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Inbred Redneck Vampires
The entertainment industry like much of our popular culture influences display a tendency to readily observable trends. One of the most recent is the revival of the vampire as the center character of stories. The nocturnal monsters feeding on the life's blood of the living have certainly come a long way from the ghastly creatures like the one Max Schreck portrayed in the 1922 silent movie, ‘Nosferatu’. Back then vampires looked like monsters with elongated limbs and protruding animalistic fangs dripping blood drown their pale, in human faces. It literally took decades but over time these monsters became romantic leads; sexy creatures with desire replacing dread and fear. It may hat started with the formal evening wear sported by Bela Lugosi’s ‘Dracula’. Over the intervening decades the vampire took on a much sultrier, seductive personae ultimately leading to the sex symbol for the new millennium. Now you can hardly pick up a book, go to the movies or turn on the television without encountering some angst riddled vampire and it human lover romantically torn between their two worlds. In many ways this is just a modern variation of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with the two houses replaced by the ultimate social distinction of living and dead, or undead as the case may be. One of the most popular of this new manifestation of the romantic vampire is the anti bellum romance best featured in the bestselling novels; ‘The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris transformed into the huge HBO hit series by Alan Ball; ‘True Blood’. When something becomes this much of a popular culture phenomena you just know somebody is going to come along to lampoon it. Thankfully in this instance the restating farce is squarely on target providing an extremely twist look at the new age vampire. The name of the film says it all concisely; ‘Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires’ or perhaps you might have heard of it by its alternate title ‘Inbred Redneck Vampires’. The writing and direction duties were shared by two men with quite a chance
at becoming a force to reckon with especially in the tricky genre of the farce.
Mike Hegg is a relative new comer in all the positions he held to make this
movie a reality. His partner in both committing the word story to the page and
eliciting sublimely funny performances from the cast was Joe Sherlock. Mr.
Sherlock has paid ample dues working in low budget horror flicks in capacities
that encompass various aspects of film making from production to cinematography.
Some overly critical fans may underestimate experience on these low cost Indies
but if you look at the directors that made grind house horror movies under the
king of the ‘B’ flicks Roger Corman you would be astonished as to how many of
these directors now have Oscars and other highly coveted golden statues on their
mantles. Someone who gave the world ‘We Need Earth Women’ may someday be walking
on stage with his co-director to accept an award. While not all This is a tightly crafted two for one send up of not only the romantic vampire fad but the long standing independent horror flick use of the deep south as a setting. In so many of those movies the stoned out, horny kids wander into a den of serial killer cannibals just a few chromosomes short of a genome. This is basically if the vampire from ‘True Blood’ was related to Leather Face than being a southern gentleman like Rhett Butler. The film gets right into poking fun at the genre with a long shot of a sullen, pretty girl dark in aspect holding a glass of deep red wine. Upstairs past a guard another young woman is tied to the bed blindfolded. A sinister female figure presses on top of the girl pulling off her top revealing her smooth, bare flesh. Most horror fans appreciate it when a female victim gets naked quickly and absolutely no time is wasted here. The vampire dialogue is deliciously overplayed border on the laughable. This turns out to be just the tip of the comical ice berg. Add in a moron of a minion, an interior decorator so effeminate he makes the openly gay contestants on a design reality show seem macho and a little person named, wait for it, Cletus just to make sure letters of protest come from all conceivable quarters. After all if you are going to play to offensive stereotypes the time to hold back evaporated in the first set of pre-production meetings. One feeling that pervades this production is the cast and crew obviously spent uncounted hours studying films rejected from Mystery Science Theater 3000. When you include a character names the likes of ‘Billy Joe Barney Bob’ and ‘Li'l Junior ‘you are trying real hard to mock the genre every possible way. It took a second viewing to glean what the goal was here. First I’m working on my Ed Wood premise that to be truly bad takes effort and talent. Sure you will groan almost as much as you will laugh here but there is an insight into the current lamentable state of Indy horror flick. We have moved away from the low budget genius of George Romero and are stuck in the quagmire of hackney productions. It seems like anyone with a semester of film school and some available credit on their plastic decides to make a horror flick. All you need for such an effort is a couple of hundred gallons of stage blood, a few buckets of pig intestines an pretty young lady or two genetically devoid of any trace of modesty and you got yourself a film. What Hegg and Sherlock managed here was to hoist these movies up to the ridicule they bring upon themselves. My best friend and I made a red neck vampire double feature following this with the other side of the coin; ‘Near Dark’. Just approach this movie in the right frame of mind and enjoy. Posted 08/13/2010 | ||||||||
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