VAMPIRE IN VEGAS

Vampire in Vegas Movie Review

Sylvian (horror legend Tony Todd) is a three-hundred year old vampire who has hired a genetic scientist (Delia Sheppard) to come up with a cure for his condition. The serum fails, and now vampires are wreaking havoc in, you guessed it, Las Vegas. The movie starts off with shots on and around The Strip in Vegas--as this is one of my favorite cities, I very much enjoyed this opening--unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. 

I stayed in that room once...up there...to the left

Oy, where to even begin? How about here--nothing in this movie borders on being even the least bit scary. Tony Todd seems bored out of his mind, and must have been wondering how his career led him to doing this movie. Despite having Vegas in the title, other than the opening (which I'm certain was stock footage), we don't see the city at all--in fact, much of the feature looks like it was shot on green screen. The CGI is horrendous. The vampires are strippers who look like they may have been plucked from a nearby porno shoot or plastic surgeon's office, and interestingly enough, there's no actual nudity in the film. 

Looks like surgeon's office it is

The acting (using this term is a stretch) is amateurish. The story is dreadful. The directing is uninteresting. The ending, if you can make it that far, is absurd--of course, you won't care by this point. There is a somewhat catchy techno song that plays over the credits--it probably isn't even that good; my excitement for this movie finally being over likely made it sound better than it actually was. If you are a Tony Todd fan, you may be tempted to watch this movie...don't. I am as big a fan as there is, and believe me when I say there's nothing to see here. We know our main man will take on just about any role, but he deserves better than Vampire in Vegas. I did, however, learn one very important lesson here--I'm never again letting my girlfriend pick a movie for me to watch.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 2

Vampire in Vegas Movie Trailer

BREAKDOWN LANE

Breakdown Lane Movie Review

Kirby (Whitney Moore of Birdemic fame) breaks down in the middle of nowhere. While waiting for a tow truck, a zombie outbreak takes place, and now it's a fight for survival! That sounds fairly interesting, but wow, is any hope for this movie ever taken away almost immediately! Kirby is instantly unlikable, and she does nothing along the way to change this. She is rescued momentarily by a group of rednecks, but, you know, being rednecks and all, it's not long before they start talking about how they have to breed to keep the species alive, and how they must feed on the dead in order to survive--keep in mind, the outbreak started earlier the same day. They inevitably try to rape Kirby, who fights them all off, killing all but the leader (wonder if she'll run into him later?). She does have one pal during this journey. His name's Max, and he is the customer service rep she initially called for tow truck help/verbally assaulted--she'll find him later, too. Kirby has a drug addict boyfriend back home, and when we finally see Max, he looks a lot like her current dude. There are religious nuts. We have bland dialogue. He get scene after scene lifted from previous movies and television shows with zombies. Kirby eventually goes all Rambo, with automatic weapons, a headband, blah blah blah. 

"Don't forget my tire iron!"

The acting is atrocious. The lighting is awful. The CGI is poor, and at times (especially near the end) it looks like we're watching a video game. Instead of traditional transition shots, we get what appears to be comic strips of the action, and sadly, this very unoriginal idea is the best part of the film. We get to the end and, still not made to care the least bit for the lead character, we are left disappointed that Kirby wasn't slowly killed by the zombies. There are not many movies I have watched and found absolutely no enjoyment or entertainment in--if not for the comic strips, Breakdown Lane would be one of them. This movie is just horrendous, and not in a fun, Birdemic way. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 2

Breakdown Lane Movie Trailer

WATCH IF YOU DARE

Watch If You Dare Movie Review

Watch If You Dare is a horror anthology film. Unlike many of the classics (such as Creepshow and Twilight Zone: The Movie), this one does not have a wraparound story, and the individual entries are not linked in anyway--this movie just jumps right in with the first story, so let's do the same thing here.

The Stylist

A hair stylist named Claire has one final client for the day, and she decides to drug and scalp her. Does she do this because she's jealous of the woman? Does it have to do with the scar on her neck? Has she been in the service business too long and is just sick of people? Who knows. We do find out, however, this is not the first time Claire has done this, as she has a small collection of scalp wigs at home. There is some blood during the scalping scene, but what will probably stick in your mind after watching this segment is the horrible bald cap they used on the victim.

