The Vineyard Review
Made in 1989, this film is a real curio. It stars, was co-directed and written by James Wong who has one of those familiar faces one remembers from episodes of ‘Miami Vice’ or other such series, a wealth of ruthless Chinese or Vietnamese villains or any number of animated film voiceovers in such films as the Kung-Fu Panda films and Disney’s Mulan. But this has to be among the crop of some of the worst films ever made. True it has potential: zombies, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/Man in Half Moon Street kind of sub-plots with elements of She (1965) and a host of other horror and fantasy ideas. But it’s just absolutely dreadful with some acting and sexless nudity that would make any soft porn film look a classic.
Hong is at the centre of the story of Dr. Elson Poe, a very rich man indeed who owns a very well known and successful Californian vineyard. The only trouble is that his vineyard holds hidden properties. On top of this Po is hundreds of years old and has a secret potion and amulet keeping him alive. His magic potion has debilitating side-effects in which occasionally he turns into the aged monster that he is and needs fresh blood to stay alive. Following a successful auction for his wine Po invites a host of young beautiful (and it would seem very thick) people to his vineyard with the ruse that he is making a film. He uses his powers for evil and directs his burly and stupid bodyguards to do his bidding as well as using voodoo to kill of the bevy of beauties staying at his ranch. Oh, and there are a bunch of decaying zombies buried out back who on occasions spring back to life.
There is little to offer here and despite lots of action and horror none of it really gels together and the whole affair looks a mess; yet it’s clearly a project that Hong wanted to put together. The rest is made up of tasteless soft core stuff including a dream sequence with Po’s wife whom he has sex with before she betrays him and on waking he finds his body deteriorating. Meanwhile, she is having an affair with the gardener and the pair is summarily dispatched: he is murdered and castrated (and later returns as a zombie), while she is tied up with the rest of Po’s sex slaves in the basement. This kind of gives a flavour of the type of film this is, never mind the dreadful rubbery make-up effects. And you guessed it, an awful 80s rock soundtrack. Only one scene stands out well with one of the girl guests preparing for bed in the bathroom when she discovers some nasty old spiders crawling out of her mouth. This is definitely one to miss and is really for horror aficionados looking for a lost horror classic which, erm, this is not.
The only other extra on the disc is a trailer but once again Arrow are making sure that they keep the cult stuff coming out.
Chris Hick