Worst Gay Themed Horror Film Ever : VAMPIRE BOYS

Director, Charlie Vaughn's Vampire Boys is possibly the worst movie you might ever see.


I mean that. 


The acting is flat, and the story is laughable (cute twink comes to L.A. and is stalked by a 100 year old vampire king and his posse  -- who all seem to own stock in Soloflex).  These vampires can, and do, walk in the sun and all look like rejects from a washed up boy band. 

Pecs by Soloflex, Specs by Ray-Ban, Ironic crucifixes by chance

Some stuff happens, a lot of stuff is inferred, the vampire king and twink kiss...then I dozed off.

Honestly, this piece of sun-dappled garbage makes David DeCoteau's work look like genius in comparison.


The only saving grace is that one vampire guy is pretty hot...the tall chrome dome one...

check out that rack!

...yeah, I liked that dude, Jess Allen, I look forward to seeing his talents eventually exposed via a lifetime exclusive contract at Falcon Studios.

If you really need to see this piece of tripe, you can check it out on Netflix streaming.  

vampires just want to have sun...err..fun

The Graduate : THE CEREMONY

James Palmer's  little mind-fuck of a film, 2008's  The Ceremony is a darkly delightful Satanic story set in a spacious rented duplex occupied by several college students.

Shortly after graduation, most of the roomies are out celebrating the results of their successful paper chase - except one - Eric: the doe eyed, good guy (Scott Seegmiller) who is home alone packing up and preparing for a  job overseas.  Stumbling upon a book surrounded by four lit candles in the bedroom of one of his housemates, Eric sets in motion a supernatural chain of events that build slowly (very, very slowly) over the afternoon and evening culminating in a decision on his part that might be his only chance for redemption.

The Ceremony is clearly a low budget venture, and that's what makes it so remarkable.  With no real special effects, no big name actors (in fact, for most of the film, Seegmiller is the only actor seen ), and no blood or gore, Palmer crafts the kind of film that, bit by bit, creeps up on the viewer until he or she finds themselves jumping out of their skin and rooting for the hapless graduate.

The trick to enjoying this one is to be very patient.  The first half hour of the film, is filled with scenes of the main character making calls, washing dishes, typing emails, and doing laundry in the sparsely decorated, sun splashed house.  Frankly, it was something of a chore making it through the first act - but it was well worth it.

In the end, I could not help but notice how The Ceremony was so much like one of those ABC Movie of the Week horror films - the ones that depended on acting and music to set the mood as opposed to bombast and editing.   Even the film's denouement is reminiscent of those made-for-TV epics - who doesn't love a twist ending?

You can catch The Ceremony on Netfilix streaming.

A Killer View : DREAM HOME

Imagine someone made an over-the-top slasher film filled with more gore than Herschell Gordon Lewis ever dreamed of.  Now, imagine that same film included great acting, a satirical look at class struggles, and a serious bit of commentary  concerning the world wide economic crisis. 

That tall order has been filled by Director Ho-Cheung Pang with his  masterpiece, Dream Home (Wai dor lei ah yut ho).

Set in Hong Kong, Dream Home tells the tale of a young woman (the gorgeous and charismatic, Josie Ho) who grew up in a crowded, high rise flat in a lower middle class neighborhood, and now wants nothing more than a spacious apartment in a new building with a view of the sea.   Through a lot of hard work (and one cold blooded decision on her part), she finally gets the money needed to put a bid on the place.  However, due to a fluctuating stock market, the current owners turn her down unless she can meet the new higher price they want.  Devastated over this turn of events, the woman hatches a blood soaked plot to win back her deluxe apartment in the sky.

Told through a series of flashbacks, Dream Home presents modern day Hong Kong as a claustrophobic world where people work, live, eat, travel, and fuck in extremely close proximity to each other. Indeed, private space seems to be at a minimum, so it makes sense that an apartment with a huge layout and breathing room would seem to be the ultimate goal of many.  Furthermore we are shown how the real estate market that boomed once Hong Kong was handed back over to China in 1997 effectively displaced thousands from their homes as developers moved in and demolished existing structures to put up high cost / high rise buildings .