Ink

Some crackhead looking dude kills people to cut off their tattoos, which he then sews onto himself  after cutting his own skin away to make room for them. Why does he do this instead of just getting a tattoo? Your guess is as good as mine, as this is never answered. In fact, there's barely any dialogue at all in this one. This segment only serves to up the gross out factor as we see the killer cutting his own skin off, and noticing the weird discharges coming from his sewn-up new skin. As for the kills, forget it--we don't actually see them.

Foodies

The anthology takes a more comedic turn with this segment--the problem is, it's not funny in the least. The story is a guy gets invited to an exclusive dinner, where he becomes the main course. This is presented as a twist, but you know it's coming long before it's revealed. Foodies looks a lot like one of those poorly made workplace videos you have to sit through at your job, and this drags on just as long. Once we finally get to the end of the story, we get the second twist--another one you will sniff out if you're paying even a little bit of attention. This is the worst of the segments, and believe me when I tell you that's really saying something.

Knob Goblin

A guy is told to go into a house to face the reality that the monster he has always feared isn't real. It is, and the monster bites off his genitals. That's literally all that happens in this segment, which also goes for comedy but fails miserably. At least this outing is mercifully short.

Watch If You Dare, the worst horror anthology I have ever watched (that's also saying a lot). The stories are all poor, the acting is terrible in all three, and there is nothing even remotely interesting about anything we see. This movie was advertised as the most disturbing film of 2018--the only thing disturbing about this movie is that is was actually made.


On A Scale Of One To Ten: 2

Watch If You Dare Movie Trailer

A LURE: TEEN FIGHT CLUB

A Lure: Teen Fight Club Movie Review

After a group of teenagers go missing, an undercover cop (Jessica Sonneborn, also the co-writer and one of the producers of the film) is sent to a high school 21 Jump Street style to protect the girls. Soon after she arrives, a rave is planned, but a shady janitor switches the invitations to lead the girls to another location, where another kind of secret party awaits them. This 2010 film has an interesting premise, but it seriously lacking in every way. The acting is some of the worst you can imagine. The writing is atrocious. The characters are one-dimensional, and not a single one is even remotely likable--you wait the entire film for them to start getting killed off, but alas, this best we get is this...  

Teens? Not quite

Yeah, the girls all appear to be at least in their mid-twenties, if not pushing thirty. The continuity errors are hilarious. The dialogue is so bad you may have to dumb yourself down considerably to withstand it--honestly, of all the things that are terrible in this movie, the dialogue may be the worst thing about it. The directing and camera work may make you feel nauseous at times. IMDb states this movie had a three million dollar budget--where that money went is anybody's guess--this movie looks like it was made for under a hundred thousand. There is one unintentional laugh out loud moment that ALMOST makes this movie worth watching--toward the end of the film, the cop who comes t save the day stands probably sixty feet and at a down angle from a guy with a knife to a girl's throat. Without hesitation, and with dead eye accuracy, the cop shoots the man in the head. Mere moments later, the same cop comes upon another guy (the "surprise" bad guy that will surprise nobody paying even a minimal amount of attention to this movie) with a knife to another girl's throat--this time the cop is maybe ten feet away, standing level with the guy, but instead of shooting with the confidence he just had to kill the other guy, he takes the bad guy's order to drop the gun...and then kicks the gun to him! Incredible. If you're hoping for an ending that will make the last 92 minutes of your life worth living, forget about it--the ending is just as awful as the rest of the film. This is the first movie I have watched from a 15 movie box set collection from Echo Bridge my girlfriend got me for Christmas last year.  

This collection, to be exact

This movie is so bad that the other 14 movies in this collection MUST be better...right?    

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 2

A Lure: Teen Fight Club Movie Trailer

DOMINIQUE

 Dominique Movie Review

Millionaire David Ballard (Cliff Robertson) is haunted by the ghost of his recently deceased wife Dominique (Jean Simmons), who he had tormented during her life. This is a really, really boring, and overall terrible, movie. The dialogue is a joke, it moves miserably slow, the acting is bad (and not in a good way) and little to nothing actually happens throughout. The end is somewhat decent, or maybe it just appears to be compared to the ninety minutes leading up to it. The only thing remotely interesting about this movie is the lighting, which is often all red, blue, or green. Also, it was transferred from reel to reel, which adds a touch that I personally enjoy, but none of these things make this film is remotely worth watching--avoid Dominique at all costs.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 2

I couldn't find the trailer, so here is the entire movie. You've been warned.