Saturday, March 11, 2017

John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) was the worst movie of all time

Love Carpenter. Ranks at the bottom for me. The characters are bullshit. The actors are unintentionally hilarious. The antagonist is a joke. Feels like an unofficial sequel to From Dusk Till Dawn except not as good. Could be in the same universe though.

The movie is the same fucking scene over and over again. It is insane. They will go into a lair. They will fish out a vampire. They will then harpooned said vampire and drag it out into the sunlight where the body instantly explodes into flames while James Woods screams “die fucker, die.” This happens, I shit you not, three times throughout the movie.

Pros: Sort of in the so bad it's good range. A few solid kills. Some interesting concepts (though poorly executed).

Cons: Such shitty acting. Feels half assed. Vampires look dumb. All over the place.

Worst Line of the Movie: “You didn't tell me they could do that.” “I didn't know they could do that.” There was also “Vaya con dios, slayer” and a priest

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain spoilers.

Notes: James Woods of Family Guy fame. A nonpopular Baldwin and Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks). Woods seems like an asshole. Starts with a vampire hunting militia going into a nest to kill them some bloodsuckers. I've seen this before. These guys suck at it. This opening borders on slapstick comedy. The only male vamp gets stabbed in the head with a steak and when he pulls it out it looks so stupid and fake. Also features the worst line of all time. The Baldwin picks up a vampire skull, in this movie vamps turn into firework displays when sunlight hits them, turns to the priest in their crew, and says, “Nothing like a little head, eh padre?” What the fuck. That is what we are in for.

As the opening scene transitions, we see hands shooting out of the dirt. Vampire? Zombie? In the day so... That transitions into butt cheeks walking to the militia's block of rooms at their shitty hotel. Lots of vamp hunter groupies. None of them are attractive, except Lee who is all over Woods. Gross. The cop who brought them to town to deal with the vamp situation is all like, “when the fuck are you going to stop freeloading and leave.” You're fucking welcome. But I guess they do smash stuff for fun.

El Scorpio from Predator 2 is in this and jesus fuck is he a fuck up in this. In the opening scene he drops stuff and flings open doors like an idiot. At the hotel, out of nowhere, he picks up a lamp and throws it through the window just because.

Super vamp shows up wearing black velvet. Gives Lee a gross vampire orgasm by draining her on the upper, upper thigh. She is basically the deranged Laura Palmer from Fire Walk With Me for the rest of the movie. Then he goes to party and fucking starts slaughtering everyone. The first kill is insane. He spears Bobby Elvis from Sons of Anarchy with his hand and then sort of reverse karate chops him, cutting the guy in half.


That is sick. The vampire's makeup, however, is fucking terrible. Just consists of white face-paint and fangs. Looks like a shitty halloween costume. He is like a super vampire, apparently. The first vampire. Created by the Catholic Church by accident. Through a reverse exorcism. Never heard that one before. Woods has an interesting origin story. Parents were killed by vamps and he was raised by the church to be a master vampire hunter. Pretty cool.

They escape. Drive until morning and then get into a stupid car accident. It's like he just forgot to drive. Now they do 10 minutes of slow-mo walking to the nearest gas station. Fucking dumb. Baldwin is so fucking hostile. He is also no Billy. Woods is dick, too. Starts attacking this priest out of nowhere. Wants to know if he set his crew up. Later he asks him if getting beat up gave him wood. Asks this like it is normal.

Meanwhile, Baldwin is watching Lee who is naked for some reason. Gives her the talk. She goes into the bathroom to change. Baldwin makes her leave the door open so she won't escape. He falls asleep immediately and Lee tries to jump out the window. He pulls her back in, breaking the window. She bites his arm. He knows what fucking happens but lies about getting bit. Come on. Woods's dad pulled the same shit, turned, and killed his mom and tried to kill him.

Plot centers on the head vamp finding this black cross that allows him and his crew to walk around during the daytime. By the time this happens the wheels have come completely off. The end is another one of those what-the-fuck-is-happening moments. When the twist ending happens, the secrete bad guy that shows up fucking says, “the look on your face tells me you couldn't possibly understand why I am here.” Was he breaking the fourth wall? The ceiling is the roof, as MJ would say. Garbage. I don't fucking care. Wow. This was fucking terrible.

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