks are something else. Thankfully for him, his team did manage to have the marines from Aliens send written in all over his scripts.
Richard catches up with Mary (Alana Curry) who happens to be a half-breed and also resides in a half breed’s den, where it looks like some infected blood got into the system and a lot of people got mutated (as the film puts it). The half breeds tend to stay indoors to avoid the sun, drink synthetic blood and wear a patch made of blood (think a nicotine patch but with a withdrawal period of thirty years). They can live longer, but aren’t immortal. Richard also finds out that there’s a group of savagely vicious vampires out there known as BLEEDERS.
The film started to unravel for me when S.T.A.K.E..
The movie depicts the events of a society in the near future after widespread mutagenic augmentation. One third of the global population has mutated into half humans with traits that resemble half vampires and half feral cats. Because of this, ordinary humans are now on the brink of extinction, and only a few clans of these hybrids can survive by going into hiding. Richard’s character looks like a bearer of the last hopes for humanity and a person who can stand against the BLEEDERS. The half breeds only have a few centuries left to live before the hybrids finally mark the beginning of a new era.
It appears Wonders protagonist valiums Billy Drago wants to conduct a ceremony which is only possible once a thousand years, that will blot out the sun requiring a virgin sacrifice. Obviously, finding a virgin in Los Angeles is tough but somehow everyone else knows Mary is one. Except, her font Rieger thinks her to be dead. It also turns out that Lilith who is with the surviving vampires thinks Richard is the prophesied vampire with soul which will turn the tide of the events one way or another.
The narrative did not succeed to link up on this particular viewport, and general ignorance remains since there is a vampire uprising (as noted in the dialogue), what about blood sellers at the street corners? Why is no one aware of what exists out there? (as stated in the head of the film).
I have mentioned Sam Jones who, as I said, was a semi-cameo performer, he did a little more than Carrel Stricken and Billy Drago ever did (he was more than a semi-cameo). There were some others who I did not include like Anne Lockhart who performed a minor part or that as Captain Michaels of the police, Fred Williamson makes an appearance. In all fairness, it was nearly an insignificant role and demonstrated a waste of the talent Williamson possessed.
One of the most entertaining segments was the short performance by Jason Carter playing snuff film director Nigel. Although he did not have a lot of screen time, he excelled in every minute he had. He appeared at a juncture when the picture was quite coherent. As caricatures went, Snyder was outstanding, provided she was headlining the picture, as the confused tycoon Richard, but after, I really didn’t buy into this character. However, this was not a consequence of Rector’s acting and everything to do with his writing. Christa Campbell exacts her performance as Lillith’s sister Lexi, and looks stunningly, while Deron McAbee dotfiles his part of a vampire tough guy Khan in just the manner one would expect such a character to behave.
What happens is that the motion picture attempts to achieve too much and after a while loses the wacky humor. The odd joke is still there, such as where Rieger pulls out a cross encased in holy water and E-Bay are the replies to where you find such things. It was too much to handle all at once and the film’s direction suffered as a result; the vampire with magic soul, ritual magic, the virgin sacrifice, and the government death camp.
Overall, the outcomes were positive, as there was a lot of captivating vampiric imagery. But the overall feel of the film was again, masked by the story itself, for lack of a better term, transformed into a rubber piece towards the end.
To watch more movies like (Revamped (2007)) visit 123Movies.
Also Watch for more movies like:
