An American Vampire Story (1997)
My first pick of the month is a low budget flick (possibly direct to video/DVD) by director Luis Esteban about the need for all cast and crew involved to make a quick buck without any thought to originality or creativity or humor or fright. Let's just pop in Carmen Electra and some vampires and see what happens.
The movie opens up on teenager Frankie (Trevor Lissauer), and it opens up too close to Frankie's face; we see Frankie diving in a swimming pool and surfacing while a voiceover in a bad German accent speaks pseudo-Freudian claptrap about dreams. Frankie's then being attacked/seduced (depends on your p.o.v.) by the pool by a couple of attractive vampire chicks, and then he wakes up, where his friend Bogie (Danny Hitt) reminds him that his parents have absconded with everyone's good taste and left this throwback to 1980s low-budget horror movies to go to Europe for the summer, leaving Frankie the entire estate--which means the living room, a hallway, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a pool, and a back porch--to himself. They must have taken Bogie's parents with them, and his parents must have taken their child's sense of fashion, because the first time we see Bogie, he's seemingly shirtless but wearing overalls--not a bad look, per se, but then we see that Bogie's got a hunter-orange surfing bodysuit on underneath, and he's pulled this down to his waist--and still has the overalls on top. Dude, man...crash and burn, crash and burn. Where are Clinton and Stacy (from TV's What Not to Wear) when you need them?
After Bogie reminds Frankie (where's Johnnie?) about his envious situation, the two drive up to the beach listening to terrible rock music (really bad stuff here). They surf, they talk about Frankie's girlfriend and the fact that Frankie hasn't even made it to second base with her yet, and then--out of nowhere--surf-guitar god Dick Dale and his Daletones (complete with two drummers, one of whom is three years old) appear and play. The youngsters all flock over and start dancing, but this scene is just too unbelieveable for me to, uh, believe. I doubt its credulity not because the ancient surf band just appear unannounced (hey, you ever seen an Elvis movie? Stuff like this happened in every other one, I kid you not), but because--dude! It's Dick Dale and the Daletones! Where are the old fogies in the crowd? Where? I don't know either, but they should have been front and center and rear, because that's this guy's only audience (well, them and me), and at a beach--twentysomethings flocking to dance to him? Nuh-uh. Dude--ain't gonna happen.
Several hours later, and it's nighttime, and Frankie and Johnnie are still on the beach, talking. As if. Dude, I'm not buying this. These guys would so totally be wasted by now, it's not even funny; man, they're not even drinking or smoking. Either that, or they'd be back at home playing video games or watching horror movies, 'cause they seem to have, like, no other friends, and Frankie's got horror-movie props and posters and gothic art covering his room, man. And, and, and--they've been on the beach for hours, and both are still as pale as they were when they got there--I'm talking lilywhite, here, whiter than me. Speaking of pale white dudes (with bad hair), another one washes shore shortly after an unintentionally hilarious Ed Woodian bat attack. Dude's name is Moondoggie (Johnny Venocur). Moondoggie? Do modern day surfers even use names like that, even as a joke anymore? I didn't think so.
Anyway, Moondoggie tells the two Coreys that he's just had a similar insect attack, and he swam all the way over from another island to avoid it...and he's completely drenched in dry, not a spot of water on him or his early '60s slick-sided w/full burns hairdo. And Simon & Garfunkel buy it. Dude, how dumb can you be? (I guess I shouldn't be asking that question, though, man, 'cause, like, I'm the one who paid money to rent this shindig). Moondoggiedog asks Elton John & Bernie Taupin to return with him to his island where he had some honeys wanting to par-tay, but Elton, see, he's not digging this dude's vibe, so the Rocket Man tells the Moon Man that he can't, 'cause he and his buddy have to go catch the KISS concert that night. Paul Stanley then looks at Gene Simmons surprised, but Gene tells him he bought him the tickets for his birthday--which is only six months away. So, if you're a late teen/early twenty-something dude, hard-up for female companionship, what would you choose: the band KISS or the real thing? Of course, you'd choose the band, and that's what Paul here chooses, too, but he tells Man on the Moondoggie that they're welcome to come back to his buddy Gene's pad later that night, after the concert, and to make sure and bring the chicks, so that they can all Lionel Richie and party all night long. The dude agrees and leaves, but Gene tells Paul that he lied about the KISS concert, but he felt like he had to, 'cause, like, Ace was giving him the wrong vibe, man, and he probably needed to be kicked off the island. Paul didn't agree, but what's a Star Child to do?
Well, despite Gene's wishes, the Moondoggie in the Window pays him a visit (since Paul invited him in), and he brings with him his parlance of chicks (one of whom is Carmen Electra, doing her best to avoid dialogue as much as possible--and that's a good thing, too. ) and his very own Renfield, an aged, balding, greasy, portly, toothless, sloppy slob named Bruno (Sydney Lassick), who enjoys felines as food (like gross, dude), whose nasty appearance is the most frightening aspect of the film. Stacy & Clinton need to get a holt of him, too. Bruno's there to help his master Moondoggie set up shop and move in for the summer. A couple/three dead pets and dead locals (including perhaps the worst caricature of an I-talian I've ever seen, man) later, and I'm reminded of those dudes who lived next to me in college, man; whenever I saw road-kill on the road on the way home, I knew my neighbors would be grilling that night (and I knew what they'd be grilling, too). Moondancedoggie and his ladies of the night start dining more and more frequently, and then hits Frankie that, hey, these guys might be vampires. Wonder what I should do, man?
