Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Vampire Hookers (1978)



Cheaply made, ridiculous, and tacky, this comedy/horror hybrid contains a few entertainingly awful sequences, and in fact the whole picture verges on so-bad-it’s-good splendor. For instance, the title song, which is set to a zippy ’60s-rock groove, features the outrageous lyric, “Vampire hookers—blood is not all they suck!” While on shore leave in the Philippines, U.S. sailors meet prostitutes who lure the sailors, one by one, to a crypt. Turns out the ladies are vampires in the thrall of Richmond Reed (John Carradine), a centuries-old monster. Each time a sailor disappears, his friends search for him, eventually leading to a showdown. Instead of playing this scenario for thrills, screenwriter Howard R. Cohen and director Cirio H. Santiago opt for campy jokes. The vampire brides bitch about how their master never takes them anywhere. Carradine’s character whines that his ladies are too high-maintenance. The vampires’ half-human henchman, a dim-witted thug played by Filipino-cinema stalwart Vic Diaz, mopes because he wants to become a vampire, punctuating most of his remarks with flatulence. (In one scene, he stinks up his own coffin so badly that he gags.) Some of the actors try to make the comedy elements work, including amiable Texas-born character actor Trey Wilson, who later found a niche in the ensemble of Bull Durham (1987). Unfortunately, starlets were cast for their looks and their willingness to disrobe rather than for their talent, and Carradine was decades past his prime when he made this picture. Still, the truly bizarre stuff in Vampire Hookers makes an impression, like the running gag of debating whether Shakespeare was a vampire, or the aforementioned title song. Vampire Hookers also includes one of the most excessive sex scenes you’ll ever encounter outside of a porno, not because it’s graphic but because it goes on forever, with a particularly virile sailor servicing all three vampire brides for a good 10 minutes of screen time 

Vampire Hookers: LAME

1 comment:

Booksteve said...

Carradine's real name was, in fact, Richmond Reed Carradine.