I will watch virtually any supernatural horror movie. I say "supernatural" because my taste doesn't run to slasher flicks or giant ant movies or medical horror. What I'm looking for is something that goes bump in the night.
I prefer a ghost or a haunting, but I'll cheerfully watch mummies, vampires, screaming skulls (remember those?) or psychological thrillers with a supernatural element.
If I had to make a partial list of my favorite horror movies that list would probably include The Haunted, Sixth Sense, Perfect Blue , Big Trouble in Little China. That partial list probably makes me sound more hoity-toity on the horror front than I actually am, with the exception of Big Trouble in Little China. My first preference is for atmosphere and a certain subtly, but I'll also cheerfully watch something produced by John Carpenter or Hammer Films.
This broad-mindedness is the only reason I watched Modern Vampires to the very end. I figured it would be a bit of light background while I worked on my beadwork, but as the movie wore on, I was sucked into the sheer awfulness of it. It reminded me of of any number of movies that are too camp to be serious and too serious to be camp such as Starship Troopers or the modern remake of the House on Haunted Hill or possibly the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
Without getting too deep into a fairly nonsensical plot, we have good American vampires, bad Euro-trash vampires, bad vampire hunters (ex-Nazi and gangbangers). All of them torture and kill at the drop of the hat, but that's okay because you don't care about ANYONE in this movie.
I'm sure it says something deeply meaningful about the American psyche that in this movie, anyone with a Euro-accent is a Nazi or snob, anyone American is open-minded, friendly and good (in a sociopathic crazy killing vampire sort of way) and all of our good Americans come from a deprived background of some kind. (white trash, black ghetto)
The script seems to have been written at the height of the cigar craze, our male lead good American vampire (Casper Van Dien) smokes cigars, "Cuban?" "No, Cuban seed grown in Nicaragua". (Which would mean he's either smoking a Padrone or a Majorga. ) He uses his fang as a cigar punch. That must come in handy. FYI, if I was Casper Van Dien I would be worrying about my career. This and Starship Troopers? Not good.
The scriptwriter must have been reading Maxim right before writing, "I thought vampires couldn't do sex?" "That's just a myth. Give us the right blood and we can go all night." At least that's what I think he said, I was laughing hard at the time. After having sex with the female lead good American vampire (Natasha Gregson Wagner) , he gives her his cigar.
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
The female lead good American vampire develops a friendship with a human girl. Well, "friendship" meaning, "lock tongue at any and every opportunity". (My suspicions that the scriptwriter was reading Maxim deepen, although the human girl was played by Natasha Lyonne and maybe some of her previous roles in But I'm a Cheerleader and Walls Could Talk 2 were the inspiration for all the tongue-wrestling.)
The movie ends with her becoming a vampire, "Oh! Your fangs are soooo CUTE!" and of course Lead Female, Lead Male and Former Human Girl go off into the night for some serious vampire threeway action. It's that kind of a movie.
I haven't even tried to go into the plucky gangstas and the cute way they engage in murder, mayhem and gang rape, not to mention the camp Nazis. Because nothing's funnier than gang rape and Nazis. As I write this, I notice how awful I keep saying this movie is but I think with a pitcher of martinis and a gang of friends it could have a lot of potential. Make that two pitchers, possibly three.
I know I deeply regret that a friend of mine wasn't present for last night's viewing. He's the one who made me watch Teenage Catgirls in Heat, and one of his deepest regrets is that we never got to see Rabid.
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