Robo Vampire

ROBO VAMPIRE!

This one is so bad, it's good. Let's fry some brain cells together. Roll tape!

What an experience! Having watched this slice of Godfrey Ho action-trash the other day, I found myself to be both simultaneously enlightened and disgusted at just how insanely terrible and utterly scatter-brained this movie is. But best of all though, it's also incredibly entertaining. This is truly amateur alchemy in movie form and in it's own unique way is brilliant. For the uninitiated "Robo Vampire" is the hack-job work of none other than the great Godfrey Ho! A cinematic mad scientist/hack film director, whose specialty was making the MOST and the WORST martial arts films that any director ever has and he is very much the "Ed Wood of Kung Fu Cinema". The sheer awfulness of this mans body of work cannot be over-stated. Now that I've flattered Master Ho let me try to describe his movie: Robo Vampire. Upon first impression it looks like multiple movies (maybe as many as 3 different ones) have been sloppily edited and spliced together, just like many other Godfrey Ho titles seem to be, so don't expect anything in the way of a coherent plot. And as with any of Ho's movies you have their typically terrible and down-right stupid sounding dialogue (and over-dubbing it in English only makes it sound worse). But best of all is Godfrey Ho's habit of ripping-off popular American-made action films and done so in the most amateur and ham-handed way humanly imaginable. He flavored his own movies with elements that were obviously taken/plagiarized from other, better, movies. Such as "Ninja TERMINATOR" for instance. Yes, built right into the title sometimes, he made it that overtly obvious and did it often. But for ROBO Vampire, well obviously it's something of a ROBOCop rip-off. (NOTE* RoboCop was released the previous year.) If you see the artwork for this movie it literally has RoboCop's image plastered all over it, front and center, subtle. Definitely one of the most blatant examples of copyright infringement I can think of. And is that not the lamest and cheapest looking "robo suit" you've ever seen. As always, amazing production values from Team Ho! Yep, as he demonstrated for us many, many, times over the years, Godfrey Ho had a talent for making movies with a heavy hand... but had little in the way of actual talent. I also highly suspect drug use to be in the mix too, always just so damn incoherent, always.

Well now that I've wasted about an hours time, in conclusion, after having seen the unhinged brilliance that is "Robo Vampire"..... I can confidently conclude that no one else could cobble together a terrible (and incoherent) action film quite like Godfrey Ho. HE IS LEGEND. Make some more man!

Food-For-Thought: If this movie had an aroma, what would it smell like?

Off-hand I couldn't rightly say, but instinct tells me it would be a hideous amalgam of all that is highly odious. But honestly I'd love to hear some of the infernal combinations you guys could come up with. (Pinches his nose *tightly* closed.)

The reason this movie isn't at the top of the "worst ever" list is simply that it's not yet as well-known (or infamous) as "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "Manos," or "The Beast of Yucca Flats." This is one of those movies that makes you gape in disbelief. The ludicrous storyline pits Robo Warrior (who's dressed in floppy silver coveralls, motorcycle goggles, and a car radio antenna) against a cadre of traditional Chinese hopping vampires. The vampires are being controlled by drug dealers, naturally enough, who employ a Taoist monk to help them create a Vampire Beast. Said beast is a guy in a Mandarin robe and a gorilla mask! Then the Beast's dead finacee, a girl in a see-through nightie, shows up, and the pushers decide the couple should go ahead and get married... But that's only half of the movie. There's also ample footage cut in from another movie, a generic Asian-made shoot 'em up. In my favorite scene, the slow-walking Robo chases the slow-hopping Beast in the pokiest slow-speed chase since OJ and the LAPD. If Ed Wood had lived to see "RoboCop" and "A Chinese Ghost Story," this is the movie he might have made. It's that bad. And it's that good. Scour the bargain bins for this one.

A drug-lord recruits Chinese vampires to protect his business from government narcotics agents. When one of their people is captured, the authorities not only send in a rescue team but also create an indestructible cyborg to take on the enemy.

I knew it, I knew it! Although my copy of Robo Vampire names (blames?) someone called Joe Livingstone as director, everything I saw screamed Godfrey Ho. The insane, disjointed story (the result of two or more films badly spliced together); the crappy kung fu; the awful dubbing; the ridiculous special effects: Ho's inimitable touch was all over this nonsense.

Featuring quite possibly the worst RoboCop rip-off ever (the cyborg's suit is made from padded silver lamé), a hopping vampire in a rubber gorilla mask with fireworks up its sleeves (?!?!), a yucky scene in which a woman packs heroin inside the stomach of a dead animal, a female ghost who bares her breasts in order to distract her foes, and numerous badly stuffed dummies being thrown about in poorly choreographed fight scenes, this has to be one the most bonkers and least comprehensible efforts in Ho's canon. Consequently, it also proves to be one of his more entertaining efforts.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up 7 for IMDb.

Tomas Tang launches yet another cinematic stercolith onto the bewildered general public in this absolutely insane Robocop inspired/hopping vampires/action/love story(!!!) Well, to describe the end result as not making any sense would be a gross understatement; In fact, watching this you'll very quickly find yourself rendered mouth agape in gormless disbelief as the random on screen events flash by before your bleary eyes! But, let this not put you off viewing this cinematic mess, for despite the completely nonsensical nature of it all, it is strangely captivating in a very bizarre way....much akin to being hypnotised in fact! So, what the hell is exactly going on in this? Well, in all honesty your guess is about as good as mine and I've just only just finished watching it! From what I could discern, the story centres around a bunch of drug smugglers who take the unusual step of employing a corrupt Taoist priest/sorcerer to resurrect vampires in order to stash their drugs inside them(!) But wait, for it gets even more bizarre! One of the vampires raised called the 'Vampire Beast' (on account of the cheap fx gorilla mask the relevant actor is wearing), is the ex lover of a lady ghost who shows up, none to happy that her boyfriend is being used so thus preventing the two of them from passing to the afterlife together. So what does the word 'Robo' in the films title pertain to you might ask? Well, in yet another bizarre plot tangent, an American agent is killed by the Vampire Beast and is brought back to life as a cheap looking Robo-Cop clone in order to battle the forces of evil. Yes, this is truly bewildering stuff that really needs to be seen to be believed.......the only trouble being that even whilst watching this, you STILL won't believe it!

It wasn't until the end of this film that I realized it was essentially two movies, both of which on their own could have qualified as pure tripe. One is the the robot vs. vampire story that the title suggests. The other is a more straightforward good guys vs. drug gang movie. Although I have only seen the movie once, I believe you will find that the characters from the one plot line NEVER appear in the exact same shot with the characters from the other plot line. It really is two movies, edited together.

This movie is an absolute riot. I highly recommend it. The first time I saw the robot, I laughed so hard a friend had to pause the film to let me recover. The hopping vampires...oh my, they are perhaps the silliest things to appear in film since the 1950's. The whole thing makes Dr. Who look like it was done by ILM.

For those connoisseurs of bad movies, please get this film. You will not regret it.