Vampires and Other Stereotypes (1994 Video) User Reviews

Loved it!

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 4 November 2023]

Kevin J. Lindenmuth is still making movies as recently as 2015 with The Life of Death. Yet he started his career here, directing and writing a movie that seems to come fully aware and alive from a world already built. It begins with Ivan (Bill White) being told by a woman that he's about to meet the woman of his dreams.

Ivan, along with his partner Harry (Ed Hubbard), are Demon Immigration Officers that keep the humans safe from the constant threat of demons. They stop a cult from their blood ritual that will open the gates to the other side, only for party people Linda (Anna Dipace), Jennifer (Suzanne Scott), Kirsten (Wendy Bednarz) and Kirsten's boyfriend Eric (Mick McCleery) to show up and one of them to accidentally bleed and bring all heck to our mudball.

Kristen also might be that dream girl.

This is the kind of movie that seems like it's going to be one genre film and then successfully flips the script on you at every turn. There's an astounding scene with a wall full of heads that verbally accost our heroes. And this somehow brings together a demonic story with hardboiled detectives and Men In Black on a budget where none of this should work and it all does.

Like everything Visual Vengeance does, this movie is PACKED with extras. There's a new director-supervised SD master from 1-inch tape, three commentary tracks (director Kevin Lindenmuth; actor Mick McCleery and Lindenmuth; Tony Strauss of Weng's Chop Magazine), interviews with Lindenmuth, Laura McLauchlin, Mick McCleery, Suzanne Turner, Sally Narkis, Ralis Kahn, Scott Sliger, Sung Pak and Joe Mauceri, as well as behind the scenes images, Lindenmuth's early Super 8 films, a trailer, liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng's Chop Magazine, a poster and a sticker set.

The art on everything Virtual Vengeance does is incredible. This has a new cover by Stemo, the original release cover and the slipcover has artwork by The Dude Designs.

These are movies released and put together by people that truly love these kind of movies. The Strauss commentary is great and backed up by his essay in the liner notes. He effortlessly moves through how this got made, Lindenmuth having a childhood love of horror encouraged by a grandmother who loved slasher movies and how he worked to constantly keep viewers guessing despite working a demanding editing job while making this.

This is beyond recommended.

A really enjoyable genre effort with a lot to like

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 7 November 2023]

Setting out on their nightly patrol, paranormal detectives trying to keep the city free of various creatures meet up with several women out on the party trail and realize that they've been intertwined to stop the hordes of Hell from escaping into our dimension bringing them together to accomplish the task and save humanity.

This turned out to be a rather fun shot-on-video feature. One of the finer features here is the intriguing setup that has far more going on than expected and comes together quite nicely in the end. The initial setup of the detectives going around on the bust and managing to free the victim held captive by the creature and managing to get the story that they do is a pretty intriguing bit of interlocking connections with how it brings in the girls out looking to party. Being his daughter and her friends, this allows everyone to come together in a pretty fun way with the interlocking stories being handled so that the detectives can follow up their lead while the girls out for a night of fun get dragged into everything in a logical enough way. Also, the ability to get enough character development along the way with the various backstories and bits of personal information we get on everyone to allow for some intriguing connections in the second half is quite fun here to make for a solid storyline. On top of that, there's a lot to like here with the setup generating a series of fun and likable encounters with the creatures. Not just making use of the vampire creatures at the center of everything but including practical effects for the majority of the creatures, the film's setup allows this to go for a rather different setup involving the various creatures appearing to them. With the taunts and torments include the creatures using demonic skulls on the walls, fantastic creatures interacting with each other, and the distinctive touch afforded to it so that there's always a hint of knowing who each one is, there's quite a lot to like here with the way this one brings about the action featuring these creatures. This type of action carries over throughout the finale where the underworld scenario allows the type of cheesy scenarios to take place involving the quest to stay alive which is quite fun and gives this one quite a lot to hold it up overall. This one does have a few drawbacks that hold it down. The main factor with this one is the generally lackluster pacing that takes place in the middle where its series of massive info-dumps about the storyline and various world-building pieces results in the film being essentially the same thing over and over again. Basically being just endless scenes of the characters standing around in one room talking about what's going on, discussing their past histories, or just focusing on the girls trying to act tough in front of the cops to no avail, these scenes are repetitive and not all that enjoyable to see play out. The other real issue here is the general sense of cheap low-budget filmmaking on display, which is to be expected given its origins as the setting, action, and overall production value are all added together to present a pretty cheap and cheesy effort that might not be for all out there and should be treated accordingly.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Pure, unadulterated garbage

[brude2000 · 28 March 2000]

This mess -- now titled "Vampires and Other Stereotypes" -- is the best argument for taking video cameras out of the hands of incompetents before they hurt someone. Too late for me. I was one of the unfortunate few who picked up this dismal "vampire" flick, hoping to be entertained with 80 minutes of bloodsucking humor. Forgettaboudit! There's nary a vampire to be found until the last five minutes. Instead, you get an hour's worth of senseless gibberish about two New York yutzes standing guard over the gateway to Hell.

And the monsters, the demonic beings waiting to burst through the portal and enslave the people of Earth? Why, they're the worst leftovers from a cheap costume shop that I've ever seen. The only redeeming aspect to this antediluvian abortion is Wendy Bednarz, the blonde heroine of "There's Nothing Out There," a far better movie that was filmed on a much tighter shoestring. Too bad she's as totally wasted here as I was.