The Ironbound Vampire

THE IRONBOUND VAMPIRE is about a hippie vampire and his harem of toothy ghoul-fiends.

For such infinitesimally low budget fare, many allowances must be made. After such allowances, this is still an insufferable sack of head cheeeze! With no discernable direction or production, we might be expecting the sort of "film" that kids in the neighborhood might throw together, hoping for a night of giggles. Alas, there's nothing that enjoyable here.

Instead, we're treated to lifeless characters -not just the vampires either- roaming around aimlessly. Scenes jump about, making little to no sense. At all. Near the end, some girl-on-girl action is thrown in arbitrarily to no avail. It's just not enough to save this catastrophic event.

Yes, both Conrad Brooks and Dolores Fuller have cameos in this cinematic kidney stone...

Just watched Ironbound Vampire, in my continuing search for the absolute worst movie, and this is a contender. I would be less harsh if I knew that it was somebody's class project, with relatives and friends participating; i. e., not professionals but amateurs. The story: a soldier's WWI wounds are a feast for a vampire, which causes the military man to become an undead. Thereafter, the recruit settles in the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, and is responsible for many of that area's unsolved murders and missing persons since then. Among the characters to whom we are introduced during the film are a detective, who writes a book about these events; and a doctor, who helps capture the never-aging bloodsucker. Gore is almost nil. Make-up is Halloweenish. Effects are not special. Watch this flick only to realize that anybody with a camera could do just as well - probably better.

I love low and no budget horror flicks. Ironbound Vampire was probably made for five bucks. It's got it's saving graces, but they may not appeal to everybody. The look of the main vampire is perfect. His vampire bride is excellent. The casting of Conrad Brooks and Delores Fuller is a treat. Conrad Brooks is really effective (maybe I've been drinking too much of the wine he was pushing in this movie). There's good music too. The story contains some decent creepy ideas that really appeal to me also. There's quite a few good artistic touches in this movie, but in the end it's still a very low low budget video. This is a good start even if the movie never manages to fully rise above it's severe budget restraints.

This film begins with a New Jersey cop named "Detective Eric Steele" (Dennis Drenth) investigating a series of murders and disappearances in Newark that have happened over many years. He hopes to solve the cases and include the details in a book he's writing. His research starts with an American soldier from World War I named "Tom Lane" (Richard Matyskiel), who was severely wounded in battle but miraculously survived thanks to an unknown man who gave him some of his blood. However, it wasn't until he returned to the United States that the murders suddenly started-and they have continued to this day, with rumors that Tom Lane is still alive and looks the same as he did nearly 80 years ago. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a typical ultra-low-budget film that suffers from the same issues as many others, with wooden acting, poorly written scripts, and action scenes that clearly needed more work. That being said, although this was definitely not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, I appreciated the fact that the director (Karl Petry) made an honest effort and didn't abdicate his responsibilities by making a film that was "so bad it's good," as many lesser directors tend to do.

Apparently inspired by the work of hack director Ed Wood, THE IRONBOUND VAMPIRE traces the confusing history of Tom Kane (Richard Matyskiel), a World War I casualty who returns to Newark (N. J.) from Europe as a vampire. Kane becomes a celebrated writer in the 1990s. At a book signing party, an aging guest (ex-Wood ingenue Dolores Fuller) remarks how he never grows old. Kane's butler (Conrad Brooks, another Wood crony) makes jokes about the bottled human blood he serves to guests ("It's Portuguese wine").

Meanwhile, ex-cop Eric Steel hovers over an electric typewriter, writing a book about Kane as his unseen daughter narrates the disjointed plot. After almost an hour of dramatic chaos, which is regularly interrupted by unrelated near-porn lesbian lovemaking and striptease sequences, Steel joins forces with Kane's daughter to defeat the vampire.

Shot on home video equipment in blurry auto-focus mode, THE IRONBOUND VAMPIRE features a vampire club, an off-screen decapitation, and some pretty Newark girls. The acting and technical credits are sub-par even for a Wood homage.