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.

Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

"In the near future, Uffizi and Luke travel to the remote reaches of war torn Romania to rescue Elizabeth and finish the vampire once and for all. Along the way, they encounter TV news journalists and a corps of rebels trying to fight the vampire uprising which plagues their country."

As much as it's silly to even hope for the second sequel in a trilogy to be worthwhile, I was still expecting "Dracula III: Legacy" to be entertaining. I know that I should have learned my lesson way back when "Return of the Jedi" turned out to be a steaming pile of crap. I even saw the pattern forming with "The Godfather: Part III". Unfortunately, I have remained overly optimistic up to and past the recent awfulness of "The Dark Knight Rises". One day, I'm sure someone will be able to make a trilogy with a decent final third. Ah, but what do I care about non-horror movies anyway?

With all the positivity that a true horror fan could muster, I loaded my "Dracula III: Legacy" DVD into the player, and was thanked with one of the most boring and insulting pieces of lousy filmmaking that I have ever seen in my life. What a shame!

Even a day later, I still feel emotionally drained by the whole horrid experience, but not in the cathartic way that leads to a comfy sleep wrapped up in cats. No, in this case, I was drained of anything good that I could possibly say about "Dracula III: Legacy". As a vampire movie, it certainly did its job in sucking the joy right out of me.

Just look at the picture above. Do these guys look like vampire-hunters to you? Doesn't it look like a scene from some really bad comedy about a homeless guy and his mentally challenged friend? I'll let you decide which is which. Honestly, I think Patrick Lussier may have even intended for this movie to be the one which I jokingly just described because whatever he created here was certainly nothing like "Dracula II: Ascension".

While it may have had the same characters, promoting the wrong two of them to lead status was a schoolboy error. From the ending of the previous movie, I wanted to see more of Diane Neal and Stephen Billington bringing a reign of terror to the world as the new vampiric royal couple. I did not want to see any more of Jason Scott Lee's character who was supposed to be left for dead with an arrow through his heart, and I certainly didn't want a lowly morgue orderly to become a hamfisted and ham-acted hero.

Although their travels through war-torn Romania were interesting in a completely anachronistic and xenophobic way, it was pretty obvious that the filming was only done there because it was cheap. I know that "Dracula II: Ascension" was filmed in Romania too (at the same time as this in 2002), but the former had the right pace, imagination, and, I would make a guess, used up the bulk of the available budget. This third part was nothing but leftovers or sloppy seconds.

What happened to Dracula and his lovely bride? Replacing the most attractive female with Alexandra Westcourt as a reporter covering the war didn't make up for it. As pretty as she was, she was hardly a sexy vampiress.

Dracula didn't even make an appearance until the end and had only about as much on screen time as the combined (and rather pointless) cameos by Roy Scheider in both films. To make matters worse, Stephen Billington was replaced by Rutger Hauer! What the hell? Hello? Did nobody notice how awful he was at playing the vampire Lothos in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992)? That was such a cringeworthy Rutger Hauer role that it is now the stuff of legend.

I can forgive whoever cast Rutger Hauer as Dracula for not realising that his inability to play a vampire would also be apparent to anyone who saw him suck as Kurt Barlow in the "Salem's Lot" remake since, although that was made in 2004 and "Dracula III: Legacy" was released in 2005, chronologically, this movie was made first. I wonder why Stephen Billington didn't continue in the part? Was he written out to give Rutger Hauer a job or just to add a recognisable cult name to the cast? Continuity had been thrown out of the window with the first sequel so I'm sure nobody even questioned the decision.

At least the gorgeous Elizabeth returned for a few minutes near the end, and the fight between Dracula and Father Uffizi provided some much needed action in any otherwise almost completely actionless borefest. It again made no difference that the Dracula who could never be killed created a huge plothole in the twist ending. Or did it? I'm still not entirely convinced that something other than the obvious hadn't been set up for yet another lacklustre sequel.

What a total disappointment. I now have one of Patrick Lussier's "Dracula" movies rated as very good, one as average, and there's only one place that this can go. With great regret, I now consign "Dracula III: Legacy" to The Dungeon. May it rot in peace.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

"Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his mission to eliminate them."

