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Because I am a Libran, and I
absolutely abhor making decisions, I took it upon myself to create a
random movie generator. That way, with a click of a button, I would be
assigned a movie to watch and review for Stinkomovies, thus eliminating
the painful process of having to pick one for myself. I have no doubt
that this plan will backfire on me one day, and I will have to watch
and review something awful, but this time round, I drew Rockabilly
Vampire, and well, even though there were a lot of cringe worthy
moments, I kinda liked it.
There's
usually a reason that Troma decides to distribute a movie that it
didn't make. That reason usually is that it's horrible. I really was
expecting the worst with this low budget flick - and things started to
look even more grim when I saw the name Lee Bennett Sobel about 10
times in the opening credits. He's the writer, director, producer and
quite possibly janitor and caterer also.
The story centres around Iris. An
Elvis obsessed aspiring writer who is convinced the King still lives
and has written a book about it. Unfortunately she isn't having much
luck in finding a publisher, but she isn't giving up. But with her rent
cheque 3 months late, her dead end job and disastrous love life, things
are looking pretty grim for Iris, that is until she crosses paths with
a dead ringer for Elvis named Eddie Vincent who's on the run from his
deadbeat brother. Not only is Eddie tall, dark, handsome &
mysterious, but he's also a vampire.
Eddie
has a kind heart, and doesn't want to be a vampire. He was bitten by
his older brother Wrecks on his way to an Elvis look-alike contest in
the 50's and has been drinking blood ever since. He lives life on the
run, constantly looking for a cure, and trying to stay one step ahead
of his no good brother - if he bites him once more, he'll be under his
control forever.
Iris starts to fall in love with
Eddie and decides that she'll do anything she can to help him,
including feeding him unwanted boyfriends and holding up the local
blood bank. But it isn't long before Wrecks and his pals catch up with
Iris, knowing that Eddie can't be too far away also.
Can Iris and Eddie stop Wrecks,
find a cure, pay the rent AND sell Iris's book...all in the space of 90
minutes? Seems like the chips are stacked against our heroes.
This
was a great idea for a movie that was sadly marred by bad lighting, bad
sound, some terrible dialogue and bad casting for the lead female. I
found Iris to be neurotic and unbelievable in her role. I also think
she looked all wrong for the part. Flip-do and jewel rimmed glasses do
not a rockabilly chick make. On the opposite side, casting for Eddie
and Wrecks could not have been more perfect. I think they were both
excellent actors tackling some cheesy dialogue and pulled it off well.
Special mention to Beetleboy/Lorenzo for being awesomely ridiculous.
I found the scenes at Iris' work
to be kinda boring and redundant. Most of the time, I didn't feel they
really made much sense, for example, if I was hiding the vampire of my
dreams in my apartment whose life was in danger from his evil brother,
I wouldn't be blabbing to my workmate. A lot of the scenes were quite
poorly lit, and the camera was usually stationary in a front on angle.
These factors may be due to budget constraints, but I honestly think
that with a bigger budget and a more thought through script this movie
really could have shown off its full potential.
The other thing besides Eddie and
Wrecks that couldn't be faulted was the music. Absolutely brilliant.
Overall, I would say this movie is definitely worth a watch, regarding
you can see it for what it had the potential to be. It still may
surprise us and become a cult classic. You can just never tell with
these things.

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