VAMP (1986)

VAMP (1986)

Tagline: the first kiss is the deepest.

(Horror, Comedy, College Bites) [R]

Nobody tells anybody when they come to a joint like this! Quite a racket, huh? See, I run an essential service here... Waste disposal. Oh yeah! Look around, look who comes here. The sickies, the degenerates, the forlorn, the lowlifes…

In this one, Keith and AJ really want to get into a college fraternity. The task is simple enough. All they need to do is find some strippers who will entertain the fraternity. Because they can’t get transportation they turn to a kid named Duncan who can meet their needs. He also wants something. Keith and AJ have to pretend to be his friend for a week. It doesn’t take long before they piss off some bikers before finally ending up at a seedy stripper bar. What they don’t know is that they are about to get vamped. 

Okay, horror fans. Are you noticing something here?  Does this plot sound oddly familiar to 1996’s FROM DUSK TILL DAWN? Yes. Yes, it does. Anyway, when we start talking about the more fun elements of this film I have to go to the fact that because of the title I expected vampires and I expected Katrina to be one, but holy cow, the reveal scene is bonkers. I also really liked the cast overall. Grace Jones (CONAN THE DESTROYER) who plays Katrina purposely chose to not have any lines in this to give her character more of a mysterious old-school vampire feel, but it’s very effective. Chris Makepeace (MEATBALLS) is good as Keith. Even though he’s making stupid decisions, it’s hard not to like him. Robert Rusler (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE) is great as kind of the bad boy of the two. I like that they gave him a heart of gold in this, but yeah, sometimes caring about your friends doesn’t make you a smart person. Gedde Watanabe (SIXTEEN CANDLES) plays Duncan in this who seems smart enough when he’s not drunk in this, but seems to immediately turn into Long Duk Dong from SIXTEEN CANDLES annoyingly soon in this. I think his role was put in for comedic reasons, but his character was pretty annoying. Dedee Pfeiffer does a good job as Allison in this. I am guessing she’s become quite the actress over the years. She’s now most known for solving crimes in Montana on the TV show “Big Sky”. 

The feel of this movie is REVENGE OF THE NERDS VS VAMPIRES, but a lot of the humor actually works and in spite of being set partly in a strip club, it’s not going way out of its way to come across as overly exploitive just for the sake of being edgy. I found myself rooting for these idiots, but there are some sequences where luck seems to just pop out of nowhere, like when they randomly find the vampires' main resting place. It also seems pretty weird that you have this whole town essentially of vampires that no one knows about…not even Keith and AJ who live there? Maybe they just didn’t ever go out at night before this. Then again everyone knows that you could know a freak your whole life and never know unless you see them at night. Because…freaks come out at night. 

This certainly isn’t my favorite horror comedy ever and it is pretty light on the horror element if you are comparing it to a movie with essentially the same idea like FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, but it’s not without its moments and there is some 80’s style gore along the way. 

Like a lot of 80’s horror, there is a moral and the moral here is to stay out of strip clubs. The movie even tells you that people that don’t are basically the dregs of society. 

Overall I have to give this one a 4 out of 7. It didn’t blow me away, but it screams 80’s horror movie marathon candidate. 

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