Vampire Movie

(Digital and DVD; IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT/URBAN MOVIE CHANNEL/ROBSTAR ENTERTAINMENT (101 minutes; Unrated); 2015)

I am a sucker (pun added with bad intentions) for a good vampire flick; truth be told, I’m occasionally a sucker for a bad vampire movie. Sometimes, I’m just a sucker. While TEETH AND BLOOD arrived at my door with all kinds of promise, I gotta tell you that if it weren’t for the virtual door-to-door pulchritudinous “star power,” I probably wouldn’t have made my way through this one. Even though it is beautifully peopled, the script obviously didn’t specify that the pretty faces must also be at least fair actors. Unfortunately, the whole thing comes off as something very much like Tyler Perry’s Dracula.

The premise: Detective Mike Hung (who is more of a Sam and Dean Winchester/SUPERNATURAL monster hunter type than cop) manages to get himself assigned to a murder case at a film studio in Los Angeles. Detective Hung is teamed with Detective Sasha Colfax and the two, with cover stories in tow, head off to the studio in search of jobs… and answers to a murder and a missing corpse, of course… I mean, they are police officers. The head-turning beauty of Detective Colfax sees her becoming the new female lead (the previous star being the victim of the crime in question) in director Vincent Augustine’s latest movie, Chapel Blood. There’s no hope for Hung, as his acting chops are no way near those of Colfax, so he seeks employ as a grip (kinda like a wrench-monkey that works in the camera department). Augustine’s vision has a vampire priest (Greg Eagles, whose appearance is an obvious homage to William Marshall’s BLACULA) delivering the unholy word from the pulpit and baptizing his disciples in blood. So taken is Augustine with Colfax that he attempts a little sump’n-sump’n but, she is having neither the hanky nor the panky; having been thus rebuffed, what’s a vampire lord supposed to do… shrug his shoulder and say, “That’s alright. I understand your trepidation.”? Uh… no! He casts that thousand mile stare her way, drops his voice about 103 octaves and… enthralls her. That’s gonna come back later in the flick and bite somebody in the… neck.

In a plot hole you could maneuver an aircraft carrier through, apparently everyone on-set except the two detectives knows that the movie is made by vampires, for vampires. So, with bodies continuing to drop, what’s a good undercover police officer to do? Why, naturally, you tell the vampire boss that you’re an undercover cop. Caramba! The underlying thematic push of TEETH AND BLOOD is a vampiric gang war, revolving around a depleted blood supply (it seems that most vamps have assimilated and rather than draining a vein, they get their fix from the local blood bank), a crooked mayor (there’s always a crooked mayor!) and a deal between said mayor and Vincent Augustine to provide the city with a new synthetic blood supply. The catch is, while Augustine’s coven (I thought that was witches, but… oh, well) is tapped into the real deal, all other warring factions will be feeding on the synthetic cocktail, which inhibits the undead’s powers of regeneration. In other words, they get old and turn to dust and blow away, leaving Augustine as the supreme leader of the vampire population. This, of course, leads to double-crosses and deceit aplenty. And, a feeding frenzy that makes the zombie apocalypse sound like a trip to the beach. And, a “shock” ending that was telegraphed virtually from the beginning. And… probably a sequel.

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned any of the main cast. I’m going to rectify that now. Vincent Augustine is played by Glenn Plummer, who also had a hand in the script. While he does flash signs of his talent (I mean, the man CAN act), Glenn, unfortunately, comes off as rather wooden and disinterested throughout most of the film. His two “action” sequences, fight scenes between Augustine and another vampire (of which, more later) and, later, Detective Hung are poorly timed and badly staged. To be fair, though, I’m not really sure that we can lay the entire blame on Plummer for any of this; as I mentioned, he is a fine actor and, he may have just been reacting to the script and the others around him (but, then, maybe I am giving him too much credit… after all, he does have a writing credit by his name). The totally delectable Michelle van der Water, as Detective Sasha Colfax, is woefully out of place and unrelentingly unbelievable (as a cop, as a cop pretending to be an actress and – unfortunately – as an actress). Like Plummer, I’m willing to give van der Water the benefit of the doubt here, considering what she had to work with; most of her scenes involve reaction shots to what’s happening around her. She does have a few action sequences and, like those with Glenn Plummer, they come off forced and hackneyed. Detective Colfax is enthralled by Augustine, which presents a whole other set of problems for van der Water to muddle through – she just isn’t at all convincing as a hypnotized minion of darkness. The equally delectable Danielle Vega fairs slightly better in the role of Lori Franklin, the bespectacled and “timid production assistant” to Augustine. Vega’s understated performance is actually one of the few highlights of the whole flick; at least, until… Lori shows her true colors, as the cat-suited leader of a rival vampire family. Franklin’s transformation leads to a really horribly choreographed fight scene with Colfax (suddenly imbued with enhanced abilities after being enthralled), which totally leaves me cold. From the point that the timid Lori Franklin reveals her true intentions, the character becomes just another stereotype… and not even a very good one, at that.

Speaking of stereotypes, remember Augustine’s battle with that other vampire I mentioned earlier? That vamp, named Tyrese, is a gigantic Huggy Bear-like ghetto pimp – decked out in a very loud purple zoot suit – who has a rough time keeping his fangs out of the extras. The character is played to the 1970s exploitation hilt by comedian King Kedar and, aside from some rather dubious fight scenes and even more questionable special effects, is a bright oasis in an otherwise bleak landscape; Kedar’s vampire-out-of-time character is definitely approached with a comedic verve, but – make no mistake about it – he is also one of the more frightening aspects of a movie that lacks any sense of dread or foreboding. As the second male lead, Detective Mike Hung, Sean Christopher (he has alternately been credited as Sean Hutchinson – Christopher is his middle name – but may be more familiar as Chef Sean, a poet and hip-hop performer; Sean and his riff-heavy band, Blaze, are responsible for the flick’s title tune, a video of which you can view below), certainly seems to have some chops as an actor. Again, the main drawback to his performance comes from a script that is all over the place; added to that, the detective’s back-story is a muddled mess (that can be said of Detective Colfax and just about every character of note in TEETH AND BLOOD)… you really just can’t have any type of affinity for a guy that you know next to nothing about. I understand that the movie was made on the cheap (about 300 grand) but, truthfully, I would have preferred that less money was used on special effects (that were, ultimately, unappealing anyway) and more time and effort had been devoted to a workable script that offers better character development and a centralized plot that doesn’t send those characters off in a half dozen wildly different directions. Sometimes, these things work out and the finished product is, at least, marginally enjoyable to watch; more often than not, the final release ends up very much like TEETH AND BLOOD. If you feel you absolutely must watch this movie (or, if you belong to the local chapter of the Bad Cinema Appreciation Society), take note that it is fairly violent with some sexual overtones… you may wanna watch it after the kids have gone to bed.