Vamp

Vamp (1986)

directed by:  Richard Wenk
starring:  Sandy Baron, Robert Russler, Grace Jones, Chris Makepeace, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Drago
Genre - Horror/Comedy
Tagline - "The First Kiss Could Be Your Last"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

     Vamp is and always will be yet another 80's personal favorite.  Not only do we have singer/actress  Grace Jones but Sandy Baron whose many great roles are nothing but entertainment especially the man's eyebrows.  Also notable for me at least is Robert Russler star of Weird Science and Nightmare On Elm Street 2:  Freddy's Revenge my favorite sequel in that franchise who is always plays a good preppy jerk.  Gedde Watanabe and Billy Drago also play in this campy vampire strip club romp that makes me giggle every time I sit down and watch it.  The laughs are abound with antics of every actor mentioned with the exception of Grace Jones who for plays one of the scariest vampires to come out the eighties.  No miss Jones doesn't really have a lot of lines per say but between the death scenes she creates and the chase through the sewers at the end I loved her addition to this classic gem.  The whole film plays out like a college night out gone bad.  The boys Keith (Chris Makepeace who is just kind of "there" acting wise), AJ (Russler), and Duncun (Watanabe) head out on a mission to find a stripper for AJ and Keith's frat party as sort of a replacement for being degraded with a hazing.  Upon arrival at the club the boys start throwing back the beer and enjoying the eye candy all around them.  Then comes Katrina (Jones) the evil vampire queen disguised as the main attraction stripper for the seedy strip-club.  Soon AJ disappears after having headed backstage to talk Katrina into returning with them to dance for their frat party.  After that Keith tries to no avail to find AJ while the club manager (Sandy Baron) continues trying to foil Keith's plans of escape.  Vampires begin to pop up everywhere...in the sewers, garbagemen, truck drivers, strippers, and soon enough AJ also returns as a cool but hungry vampire.  Meanwhile Billy Drago plays a gang member called Snow who previously had an insulting encounter with our horny young college boys before they even made it to the strip club so they too are on the trail of Keith, AJ, and Duncan.  The film isn't great cinematically and the writing isn't all there but regardless it's a fun ride of scary vampires, silly laughs, and above entertaining acting performances.  Most especially again Sandy Barron...anything this man is in makes whatever it is that much better.  Some would say our director Richard Wenk went on to do bigger and better things having written the Mechanic starring Jason Statham and the Expendables 2 starring a bunch of action film icons but not me.  From what I've read in the past Everett Burrell was the key to the special effects and his list of credits includes:  Nerconomicon:  Book of the Dead, Pan's Labrynth, Sin City, Monkey Shines, Phantasm 2, The Lost Boys, Two Evil Eyes, and the list goes on.