Song of the Vampire

Wanting to find his true love, a man sells his soul to become a vampire and awakens a century later to target and torment a woman who he feels was taken from him years ago, sending him out to find her in the middle of a battle with her abusive ex-husband and bringing them together.

This was a solid enough romantic-themed vampire effort. Among the better features here is an intriguing and rather impactful storyline that manages to provide a fun time overall. The initial setup of the vampire looking to sell his soul to ensure he can return to find the woman he loved who's now reincarnated as a random woman in modern times who's starting to become overwhelmed by a series of dreams and hallucinations depicting both her past abusive relationships and the life she had with the vampire works incredibly well. This creates a great impetus for why he would want to track her down and reunite based on his belief in their past while also giving a reason why she becomes receptive to his charms once the rampage brings them together. None of it stands out beyond doing a necessary job of explaining why they come together as they do since the later scenes involving the couple reuniting again have the build-up required to be quite somewhat enjoyable. With a strong setup allowing for some decent stalking scenes with some decent enough gore involved, this gets some decent enough positives. There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback here is the agonizingly slow pace and tempo that comes about trying to make for an epic look and feel only to drag the running time out needlessly. So many scenes here, whether it's the genuinely slow nature of how the conversations are carried out or the inclusion of actual slow-motion sequences into the setup which are awkwardly injected into the film and don't mean much and do nothing but carry out the running time far more than needed. This could've been trimmed out so it's not as irritating as how long it takes to get going with these factors, keeping the running time too long for its own good. As well, there's also the lowered intimidation of the vampire that causes this to fall as there's not much threatening action in the middle section of this one due to taking up the romantic angle with him trying to seduce her and make her see how she's the reanimated lover in his former life which drains the fear completely out of this one. With the low-budget nature of this one creeping in as well, these all come together to hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Anyone who's read my Subspecies reviews knows I'm a big fan of those films and of the work of Denise Duff, so I was really looking forward to the arrival of this project. Well, I have to say it's not great, but I'm willing to cut Duff some slack; it shows a lot of style for a first project, she's clearly been a careful student during her projects with Full Moon, and I'll definitely be interested in any further directing work by her.

Though at FM she only worked on the Subspecies series, this movie seems more influenced by FM's other, more Gothic vampire epic "Vampire Journals", with James Horan as Jonathan almost a dead-ringer (sorry) for that film's Jonathan Morris as Ash (hmm, name coincidence?). Good-guy vampire Jonathan, whose lover Caroline died in his arms at the hand of a jealous husband, seeks her reincarnation and finds her as modern-day Victoria Thorn (Duff). No doubt Victoria is the one: she's not only been having nightmares of Caroline's death using the exact same footage we see in Jonathan's flashbacks, but she also has a jealous husband, this one a murderous psycho who's just gotten out of jail and serves gruesome notice that he has no plans to respect the judge's restraining order. --You can see exactly where this is going to go, but it's fun to watch it get there. Duff knows how to sell a vampire film: she wants to make a Gothic romance, but also knows you have to toss in some gore and nudity to keep the stake-and-slash crowd happy, and manages a fair (though not ideal) balance of the two elements. It's also a kick to spot the little Subspecies homages tossed in here and there, like the documentary on "Prince Vladislas of Romania" and the Nicolaou's Used & Antique Books shop. --The pacing's slow, some of the acting is dire (especially: Duff really should have reined in Mr. Thorn's teeth-gnashing psychotics), there are some awful lighting/scene matching glitches, and the token attempt at historical backstory is so lame it made me cringe (excuse me? crossbows and voodoo priestesses only 100 years ago? That's 1903!) But overall I enjoyed it; Horan and Duff are likeable and convincing in the leads, there are some nice visuals, and I'd call it well worth the time of any fan of Full Moon's vampire tales. I congratulate Duff on getting this project on the shelves and hope she will direct again in this vein (--sorry, couldn't resist).

(p.s.--I *loved* the careful note in the end-credits assuring the viewer that the role of "dead cat" was played by a slipper.)

"Song of the Vampire" is one of those movies that took years to complete, not because it's a vast and elaborate undertaking, but because it was stitched together on a tiny budget, probably in the production team's spare time. Rest assured that there are bloopers and signs of amateurism aplenty. But if you're reading this, you're probably already a low budget horror fan, so no doubt you're used to production values that aren't exactly blockbuster-level.

