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Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls

April 28, 2005

Rated: R Runtime: 90 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

(NOTE: This movie is also available in its entirety on the VAMPS 2: BLOOD SISTERS 2-Disc DVD set. That’s twice the vampire stripper action for the price of one!)

The “Vampire Stripper” genre is a tough one to screw up. Hot nekkid women who dance on stage and then kill people by drinking their blood. You don’t even need a story!

But somehow, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino managed to screw this genre up with From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. If you haven’t seen FDTD, it’s the Gigli of vampire stripper movies. I guess Frank Miller’s presence on the set of Sin City kept these two nimrods from screwing that up. (Of course, I haven’t seen Sin City yet, so maybe they did screw it up!)

Enough about lesser filmmakers and their lesser films. I’m here to tell you how you can scientifically test whether or not you’re watching a good vampire stripper movie: mute the sound. If the movie holds your attention (be it T&A or sex or gore or violence or all of the above), then you’ve got a winner.

And Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls is definitely a winner. While it’s not the best vampire stripper movie I’ve ever seen - that honor goes to its sequel, Vamps 2 - Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls is an almost perfect blend of horror, comedy, action and nekkid women.

The movie has two storylines that ultimately converge. A priest, Seamus, has a birthday coming up, and his buddy Larry wants to take him to a strip club called Vamps. (Suspension of disbelief is very important here.) Meanwhile, a hot young girl named Heather needs to make some extra money, so she applies for a dancing job at Vamps. If you haven’t guessed by now, Vamps is run by… VAMPIRE STRIPPERS!

Seamus recognizes Heather from high school, and the two of them become fast friends. And their love story becomes a tragedy of Romeo & Juliet proportions. The rest of the movie is about vampires and girls getting nekkid.

Seamus (Paul Morris) is serviceable as the priest. Now, I didn’t buy for a minute that he was a priest, but his acting was good enough.

Rob Calvert was perfect as the loser friend. We all knew this guy in high school. He had intimate knowledge of pornography but had never kissed a girl. He was overweight, but somehow thought long hair and a goatee would disguise the fact that he was a fat slob. (Come to think of it, I still know this guy.) Anyway, Rob plays the character perfectly, and has some really funny one-liners.

Jenny Wallace and Amber Newman round out the cast as vampire strippers who run Vamps. They get nekkid a lot.

So far Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls sounds like a masterpiece. So why did I only give it three stars? Well, my main beef with this movie lies with Jennifer Huss, who plays Heather. Jennifer Huss is pretty hot. She’s got the girl-next-door thing going on, and I really was looking forward to seeing her get nekkid.

But Ms. Huss had another agenda. I’m guessing that when the filmmakers cast her, they intended for her to do at least ONE nude scene. After all, it’s a movie about vampire strippers, and Ms. Huss is the lead actress, who happens be a dancer at a strip club. As an audience member, I might expect her character to get nekkid at least once.

Nope. The closest we get is Ms. Huss on stage, hands covering her breasts. Thief! Baggins!

I’m pretty sure I know what happened. The filmmakers were several days (or weeks) into production, and they had plenty of footage of Ms. Huss acting with her clothes on. It came time to shoot the big strip scene, and Ms. Huss refused to show her boobs. The filmmakers were screwed because they couldn’t go back and reshoot all the other scenes with a different actress. So we’re left with a vampire stripper movie where the lead actress does not fully strip.

Good God, what is this world coming to?

Filmmakers, here’s how you fix the problem. You get all the nekkid scenes out of the way on the first day or two. That way, if the actress objects, you can re-cast (or have an understudy already on the set) and keep moving along with the production. And your audience will be happy because of it. (I totally stole this bit of advice from Lloyd Kaufman’s excellent book, Make Your Own Damn Movie!.)

Other than the always-clothed Ms. Huss, Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls is an excellent way to spend ninety minutes. And its way cheaper than going to a real strip club.

Seen it? How many stars do you give it?

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