Vampires Suck?: Children of the Night

Surprisingly, the Fangoria-produced film is gory and full of monsters- who'd have guessed?!?  

In all seriousness, this 1991 film was Produced by Fangoria.  I guess it's simpler to just make your own movie to talk about in your magazine if you need material.  I suppose it could have been that they were just unhappy with a perceived lack of 'quality' films too.  

So, what kind of movie does a horror magazine put together?  Well, it's got lots of Vampires- obviously-, lots of gore- naturally- and a comedic, Vampire Grandma.  You want to run that last one by me again?  

The other thing about this movie is its odd obsession with off-the-wall humor.  Don't get me wrong- I love a bizarre laugh.  It just seems a bit out of place here, especially given the darker tone of the whole events.  That's what we have here though- an odd horror-comedy.  

As a bonus, it plays with Vampire lore and rules a lot because, well, I don't know why.  It makes for interesting visuals though, I suppose.  

The film has some interesting 'star power' in the form of SNL's Garrett Morris, Karen Black and Peter DeLuise (son of Dom).  To find out what all of this amounts to, read on...

The film begins with some teenage girls doing the natural thing to rebel- smoking cigarettes in a water-filled crypt.  

Who didn't do that as a kid?

Unfortunately, they are not alone, as they accidentally awaken a vampire that's been resting there...in the water...by dropping a cross on his face.  

Yeah, this one starts out weird!

It jumps ahead some vague amount of time to show DeLuise teaching a girl to read...with horror stories.  

Instead of focusing on that, the movie focuses on the mother's 'Glasgow Smile.' 

It's not clear why it's important and, in fact, she never shows up again, so what was the big deal here?

DeLuise comes home with his Priest friend, only to find that he's housing the Vampire Girl and her mother- Karen Black, in full plastic surgery mode- & had a conflict of faith. 

 Ya think?!?

Vampire Grandma- a sight to be seen.  

It doesn't make the movie great, but it makes it interesting.

This kid is a horrible actor.  I just feel like I have to say that.  

Fangoria is odd enough to give him lots of dialog in a key scene.  

Brilliant.

The Vampire Girl 'does a face turn,' kills her mother (less nice) and helps our heroine battle this Radu-wannabe.  

To be fair, the films came out pretty close together.  

Plus, who else besides me and Obscurus Lupa has actually seen the Subspecies films?

After a lot of action and silliness, the lead Vampire is taken out by a flying Bible truck and the cross strapped to it.  No, really.

How can this get any sillier...

...okay, that does it.  

Yes, this Fangoria-produced film gets really schmaltzy in the End.

On top of that cheesiness, all of the people who didn't get killed turn back to normal when 'Radu' is killed.

Yes, this is in some Vampire lore, but it's also kind of a cop-out.  Even our heroes seem confused by it.  The End.

So, um, what was the logic behind most of this?  I don't hate this movie, but the changes to Vampire lore are just weird.  

Aquatic Vampires?  I mean, I've seen Aquatic Zombies, but that's a different story.  

I can accept the changes, honestly, but I know that a lot of people won't.  It's just weird.  Speaking of weird, the humor is odd and random.  

Again- it's something that is going to be jarring for a lot of people.  Does the film get points for trying new stuff?  Sure.  

To me, it's a bunch of silly gimmicks designed to hold a pretty basic plot in place.  

I would have liked to see more derivation in the plot, but it's still not awful.  If you want to see a decent Vampire film which tries some new stuff- for better or for worse-, you should give this one a look.  

Hey, even Silver Surfer is here (kind of) ...

Next up, a recent film that takes a simple plot and pretends to be Quentin Tarantino.  If you can't make a good movie, don't try to copy someone else's!  Stay tuned...

Fangoria Crap: Dark House

Can the House be better than the Ride.  I switched to Fangoria somewhat by accident, but this was a movie I was curious about.  I'll be honest- it's because of Jeffrey Combs.  Can you blame me?  Interestingly enough, he's playing the 'scam artist' running a haunted house that goes awry, while he played by a ghost in a haunted house run by a 'scam artist' that went awry in House on Haunted Hill.  Okay, maybe I'm the only one that finds that interesting- fair enough.  This plot is basic at its core, but throws a couple of weird wrenches into the gears to make it...odd.  We have the 'girl trying to confront lost memories' mixed in with the 'fake haunted house that's actually haunted' story.  Do they work together?  Yes and no.  The film is guilty of some pretty blatant cheats to keep suspense going on and also can't quite agree on what they want to happen.  I'll refrain from saying more here, but will say that SPOILERS are coming.  No complaining now.  To find out why this movie is great and terrible, read on...

The film opens with a girl walking into a house and finding a bunch of corpses, most of which are kids.  It ends abruptly.  Incidentally, this scene is mostly a lie.  More on that later...

Our heroine is traumatized by this event, even she doesn't exactly remember everything.  The solution- go to the house.  You, sir, are a terrible Psychiatrist!

She goes to acting classes, which are interrupted by Jeffrey Combs, who wants to hire them as hosts for his haunted house show...in the house our heroine wants to go to.  What (terrible) luck!

The whole house is rigged up with computers and sensors.  They project holograms to represent the monsters and scares.  Sadly, they didn't prepare for a ghost to hack into their system and take over.  Wait- what?!?

Crazy shit starts to go down and people start to die.  At one point, the little ghost kid from The Grudge shows up to...spew poison gas.  Given the explanation(s) for what happens, you should bear in mind that this happens away from our heroine.

The good news: you won't die of terminal cancer.  The bad news: your head is getting exploded by a holographic knight's mace.

With every other cast member out of the way, our heroine confronts the evil ghost lady- who is now in 'the flesh'.  The film cuts away suddenly, just because we have to have the plot twist.

Warning: SPOILERS ahead...

A Detective we've never seen before explains to his boss- who we've also never seen before- that our heroine was just crazy and killed everyone.  That's stupid, but at least you picked one...

Wait, so the movie ends with the ghost of the woman coming out to kill the girl who actually showed up in the beginning.  What was the point of that previous explanation then?  What really happened?!?  The *real* End.

You just had to ruin everything, didn't you?!?  I'll admit that this movie was not great to begin with.  The whole premise- a *fake* haunted house being real- is a bit played out.  It's nothing special, but it works for a movie like this.  Fangoria is not exactly trying to rewrite the rules of horror film-making, after all.  The way the movie turns is also not that realistic.  How does the ghost come to life?  According to one line of dialogue, she can't be at rest because the one girl survived.  I can 'buy' that, I guess.  How does the ghost hack into the computer?  How does it know how?  Do E-Sata cables conduct ghosts?  Even if you accept that ridiculous idea, the holograms start killing people...because they're 'solid light.'  Is it that easy to turn projections into killing machines?  If so, we should probably stop making holograms!  So now that we have illogical ghost-hacker-controlled holograms that can kill people, the movie then tells us that none of it happened.  If so, how did the murder with the poison gas happen?  How did she imagine something when she wasn't even there?  That goes for the death of 'Goth Girl' too.  They had a simple execution going- what with her being the guide- but ruined it with other kills.  Plus, how does she not remember putting glue in the locks?  Okay, I can accept this very-flawed plot twist...so why did you undo it about two minutes later?  If you can't pick an ending or a basic plot structure, stop wasting my time!  You're still awesome though, Jeffrey- good on you.  Speaking of good things, here are two of them...

Next up, a three-part look at Jean-Claude Van Damme in movies with 'Death' in the title.  First up, JCVD in prison...with black-market organ theft.  Stay tuned...