What really matters is the story, and in this case, it holds together pretty well. The basic premise is older than the hills; a vampire returns from his grave to seek a lost love. But there's some unique elements in the mix, including a very sympathetic heroine who is stalked by a psycho ex-boyfriend. Other commentators have complained that the domestic drama drags the movie down to a "chick-flick, Lifetime special of the week" level, but hey, I think it works. It's cool to get a female director's perspective on horror, and I find it annoying that so many male viewers are quick to dismiss a story that isn't as drenched in testosterone as something they would produce.

The directing is solid, considering that Denise "Subspecies" Duff wasn't working with decent cameras or lighting equipment. On the DVD commentary, she cheerfully admits that many of the props were obtained from Wal-Mart! But she's a very good photographer, and she knows how to frame interesting shots and inject a bit of mood here and there. Her work certainly eclipses much of what Full Moon did - with a lot more money - during the early 1990s. The only really amateurish parts are the action scenes; the gore is pretty convincing, but the slow-mo and synthesized suspense music are silly.

No doubt the people who will work to track this movie down are the same people it was made for. So you'll probably like it, you wacked-horror buff. Just be prepared for a movie that's less violent and OTT than "Subspecies," and a bit more grounded in the real world. Well, the real world, plus one hammy vampire.

"...I love you, I just don't want to be like you!...if you damned my soul, I would hate you forever!!!!" - Victoria.

This low budget, yet surprisingly fun, campy-vampy bloodsucker is clearly inspired by B-maestro Ted Nicolaou's creepy Gothic DTV classic 'Vampire Journals', with supreme scream dream Denice Duff also having shone no less brightly in Nicolaou's immortal cult horror classic 'Subspecies 2', and as the demonstratively capable director/star of 'Vampire Resurrection', the estimable Duff is 'mostly' successful at maintaining the altogether tricky balance between blackly comedic B-Movie buffoonery, bodice-ripping Gothic Romance, and blood-slaked, moonlit Anne Rice vamping about! Duff's tantalizingly toothsome noughties Nosferatu neck-biter 'Vampire Resurrection' is of a suitably full-blooded vampire vintage, whereby handsome, Byronic, love-lorn Jonathan (James Horan) awakens from a disorientating 100 year slumber in order to seek out his unsuspecting soulmate Victoria (Denice Duff), Jonathan's earnest search for love being fraught with misadventure since Victoria's sadistic, on-parole ex-husband Marty (Frank Bruyenbroek) has darker, far less romantic intentions for the increasingly beleaguered Victoria!

While aesthetically hindered by a meagre budget, ardent B-Vampire fangs should still find much grisly Gothic goodness to sink their terror-teeth into, with the refined aristocratic performance from James Horan as Victoria's deathly pale, earnest vampire paramour tormented by a lover's warm heart, being sympathetically complemented by another beguiling performance by the exquisite and always engaging Denice Duff. Perhaps no undiscovered horror classic, 'Vampire Resurrection' is well worth the effort to dig up, as what the likable indie-feature lacks in expensive Hollywood gloss is generously compensated with its D. I. Y charm, inspired use of lo-fi practical FX, laudably brisk pacing, and the lively, uniformly committed performances of a quality cast effectively makes for a darkly romantic midnight movie, and pretty darn essential viewing for fans of the delectable Denice Duff.

'There's much more than buxom young Victoria's life at stake in Denice Duff's bodice-rippingly righteous boudoir bloodbath 'Vampire Resurrection' - Goosey Lucy / Buxom Bloodfiends.

The story was a little bit different(ish) to your normal Vamp stuff, and while I generally like amusing cheapy horror movies, sometimes you find yourself focusing in on one or two weird things and just unable to ignore them. Had that problem with this one, sadly. Two things I couldn't get past were the ghastly love song (please, either cast people who can sing or dub it in) and the s l o o o w way most of the characters spoke. They kind of sound like they'd all been sedated... it was so odd! The only one that didn't sound like was the abusive husband (well, and the parole officer).

Oh - and people seemed excessively stupid... the dialogue felt as though half the time people were working off different pages in the script (which is entirely possible if you've been sedated, I guess. hehe).

So, yeah. If those things don't bother you, give it a watch I suppose? There are definitely worse things out there.