Modern Vampires, or Revenant as it's also known, is set in Los Angeles where a female Vampire called Nico (Natasha Gregson Wagner) who is also known as the 'Hollywood Slasher' is going around openly killing people & drinking their blood, the ultimate Vampire Count Dracula (Robert Pastorelli) doesn't like this as if she is discovered the human race will be aware of the existence of Vampires & hunt them down like the vermin they are so he orders her dead. Meanwhile Dallas (co-exectutive producer Casper Van Dien) the Vampire who turned Nico rolls into town & wants to protect her, he also brings with him the supreme Vampire hunter Dr. Frederick Van Helsing (Rod Steiger) who is on a mission to destroy all Vampires. Much hilarity ensues, not...
This made-for-TV piece of crap was co-produced & directed by Richard Elfman who also appears in the film at the end as the 'Cop with Doughnut' & I'll be brutally honest & get straight to the point & say that I thought Modern Vampires was awful. The script by Matthew Bright is obviously meant to be some sort of horror comedy, unfortunately Modern Vampires is neither horrific nor funny which is obviously a sizable problem. The films uses racial stereotypes with awful black jokes, there are terrible Vampire jokes & embarrassing slapstick comedy moments like the comedy sound effects when anyone hammers a stake into a Vampires heart or when the black dudes tie a female Vampire to a bed & take it in turns to have sex with her. The character's are also awful, just compare the annoying & irritating character's in Modern Vampires with the brilliant characterisations in Near Dark (1987) another contemporary Vampire film, it's like chalk & cheese to be frank & there is no comparison. In fact Nico has to one of the worst on screen Vampires in cinematic history & her character alone is going to knock a star off my final rating. The film is slow, it's dull, it's throughly predictable & I just had a hard time sitting through it. It's films like Modern Vampires that make me wonder what is happening to the horror genre.
Director Elfman (composer Danny Elfman's brother) obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word subtle, everything is garishly over-the-top & exaggerated in a cartoonish sort of way. I still can't get over Van Helsing hiring a gang of black guy's, lame. There's certainly nothing scary here & I didn't find it funny in the least either. There's some gore here, people have broken bottles stuck in their necks, Vampires bite & suck blood, there are several vampire stakings, a Vampire has it's head cut off with a saw & there are a lot of bare naked breasts on show as well along with star Casper Van Dien's bare butt during a sex scene if that sort of thing interests you.
With a supposed budget of about $2,000,000 this looks alright but is a bit bland & forgettable, the constant hip-hop style music is just so out of place as well. There's actually a decent cast here which is wasted. Van Dien, Steiger, Kim Cattrall & Udo Kier put in hammy performances while Pastorelli is perhaps the worst on screen Dracula ever.
Modern Vampires sucks more than any Vampire in the film itself ever could, I'm sorry but that is what it basically boils down to & it's as simple & straight forward as that. It's neither horrific or funny & that's an absolute killer for a horror comedy, isn't it?
This made-for-TV piece of crap was co-produced & directed by Richard Elfman who also appears in the film at the end as the 'Cop with Doughnut' & I'll be brutally honest & get straight to the point & say that I thought Modern Vampires was awful. The script by Matthew Bright is obviously meant to be some sort of horror comedy, unfortunately Modern Vampires is neither horrific nor funny which is obviously a sizable problem. The films uses racial stereotypes with awful black jokes, there are terrible Vampire jokes & embarrassing slapstick comedy moments like the comedy sound effects when anyone hammers a stake into a Vampires heart or when the black dudes tie a female Vampire to a bed & take it in turns to have sex with her. The character's are also awful, just compare the annoying & irritating character's in Modern Vampires with the brilliant characterisations in Near Dark (1987) another contemporary Vampire film, it's like chalk & cheese to be frank & there is no comparison. In fact Nico has to one of the worst on screen Vampires in cinematic history & her character alone is going to knock a star off my final rating. The film is slow, it's dull, it's throughly predictable & I just had a hard time sitting through it. It's films like Modern Vampires that make me wonder what is happening to the horror genre.
Director Elfman (composer Danny Elfman's brother) obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word subtle, everything is garishly over-the-top & exaggerated in a cartoonish sort of way. I still can't get over Van Helsing hiring a gang of black guy's, lame. There's certainly nothing scary here & I didn't find it funny in the least either. There's some gore here, people have broken bottles stuck in their necks, Vampires bite & suck blood, there are several vampire stakings, a Vampire has it's head cut off with a saw & there are a lot of bare naked breasts on show as well along with star Casper Van Dien's bare butt during a sex scene if that sort of thing interests you.
With a supposed budget of about $2,000,000 this looks alright but is a bit bland & forgettable, the constant hip-hop style music is just so out of place as well. There's actually a decent cast here which is wasted. Van Dien, Steiger, Kim Cattrall & Udo Kier put in hammy performances while Pastorelli is perhaps the worst on screen Dracula ever.
Modern Vampires sucks more than any Vampire in the film itself ever could, I'm sorry but that is what it basically boils down to & it's as simple & straight forward as that. It's neither horrific or funny & that's an absolute killer for a horror comedy, isn't it?