Vamp Blu-ray Review

• 14th Feb 2011

Nothing like a return to an old classic and this mid-80s cult classic is out now on Blu-ray. Looking like a prolonged 80s pop video with neon lit rooms, streets, basements and sewers! Yes that’s right – neon lit sewers! You know you are in the mid-pop height of the 80s when you are in a neon lit sewer.

Sound like a load of crap?  Well yes, but this is kind of the point. The tongue is never more in the cheek than here – in fact this isn’t revisited until you get to From Dusk Till Dawn in the mid-90s which obviously took many a leaf from the pages of this (and admittedly so in the extras).

So, we get a few college kids trying to join a fraternity so that they can continue their partying days. But they are sent on a mission to find a stripper and where better to find one than a strip joint?

One bad choice later and they find themselves in a club ran by a pact of vampires who enjoy preying on the lonely and lonesome. When one of them is mistaken for a loner and suffers the bite of the silent but impactful Grace Jones, things take a turn for the worse. We are then in a run for your life adventure comedy where one situation leads to another and builds until it’s ridiculous climax in the aforementioned neon lit sewers.

Jones is probably the only name in here that people will instantly recognise. The teenagers are largely played by the wannabes of the time whose careers never quite hit it high. Dedee Pfeiffer is the lead girl (a bit of an airhead) leaving only Robert Rusler with any sort of charm and some wonderful blackly comic lines when he discovers he’s one of the walking dead. It is curious why Rusler never made it bigger. He seemed destined to play the cocky friend (in Elm Street 2 he played the doomed cocky friend and in Weird Science he was Downey Jr’s partner in crime). Low budget eagle eyes can also spot Billy Drago as an albino hoodlum (still probably best known for being thrown off a roof top in The Untouchables).

As dated as the film is, it proudly represents an era and can be watched in loving retro fashion, there are moments of inspiration as well. The dance that Jones does for example was far ahead of its time. If you have seen any burlesque and alternative arts you will get what she is doing. It is worth keeping in mind that this was done at a time when that wasn’t quite the fashion yet and viewers were probably more interested in seeing a conventional striptease.

The extras are plentiful with extended interviews with Pfeiffer, the director and the producer. There is also a short film from the director and a commentary which includes Rusler. A worthy package for a film that is still funny and entertaining with a great soundtrack to boot!

Steven Hurst