My Best Friend Is a Vampire

Jeremy Capello is a teenager who has dreams about the gawky Darla Blake. A girl who doesn't think that highly of him, but there's also a beautiful Barbie-like cheerleader named Candy who's actually keen on him. So his best friend Ralph suggests that he should seek out someone unknown for a one-night stand to get this get his mind thinking straight. While, doing his job he encounters the mysterious Nora, who invites him over for the night. So Jeremy with little help from Ralph meets her, only to be bitten by her and a crazed loon (possibly the husband) break in. The day after Jeremy goes through some minor changes and finds out that Nora's place has been burnt down. Through the course he learns that these are vampire hunters after them, but they seem to think that Ralph is the vampire.

The mid-to-late 80s was a time for vampire films (and even teenage monster themes too). This pleasant little romp is the standard mould of these monster comedies (maybe one of the lesser ones), but surprisingly it makes for a decently breezy time-waster if you're looking for a little 1980s nostalgia in your viewing. It has some generally amusing moments, especially from Rene Auberjonois' sneaky vampire mentor role as Modoc and you can see David Warner is having a ball in his ripe crack-ball role of Prof. Leopold McCarthy, vampire hunter.

Most of the performances are reasonably charming. Robert Sean Leonard ("Dead Poet's Society" and who would probably be best known for the recent TV series "House") is delightfully good as Jeremy and Evan Mirand turns in a joyful performance as the loutish Ralph. A fetching Cheryl Pollack is fair as the geeky Darla. Fannie Flagg and Kenneth Kimmins trump in with marvellously tuneful performances as Jeremy's overly worried parents. Paul Wilson makes solid of Prof. Leonard's bumbling assistant Grimsdyke. Let me not forget the minor role of the seductively alluring Cecilia Peck (Gregory Pecks' daughter) as Nora. Oh and look out for a slender Kathy Bates. The variable cast had a witty script to play along with and most of it was quite satisfying when it came to the punch.

Director Jimmy Huston does a competent job without doing anything overtly special, but he gets a lot spirit and odd developments running through some humorous situations. It can get corny in parts and extremely sappy when it comes to its closing moral. A trailblazing 80s pop soundtrack (notably Blondie and Oingo Boingo) features strongly in the film's make-up with the utterly hip and catchy title tune, "The future's so bright (I've got to wear shades)" by the TIMBUK 3. The stereotypically lucid premise (which shares similarities with the Jim Carrey vampire flick, "Once Bitten") is routine and derivative, but still it has some nice touches and diverting trivia on the vampire mythology. None of this should sideswipe your entertainment of it, unless you're looking for something with more aggression amongst its bite. I guess you'll know if you're going to like it after the first 15 minutes.

It might be far from revolutionary (just look at the title and you should know what to expect), but there's just something endearing about this campy lightweight piece.

An amiable, exceptionally cheesy and moderately amusing if low-budget teen horror comedy, My Best Friend Is a Vampire plays a lot like if a John Hughes teen drama got mixed up with an episode of Goosebumps. It's an entertaining piece of '80s nonsense that doesn't even attempt to be classy, but that unfortunately means there's a certain carelessness and sense of haste that permeates the film, all the while hinting at a deep-running vein of satire, but it soon dries up. What's left over is a lot of stock misunderstandings that play out in the same vein as a middling sitcom; however, it's not all bad. It's a silly supernatural comedy with stupid and sanitary humour doing nothing to pretend otherwise, fully embracing its clichés, and it doesn't even try to hide its surprises or tropes; it just invites the audience to have fun with the whole thing. The jokes that do land usually come courtesy of the always wonderful David Warner, as a vampire hunter, and Paul Willson, as his bumbling assistant. Jimmy Huston's direction does the job and moves the film along at a brisk pace with a bopping, if overly loud, soundtrack; the central performance from Robert Sean Leonard is generally great, his chemistry with Cheryl Pollak is utterly adorable and his charm goes a long way in making this film sustainable, even if it does look like his vampire make-up has been smeared on with a butter knife. Culty and offbeat for sure, My Best Friend Is a Vampire may not be the best version of the premise that could have been made, but it's far from the worst, it's agreeable, relaxing and rather adorable, even if it would rather calm down than get loud, even during its frantic action sequences. Although I can't be the only one seeing this coexisting alongside Feral Pleasures as part of Dr James Wilson's exceptional filmography, right? House would have had a field day with this.