As most of us have learned from Timur Bekmambetov's famous Russian movies, just because there are vampires in them, it doesn't make them horror. Also, just as "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" were fantasies with some cool action scenes, it's no big surprise that Timur Bekmambetov (aided and abetted by producer Tim Burton) has done more of the same.

To bring in another of his films, "Wanted", for comparison, the action scenes in "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" are an identical mixture of slow-motion and ramping but with really annoying quick cuts this time just to spoil what little enjoyment there actually is.

In fact, the whole movie suffers from being far too quick over the ground. As amusing as the title may be just to poke a bit of fun at one of America's dead kings, you might at least still expect a decent amount of backstory and fleshing out of the character. There is some, but it's very rushed. Alas, the Abraham Lincoln in this story remains as one-dimensional as the one in the history books who nobody outside of the U.S.A. even cares about.

Although this was all based on a novel (for those strange people who can read such things), if the screenplay by the same writer is anything to go by then I'm glad that I didn't bother struggling through such antiquated papery crap. I know people are moaning that the film isn't as good as the book, but I simply don't believe them.

Of course, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is nothing more than a silly Summer movie for kids with too much money who want to leave their brains outside the cinema and chomp down as much stale popcorn as they can. Think in terms of "Van Helsing" or those horrible new "Sherlock Holmes" movies and you can guess the rest.

This isn't meant for hardcore horror fans or anybody outside of the same target audience as the one for "Twilight". No, the vampires don't sparkle in this but they do come out in daylight and aren't any scarier than the "bad vamps" from Stephanie Meyer's imagination. They are about as effective as those feeble offerings too.

Highlights are the special computerised effects which would be great if only things would move slowly enough to be able to get a good look at them. There's a scene with stampeding horses and another with a train which are more than a little confusing with who is doing what to who and why.

The much publicised axe-wielding, "axe-fu" or "axe-kata", is quite neat to watch but, again, it suffers from not really being able see anything gory. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" feels like a PG-13 movie which accidentally got an R-rating for having a swear word and a flash of boobies.

There is blood in this but it's your typical vampire bite on the neck kind of blood. Everything else is CGI with very occasional practical effects. It all looks good. The make-up, costumes and period sets actually look great, but it's all "style over substance" anyway.

I'll give some credit to Benjamin Walker in that he looks the part in the make-up and uncomfortable clothes, but I wish somebody had let him do some acting. The same can be said of the rest of the cast who also seem to only be there to play dress-up.

Fans of Mary Elizabeth Winstead (from "The Thing" premake) will be pleased to see her again in a quite inconsistent role as Mary Todd Lincoln. I have no idea if Abraham Lincoln was married, but I assume he was and they had to fit this almost superfluous character in somewhere. She doesn't do a lot, but the one scene where she kills a vampiress isn't too bad.

Rufus Sewell plays the part of Adam, the head vampire, really well, but doesn't get enough time on screen to be memorable. He's also completely upstaged by a fellow Brit, Dominic Cooper playing Henry Sturgess, who, if there is ever a sequel, is bound to be in it.

Anyway, I don't want to give any more spoilers away since "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is now showing at a movie theatre near you and, even though you will undoubtedly be disappointed, you'll probably still want to watch it.

Upcoming Horror Movie - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

"Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his mission to eliminate them."

As much as I think that this movie (based on a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith) sounds like a completely stupid idea, I'm kind of looking forward to it.

With Timur Bekmambetov (of "Night Watch", "Day Watch" and "Wanted" fame) directing it, I don't really see where it can go wrong except that it will hardly be a horror film if his previous efforts are anything to go by. Unfortunately, Tim Burton is producing so it could end up as yet another ridiculous fairytale or turn into a stupid comedy such as "Dark Shadows" which I don't even want to think about right now (or ever).

According to the IMDb and Wikipedia articles, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is cashing in on the 3D gimmick which I think a lot of us were hoping was already over. There's more 3D to come though later this year with "Piranha 3DD" so it's probably best to think of this film as yet another Summer movie for people who don't want to think too much. It could be good but the chances are that none of us will remember it either.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is due to be released in the USA on June 22nd, 2012.