He does just what I would do, dude. He calls Batman. Really, he does. "Holy Wipeout," even. Adam West (who does actually say, "Holy Wipeout") plays the Big Kahuna, a.k.a. Ludwig Van Helsingmeister, the descendent of you know whom. West sports a slicked-backed pony-tail that looks less like an extension than it does a pin-the-pony-tail-on-the-aging-actor wig, and he wears the typical Hawaiin shirt (open, of course) that shows off the grey chest hair against his George Hamilton eternatan. He's game, too, dude, as West never gives less than a great performance, as he's always slightly altered his tone to fit the material, and here, he plays the character pretty close to the self-tanning lotioned chest, with just the hint of mischief in his delivery. The lead--Lissaeur--contains just a hint of talent, as he doesn't seem to try too hard for effect, and his face has that geek-boy-next-door quality, as he looks like Seth Green with a much younger John Cusak's haircut. His work with Danny Hitt--though often amateurish--had a certain pity-those-poor-actors-he's-not-too-talented-but-garsh-darn-aren't-they-cute type of charm. They're the modern day Coreys.
The rest of the cast fares--terribly. The vampiresses...well, the moment when they hiss at Fluffy the dog, loudly, for quite a long time, trying to seem menacing --that was their best moment. Dude, I nearly barfed up a lung laughing. And at one point, Carmen Electra managed to spit out a line: "His neck is so jugular." Duuuuuude! That's only one of the most vividly terrible lines I have ever heard, from any entertainment medium.
As the head vampire Moondoggie, Johnny Venocur was...ineffective at best, laughable at worst. He emanated no charisma, no magnetism, and he was a bit too chubby (I know I'm one to talk, but I don't have my fat behunkus up their on the silver/small screen for people like me to criticize) to be believably appealing--he looks like a chunky Al Pacino--and his hairpiece even seemed to lack life. The supporting actors fared a bit better, but that's only because they had so little to do.
And then there's Sydney Lassick; his Bruno was disgusting, which, I guess, was the point, but man, that dude was grody, man. He made my teeth hurt. However--however--he did happen to be the center of the most perplexing, the strangest, the most off-beat, the most atypical (I could keep going like this, too, but Mr. Redundant just left the building) scene in the movie. Here's the scene: Frankie walks in his house, and Bruno is sitting at a baby-grand piano (which had not been seen in the movie prior to this scene, and was not seen after) playing an understated, elegiac version of "Auld Lang Syne." The movie grinds to a complete halt as Lassick plays, and his playing--while certainly not technically brilliant--is moving. Of course, the song itself is sentimental, so there's that, but I've heard the song in other movies--and elsewhere--and never found the playing of it--not influenced by the scenes before the playing of it, but the playing of it itself--so dramatic, so artful, so completely unlike every other aspect of this film. And the scene's not connected to anything else in the movie at all, not even remotely. I have no idea why it wasn't cut. Doesn't make sense, but doggone if it feels...lonely. Sad and lonely and wistful and nostalgiac.
Other than that--and Adam West--the movie really stunk. It bit (sorry 'bout that). I don't even know who the producers were thinking would see this movie? It's got no T&A and no violence and no gore, so certainly not teenagers. Italians? No way! Latinos--dude, the house gardener's name is "Nacho," and he doesn't speak a word during the movie. How bad is that? Pre-teen boys who lust after Carmen Electra? They've got other placecs to go to see more than they saw here. Thirty-plus-year old white dudes with nothing better to do than to watch this movie because he'd seen all the other A movies on the shelf at Blockbuster? Yup, I think that's it.
Last week, after their close loss against the Redskins, Cowboys' receiver Terrell Owens whined and cried because they didn't get him the ball often enough for the 'boys to win. Romo only threw him the ball fourteen times, not counting the two end-arounds T.O. ran. I expect that this week, they'll throw him the ball at least twenty times, and they may even play him at tailback, too. Fortunately for the Cowboys, they're playing the Bengals this week, so the lack of a running game and the eyeballing of only one receiver won't hurt them. T.O. should be crying because my fantasy football team is probably going to get squashed. 
Iron & Wine is a one-man band, and that man is Southener, family man, and former film professor (at the University of Miami) Samuel Beam. Beam's been playing folk/indie music for most of this decade, and he recently hit it pretty big, with a critically-acclaimed album and an appearance on Letterman. Personally, I don't get what all the fuss is about. Beam's music is a combination of folk and indie, acoustic guitar with some djembe and bongo and every now and then some eastern instrumentation. Beam's latest album (The Shepherd's Dog) contains more of the same stuff that Beam's recorded before, just with a much better production team (and much better session musicians). Nothin' new here, I thought when I first heard it. Move on.
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