Vampires. The most filmed monsters of all time. Dracula himself has appeared in more movies than any other single fictional character in history. Generally they run from badass Christopher Lee to whiny Anne Rice fuckers who spend so much of their time being sad that you could probably just hand them the stake and let them take care of it themselves. I wish to Cthulhu that someone will finally do something with the long-ago-purchased film rights to Brian Lumley’s “Necroscope” series, as giant shape-shifting barbarians with genetically engineered war beasts is exactly what the horror world needs to turn this stupid emo vampire bullshit on its head and pile-drive it into the ground, never to annoy me again. And then, every once in a while, they venture into melty turd-faced monster territory, and tonight’s entry is decidedly in the melty turd-faced camp.
Dr. Paul Beecher is a small-town sawbones who accidentally picks up some pills from one of his patients, a research scientist working on chemically-induced regression. Mistaking the pills for his migraine medicine, Beecher takes several of them before realizing that the pills are turning him into a melty turd-faced monster and forcing him to kill his patients for their blood. The pills cause capillary disintegration, as well as restricted blood flow to the brain, so the victim craves blood to satisfy its degenerating body. They also have an addictive quality, making the patient go through violent withdrawals like heroin, forcing the user to keep taking them, at the same time killing himself in the process.
Our creature here isn’t really a vampire per-se. The serum he takes is made from the blood of vampire bats, which doesn’t really make sense (but then again, I dare you to show me any 1950’s horror flick where the science adds up), but the effects are much more like drug addiction than vampirism. He doesn’t gain any powers, and he can walk in sunlight; the only vampirical aspect of the drug is that he needs blood, but immortality isn’t part of the bargain. Given enough time, the drug would have deteriorated his body to the point of death if he hadn’t been stupid enough to attack an armed cop and gotten himself shot.
When seen as a drug addiction metaphor, this flick is a bit ahead of its time. Sure, marijuana was a big deal, but the hard drugs that this pill resembles were still a decade or two away from hitting the mainstream. The Vampire would have been a fine anti-drug propaganda flick if it had been marketed as such. As it stands, it’s a not a bad little horror flick. At 76 minutes, it still drags a bit in places, but there are a couple of genuinely atmospheric stalking scenes (even if the creature does look like either mutant Mr. Bean, or David Schwimmer in that episode of “Friends” where Ross gets too much fake tan – he even has the intensely gay Schwimmer haircut!), and if you’re a fan of scientists-doing-scientist-stuff-in-a-lab scenes like I am, this one has several fine examples of the genre. All in all, worth checking out if you want to wind down your night with some old-fashioned B&W cheese.
The Moral of the Story: Always read the labels on your medicine bottles before consuming, kiddies. If it says, "Side effects include turning into a melty turd-faced monster and drinking blood", you may want to consult a physician to make sure it's the right pill for you.
Screen Shots______________
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"The damn vampire glued my face to the table again!"
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...rides his bike to school and gets
beat up by all the other vampires.
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Doughy, craggy men doing doughy, craggy things!
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Rowan Atkinson's third Bean film,
"Mr. Bean's Horrific Mutation" had
a hard time finding its audience.
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WE WERE ON A BREAK!
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