this review has nothing to do with the acting abilities, direction, costumes, or anything technical...it's all about the feelings and what it meant to me "way back then".... almost 10 years after high school i still remember this movie..... i caught this movie on one on AMC (i can't believe i'm that old)... but it was on cable TV when i was in high school and i thought it was a creative spin on the B-vamp movies, and it cracked me up. So one day when one of the cheerleaders and a guy who would become the VP for student council at the local college (i went there, too) were discussing 90201 i asked if they had seen this movie the night before.... at first they thought that i was making it up (i guess that it was my reputation for being stoned and/or making bad jokes). but for a long time whenever the previous night's television scheduled programs were discussed one of them always turned to me and said something like, "we're not going to have any of the vampire s*** today...."...to their defense, they thought that i was making up this movie, they weren't being mean....especially after one of them actually saw the movie and i pulled the ethnic card on us all (we are all from different racial backgrounds and i asked what they would do if their best friend was different, and by the way, weren't these parents cool? so they thought that he was gay, they still went up against the cops for him) i know that this reekes of total cheese, but then again, didn't high school? anyway, i've seen so many vampire movies and i had read all of the anne rice books (hell, i saw this before interview with the vampire came out as a movie....) but this was still a different view on an old story...

i cracked my ass up!! after all these years it still brings up some things that i didn't think about then, such as....how my parents would react if they didn't think that i was "normal".... and that the reactions of the parents in this movie reminded me of the dad in "better off dead"......and i wonder if those people from high school say this and thought about me... After all, isn't that some of what movies are about? where you were when you saw....oh... well... that may be music, my bad....but connie and angel, i thought about you when i saw this movie again tonight... to everyone else, this movie is worth watching if you like B-movies, vampire movies, and comedies.

Granted I only know of one other movie that fits into this genre and that is the Jim Carrey movie "Once Bitten". This one though is better than that one as it is just a bit funnier and has a better and more likable plot to it. This one has a teen going to the house of a girl for what he thinks is going to be a one night stand kind of thing, as it turns out though the person he is seeing is a vampire and he is soon infected and must now feast on blood. Thankfully, it does not have to be human blood as a rather friendly vampire teaches him the ways of living a rather nice existence as a vampire without having to drink the blood of humans. Unfortuanately, a sort of Van Helsing type hunter of vampires who saw him and his friend at the girl's house where he was bitten, however, he thinks it is the guy's friend and not him that has been bitten and turned into a vampire. The guy also is having girl trouble as he even tries to use vampire hypnotism to get the girl he likes. All this makes for an very funny comedy that really is rather lighthearted. So while not perfect, it makes for a fun film to watch.

My Best Friend is a Vampire (1987) is a movie I recently watched for the first time in a long time on HBOMAX. The storyline follows a Virgin young man who is a delivery driver and unfortunately has a delivery to the house of a hot vampire woman who wants to change his life forever. The young man wakes up the next day as both a man and a vampire. He tries to return to a normal life and will find that task more daunting than he anticipated.

This movie is directed by Jimmy Huston (Final Exam) and stars Robert Sean Leonard (Dead Poet Society), LeeAnne Locken (Miss Congeniality), Cheryl Pollak (Alien Nation), Cecilia Peck (Havoc) and Kenneth Kimmins (Arrested Development).

This movie has the classic 80s feel to it in every way. The soundtrack to this movie is an easy 10/10 and absolute gold. The hairstyles, sets and attire are all fantastic. The characters are very fun, relatable and easy to root for. The circumstances and hijinks are crazy and a bit unrealistic but that's what makes them entertaining. The comedic content is a bit cheesy but there are some funny scenes, the drivers test scenario comes to mind. I did thoroughly enjoy the ending and liked the ultimate conclusion.

Overall this film is more fun than good but is definitely worth a viewing. I would score this a 6/10 and recommend seeing it once.