Embrace of the Vampire (2013)

"Sharon Hinnendael stars as Charlotte, a timid and sheltered teen who has just left an all-girls Catholic school for a new life at a co-ed university. But an ancient evil has followed her here, tormenting her with disturbing nightmares and tempting her with forbidden desires."

Not so much a remake of "Embrace of the Vampire" (1995) as it is a remix of scenes from "The Initiation of Sarah" (1978), "Carrie" (1976), and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992) with more boobs, at least this version has a better plot and some decent horror moments. It's still mainly an excuse to be sexy as Hell though, and it plays out as a typical exploitation movie, so trust me, you won't be disappointed!

Sharon Hinnendael does a fantastic job in the lead role and is certainly not ashamed to be kissed and fondled by nearly everyone she meets, no matter what their gender, age, or state of monsterdom might be. In this way, "Embrace of the Vampire" stays true to the original in terms of its softcore porn elements. The usual clique of hypocritical prudes will probably hate the female nudity because nothing is toned-down, and the infamous lesbian sex scene is even more explicit and engorging, but the target audience will be grabbing their box of tissues in delight!

For those who care about the story, many details have been added and fleshed-out (no pun intended) including Charlotte's convent school upbringing, the courses she's taking at University, her part-time job in a coffee shop, and a genetic blood disorder which causes her to have hallucinations. Although this Charlotte is more modern and less of an easy lay than Alyssa Milano's version, Sharon Hinnendael repeats some of her predecessor's annoying mannerisms such as avoiding eye-contact and looking at something more interesting on the ground either through shyness or a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome. Obviously, that's just the character and a homage because there's no way that Sharon Hinnendael is shy about anything!

Further plot changes include a creepy fortune-teller type who seems to have escaped from a Val Lewton movie, a ton of bitchiness from the snobby/jealous members of the fencing club, a sorority-style hazing, and a camping trip in the woods which ends badly for Charlotte's friends. Fortunately, these clichés aren't as annoying as you might think, and there are no bizarre orgies in nightclubs or gender-changing shenanigans to spoil things either.

I am not Buffy! I just look like her and do Buffy things.

The vampiric moments are beautifully violent and gory, and to give credit where it's most certainly due, Victor Webster (channelling a mixture of Chris Sarandon and Billy Zane) is a much better vampire than Martin "Spandau Ballet" Kemp. His cover as a University professor isn't a million miles away from the new Gerri Dandridge in "Fright Night 2: New Blood" however, but as the latter's desire for a virgin victim also borrows from the original "Embrace of the Vampire", it's only fair. Nothing is ever original in the vampire genre anyway, but it does make you wonder what awful experiences the filmmakers must have had with their teachers to perpetuate this trend of undead academics.

As with most Canadian movies, there's some obvious typecasting to compete with American productions. Kaniehtiio Horn (yes, that really is her name) looks and sounds a lot like Tiffany Shepis (complete with horrible L.A. affectations), and I've always thought that Ryan Kennedy (the new Chris) looks amazingly like a younger version of fellow Canadian Joshua Jackson (from "Fringe"). Somebody really needs to put Ryan Kennedy in a movie as Joshua Jackson's younger brother or earlier self one day! Other lookalikes such as Robert Moloney who plays the University's bursar as a Bob Newhart type, and Olivia Cheng who reminds me of one of the "Star Trek" girls whose name I can't remember, are surrounded by further stereotypical characters for padding.

Maybe it was because I was tired and easily pleased when I watched it, but I actually enjoyed "Embrace of the Vampire" considerably more than I thought I would. It's nicely filmed and paced, but it loses points for the rushed ending which goes in a different direction than the more interesting and happier one that I expected. Thus, I'm going to rate it as "average" for a horror movie, but the sexiness makes it worth purchasing for purely sinister reasons.

Blu-ray discs are a scam!

With dual layer Blu-ray discs being the industry standard for feature-length videos why isn't the 50 GB storage space used more efficiently?

50 GB is around 12 times the storage space of standard DVD discs with 4.3 GB yet still entire seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", for example, don't come on a single Blu-ray disc. What the Hell? Why?

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" isn't even on Blu-ray, but the seasons do already exist in 6 disc DVD packs. Theoretically, that means that 6 seasons should fit on 3 Blu-ray discs. Give or take a few pointless extras and maybe adding the original 1992 movie to a boxset, the maximum number of Blu-ray discs needed would be 4. How much do you want to bet that when "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" does come out on Blu-ray, there'll still be 6 Blu-ray discs to every pack and the price will be doubled?

What's the reason for this? Do you think that the original 4:3 ratioed, standard television format shows will be magically enhanced somehow to make them clearer or the stories will become any better because of it? You can't save the final season of "Buffy" from being crap anyway no matter how much you polish the turd, but I digressed. No, the truth is that Blu-ray is a scam.

No matter what the media and the nerd blogs tell you, there's no huge difference between the transfers of movies available on DVD and Blu-ray in the same way that DVD was a huge technological upgrade from VHS. The movie industry simply needed something else to get money out of people. If there is any benefit at all, it's that the plastic which covers the label where the information is really stored is a little bit harder to scratch. It's still not impossible though. Errors in duplication are just as frequent too.

I've seen Blu-ray discs which look absolutely no different to the DVD versions of the same movie. I've also seen transfers to Blu-ray which are a lot worse so it's become obvious that it's all a con. Unless you have a huge HDTV with at least a 70 inch screen, you aren't going to notice much difference either way. On my 3 year old 42 inch television, there's no difference at all.

Blu-ray players, on the other hand, aren't a scam. If they'd been used the right way in the beginning to play multi-featured discs back then they'd be a fantastic upgrade for those of us who always wanted a DVD jukebox from Sony which actually worked properly. The bonus features which allow Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming services through the same boxes are also commendable additions.

But is it worth upgrading everything to Blu-ray when you already have a huge DVD collection already? The answer is no. You aren't going to get any benefit out of it. The DVDs you own will automatically be up-scaled by the Blu-ray player to the resolution of your new HDTV, but most HDTVs should do that with a standard DVD player anyway. That's also the same process used by most of the Blu-ray manufacturers who claim to have "remastered" the movies. What did they do? They enlarged the picture and burnt it back onto Blu-ray, that's all. Give me a break! Only a movie filmed in HD specifically for the Blu-ray format is ever going to look "better" (and without letterboxing) because your old beloved '80s slashers probably don't even exist on a better format originally than VHS or Beta (if you are lucky).

So the process might be more intricate in the case of transferring 35mm prints to Blu-ray than merely up-scaling low-budget horror DVDs, but the principle remains the same. If the original source material is crap, the result of the transfer will be too. It's not some kind of magic that turns fuzzy into non-fuzzy at the press of a button. In some cases, it nearly is, but not really. But do you really believe that anyone is going to invest the time or money into rescanning movies when a few digital enhancements are all that it will take to satisfy the masses? Of course, not. 99.9% of "remastered" Blu-ray movies are the same as the DVD except up-scaled and re-burnt onto new media.

Does one movie really require the whole 50 GB of space for the resulting image to be stored on? Hell, no! You could fit 10 remastered movies on each Blu-ray disc if you wanted to, but obviously the movie studios don't want to do that. They want you to buy everything again individually apart from the movies which didn't sell well in the first place. They don't care about those at all which is why there are so many DVD multi-feature bargains to be found.

While the majority of people would rather buy multipacks of two or three movies per side of a flipper disc, the single feature scam continues to entice the cash from the wallets of those people with more money than sense.

Do yourself a favour this Christmas. Just say no to Blu-ray until the movie distributors start using the format properly.