Ninjas vs. Vampires

Ninjas battle Vampires for the fate of the world...

Let me be completely honest... this film arrived in my mailbox for review, and I shuddered in fear. Low budget, very cheesy premise... I figured there was no way this could possibly be good.

On the one hand, I was not all wrong. The low budget does hinder them a bit, making it appear like a group of friends with a camcorder running around in the neighborhood. Which is probably exactly what it is. Also, the costumes are really, really bad -- one in particular is awful (you judge for yourself).

But, the general concept comes off much less stupid when you see it in action, and had a bigger company tackled this and given it a better name, it may have a following. Where the film really excels is in the writing of jokes. They obviously knew they could not take themselves too seriously, so there is a joke every minute, often at the film's expense. One character is jokingly called "Destro" and "Doctor Doom" to heckle his cheesy mask.

If you do not know pop culture references, you may hate this. The story is good, but not great, and the acting is nothing special. Again, it is the jokes that sell, but if you do not know the movies and comics they reference, it may be over your head. Plenty of X-Men banter, and more than a few "Twilight" slams.

I cannot recommend this film to just anyone. The pampered viewer who needs the latest special effect and big names will hate this and turn it off after 5 minutes. Fans of the lower budget may find it to their liking. It is an ideal drinking film. Oh, and the rocking soundtrack deserves praise... that may have been the deciding factor between this film failing or succeeding. It succeeds, barely.

Truth be told, then the 2010 movie "Ninjas vs. Vampires" actually turned out to be better than I had initially thought it would. Well, with a title such as it has, then it just seems like you would be in for a horrible cheesy movie.

And while this was by no means a grand cinematic piece of masterwork, it was indeed a campy and cheesy movie, but it actually managed to remain so in a semi-enjoyable manner.

The storyline was just bland and actually rubbish if you look at it. But the effort they put into the movie and the sheer campiness that permeated the entire movie just managed to make it work on some level. Mind you, a movie such as "Ninjas vs. Vampires" is somewhat of an acquired taste to watch. You need to have an interest in low budget, cheesy, bad movies to be enjoying something like this.

Visually then of course you can see that "Ninjas vs. Vampires" is not a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. The effects were actually surprisingly good for a movie such as this, which was quite a surprise for me. You shouldn't expect to see a grand display of CGI and effects that will knock you over though.

"Ninjas vs. Vampires" is sort of adequate enough for a single viewing, but it is without a doubt not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. The movie just doesn't have the contents for that.

My rating of "Ninjas vs. Vampires" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I was just going to rate this a 1 and move on, without wasting my time on review, but then I noticed there was a review that gave this trash a 10. So here we go.

I actually watched about 15 minutes before starting to fast forward at 2x, then 4x and finally 8x. I dig Ninjas, I dig Vampires, I don't dig bad camera angles and shaky action scenes.

Writing is bad. So bad, I was catching myself looking out the window, watching grass grow, instead of watching the movie.

Acting is bad.If story was good, or lines well written, I could overlook it. As it is, acting is bad, and there is no reason to watch it.

Directing is bad.I have seen student movies done better.

OK, I wasted enough of my time on this review I didn't want to write in first place.

Don't see this movie, its a waste of time. You can thank that 10 rating review that motivated me to take 5 minutes to write this in hopes of saving some poor sucker from falling for it.

If you're looking for a film that actually lives up to the promised glory of the title, please go elsewhere. But if you're looking for an undercover fan film presumably set in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse but with a tenth of the needed resources and 1/100th of Whedon's talent, you're in luck. The filmmakers have their heart in the right place but heart isn't enough, either for an independent film or even a fan film, because this has got to have some of the dodgiest production value this side of a Chris Seaver joint. At least on a technical level, earnestness isn't going to make the grade when you've got stuff like STAR WARS: REVELATIONS or STAR TREK PHASE 2 which are professionally mounted if nothing else. If all you've got is a copy of Adobe Premiere along with an off-the-shelf consumer camera,and a work light or two from Home Depot, it's not going to cut it, knowhutImsayin?

Now poor production value wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, but there is no story and no craft to elevate this sorry work. It's just 90m of winking at the audience substituting for acting, half-as**ed, spastickly staged fights masquerading as action, and nerd references, stolen one-liners, and warmed over jokes pretending to be a script. If you want to see a undercover fan film that's done with actual panache and skill, try RECON 2022: THE MEZZO INCIDENT (please note I'm not saying its good, because dear God, it's not. It's just that they tried.)

The only thing that is admirable about NINJAS VS VAMPIRES is the marketing because, let's face it—it's a great title and they put together some great box art; it's slick, professional and puts you in the mood for some quality vampire-fu action--- and you will get that providedyou go watch Buffy, Angel, BLADE, any of the UNDERWORLD movies, or BLOODRAYNE even because you're sure as hell not going to get it from NINJAS VS VAMPIRES.

As others have already stated; the movie is not bad and does look like a bunch of friends made but they had FUN while doing it. The writing was well and the dialog was better and more on queue (ie natural)than a lot of high budget movies these days. Anyone remember the first season of Buffy? This is about on par except they didn't have that great of a camera. No knock against Joss Whedon, but the dialog, while having its over the top cheesy parts, was very natural. They act like people that have been around each other long enough to say the things they do. And yes, if you do not know a lot of popular culture references you may be lost, but much to your own detriment. For what it was and what they had to work with, I have enjoyed this much more than a lot of the newer movies produced by large production companies. The weapon usage was also better than most you see on TV in popular series today. If you like campy dialog, ie Army of Darkness, Buffy, etc. and just good old action, give this movie a shot, you may be pleasantly surprised.