Be that as it may, our heroine keeps her eye on the prize and channels her inner sociopath, breaking into the neighboring apartments of the one she covets, and knocking off the owners (figuring that a series of murders nearby would devalue the apartment's worth) .   Make no mistake, the killings in this movie are bloody disgusting; decapitations, castrations, disembowelment's and, most troubling, a pregnant woman suffocated by one of those clothing storage bags with a vacuum cleaner attached to it.   Honestly, there is some real stomach turning stuff going on here. 

Despite the gore (and baby, this one is a gore-fest), the actions of the heroine make sense (in a sick way); in a world that covets money and prestige, it seems that sometimes, a girl has no choice but to get her inner-Jason Voorhees on and get all slasher on innocent people's asses.  

Dream Home may be set in the Far East, but the world it presents is the one we live in now.  Consider the outrageous amounts people pay for apartments the size of a postage stamp in Manhattan, or other large cities...I mean only a deranged maniac would pay a million bucks per square foot, right?   And that's the thing, in a post Patrick Bateman world seemingly normal folks might stop at nothing to get what they think they deserve.  Greed may have brought them to this point, but cold blooded sociopathic behavior  will help them survive it.   And that's a lesson you'll never learn on HGTV.

The Devil's Work : RED STATE

Several years ago, I heard a radio interview with Shirley Roper-Phelps, the daughter of the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church (you know, those crazy bastards that protest the funerals of gay men and soldiers).  Initially, I tuned in thinking I'd get a good laugh listening to this hillbilly spawn of a fire and brimstone charlatan.  I was not prepared for the fact that Roper-Phelps is an attorney, extremely well spoken, and very well versed in the bible as well as the law.  I also was not prepared for the sick feeling I got in the pit of my gut as I listened to her conversation go from civil, to over-the-top -old testament-hatred that spewed like black bile from her.  What was even more disconcerting was that Phelps spoke so passionately about her beliefs that she left me feeling queasy and in need of a dose of some sunshine and, maybe, a long shower to wash her hateful vibe off of me.

That's kind of the same way I felt after watching Kevin Smith's, Red State.

Smith has always been something of a curio.  On the one hand, he's capable of some truly thought provoking issues in his work (see Dogma and Chasing Amy for proof), but more often than not, he seems to cave to the fan boy base that worships at his throne and litters even his best work with scatological humor, tit jokes, and  man / boys who can't or won't grow up.  With Red State, Smith has thrown out most of his crutches and crafted one of the most intelligent, and disturbing films I've seen in a long time.

What starts like a run of the mill horror film (three horny teens in search of sex find themselves in the middle of nowhere and are kidnapped) morphs into a story about the evils of small minded people and their religious beliefs as well as big government and its blood thirsty, vengeance seeking, cold heart.

Echoing everything from the Ruby Ridge confrontation, to the aforementioned Westboro Baptist church, to the paranoia spawned in the nation since 9/11, Red State assaults the viewer like nothing he or she has ever seen before.  Make no mistake, this is a horror movie, but it's about realistic horror borne of homophobia, religious zeal and governmental heavy-handedness.

Michael Parks  gives an Oscar worthy performance as Abin Cooper, the head of the Five Points Church where the deed goes down.  Parks plays his villain with such charisma and charm it is uncanny.  If this guy does not walk away with a gold statute next spring, The Academy should just pack it in.

Equally impressive is John Goodman as ATF agent, Joseph Keenan.  Goodman puts in  a terrific performance as a decent man asked to do the unthinkable.

Finally, then, there is not much more to say about Red State, other than to seek it out as soon as you can.  Surely this film is going to alienate as many people who embrace it.  Smith's fan base might really be in for a shock when they see what their idol is capable of when he is unfettered and not giving the people what they want (or expect).  The rest of us will just sit back, mouth agape,  and probably want to take a shower after it's all over.