Vampire Sisters (2003)

Posted on Feb 23, 2005 under Horror |

Directed by Joe Ripple
Produced and written by Don Dohler
Starring
- Darla Albornoz
- Jeannie Michelle Jameson
- Syn DeVil
- Mark C. Lassise
- Leanna Chamish

I was surpised to see “A Don Dohler Production” front and center in the credits. Dohler, for those who don’t recognize the name, made no-budget movies back before anyone else made no-budget movies because back then, you had to shoot them on film, not video. He’s best known (when known at all) for such movies as Alien Factor (1977), a Maryland-lensed epic about three alien convicts who crashland on earth and are pursued by an intergalactic cop, shot in glorious 16mm on a budget roughly equal to the price of a carton of discount-brand cigarettes.

Not that the budget here is any higher, but the advent of digital video means that the same number of inflation-adjusted dollars will give you a movie with better and clearer picture quality, and the current surfeit of fashion models willing to pop their tops for low-budget horrotica means that the end product will be easier on the eyes than something populated entirely by wanna-be actors in the illkempt ’70s, even in Maryland. Easier on the eyes, but not necessarily easier on the brain.

Here’s the gist of the plot in twenty-five words of less: three gorgeous vampire chicks run a porn website, vampsisters.com, to lure horny clients into their clutches. (Sixteen words. I counted.) And if that sounds to you like an excuse to show a lot of titillating vampire chick action in between the killings, you’re absolutely right. Will anything else be going on? No, not so much.

“Welcome to the wood-paneled dungeon of doom!”

After some long, lingering shots of the vampsisters.com website under the credits, we cut to a lone man, being pursued through the foggy night by three babes in silhouette. He takes refuge in a nearby suburban house and stumbles into the basement, where he is cornered. This is all part of the act, though, or rather the fantasy; the man is one of the website subscribers, and his capture-and-bondage fantasy is being fulfilled by Dawn (Darla Albornoz, the one who’s actually cute and thus never takes her shirt off), Stacy (Jeannie Michelle Jameson, the tall one), and Tasha (Syn deVil, the one with boobs so overinflated they each qualify for their own ZIP code). The customer thinks this is all great — until the three sisters rip open his jugular and start slurping. Then they take his drained body and toss it into the padlocked shed out back, where the unseen “Iggy” snarls and chows down.

This is a sample of how the girls operate; they use the website to find local men (and women) who spend the most for their content, then invite them over as a “winner” for some additional “services.” Their next lucky winner is Mr. Smith, a portly man in a three-piece with a thing for pain and S&M (which explains the three-piece). “Hurt me! Hurt me!” he begs, although I don’t think he wanted as much as he ends up getting, bleeding all over the dropcloth that the girls thoughtfully put down to protect the carpet of whoever’s house they’re filming this in. (Who knew a meathook to the groin could kill you instantly?)

To give us a semblance of plot, a couple of vice cops (Mark C. Lassise and Leanna Chamish) pick up on the fact that the website offers special favors by invitation to local men, and decide to keep their eye in it. And boy, that has got to be the quietest cop shop in the world. There are even floral curtains on their office window. Maryland truly is A Different Place.

Imagine if Tom Savini got a nickel every time someone used this effect.

The girls’ next victim has a “dirty old man” fetish, so they do little stripteases out of their schoolgirl uniforms while he peeps, until they bury a cleaver in his head. Right about here, I’m wondering why they bother going through the “sexual fantasy” bit once their victim is in the house, instead of chowing right down on him. Thoughtfully, the movie chooses to answer that question right after I asked it: sexual arousal makes the blood taste better.

And hen the next victim, a girl Stacy kidnaps for variety while the other two are out at the movies. As the girl tries to escape, we get a nice tour of the entire house, from the pristine doilied upstairs to the comfy rec room in the basement where the girls do most of their work. (I think it would have been a good precaution, though, to take the “cute couple” portrait of the people who really own the house off the wall before shooting. Just in case, you know, the camera strays that way or something.) In trying to escape, by the way, this poor girl passes the front door twice; I don’t think we were supposed to notice.

And on to the next victim, who’s supposedly a voyeur, but who watches the “hot girl-on-girl action” (i.e., lots of shoulder-caressing) for all of twenty seconds before joining in and getting an electric drill through both eyes.

Vampires have fillings?

In case you’re getting bored with the string of killings, you should know that the vice cops have been doing, you know, stuff during all this time. Mostly sitting in their office, “keeping tabs” on the website. (”The state pays me to carry a gun and look at porn at work? This job so rocks!”) But eventually one of them notices that some of the missing persons that another cop is investigating have vampsisters.com bookmarked, and put two and two together. Time to go undercover! (That is, watch EVEN MORE porn at work!)

Now. You’ve seen the sisters at work. You’ve seen the vice cops. What else is there to see? Right: Some guy! Some guy in a black leather jacket, who creeps up on the house… watches the sisters reading and whatnot through the window… watches through another window… walks around the house… moves really slowly… walks some more… looks some more…

[Zzzzzzzzzzz...]

Huh? What? Nope, didn’t miss anything. He’s still creeping around. Eventually he comes in the back basement door… walks slowly through the rec room… pulls a gun out of his waistband… looks around… walks slowly upstairs… glances furtively in each room in turn… wanders some more… checks out the linen in the closet… notes the names of the breakfast cereals in the pantry… Zzzzzzzz…

So you’ve been watching French cinema, have you?

Oh! Hey! He runs into Dawn, who’s been waiting for him in her room! He’s the brother of some guy they ate the previous week, and his investigations led him to them. Then Stacy comes up behind him and snaps his neck, and they feed him to Iggy.

Boy, I’m glad that that whole subplot was included to expand the scope of the movie. Thank you so much for letting me sit through that. Where were we again?

Oh. Right. Next victim. This one’s female, skinny, and French to boot, so here’s where they make good on that “girl-on-girl action” that didn’t get off the ground last time. The French chick enjoys being dominated and pleasured — until she realizes that she’s being pleasured by Tasha’s twelve-foot vampire tongue. (Which then kills her. Off-screen. Mercifully.)

So. Is there anyone left in the room who remembers that we were going to have a plot, waaaay way back? The vice cops have finally risen high enough in the customer rankings that they get a late-nite invite to indulge their fantasies. They arrive under the pretense of liking “the group thing,” but the sisters soon separate them, and…. Well, since this is the only part of the movie with enough of a plotline to actually be spoilable, I probably ought not spoil it, huh? Suffice it to say, the ensuing battle involves everybody getting punched in the face multiple times, the inconvenient arrival of sunlight, and a look at Iggy. (He’s real ugly.)

“Hi! We’re the vice cops, but don’t tell anybody — we’re under cover.”

I suppose what’s most surprising is that this movie doesn’t drag as much as it could have. (Aside from the interminable “brother with a gun” bit, of course.) Despite being mostly an excuse for softcore tease, the movie doesn’t assume that viewers want to stare at vampire girls gyrating and fluttering for minutes on end without something happening. On the other hand, it’s really hard to get any enjoyment out of the movie unless you really DO like girls with patently fake boobs going through the motions that they learned from watching other girls with patently fake boobs in other softcore flicks. There are just too many generations between the performances here and anything that was ever directly arousing.

What really caught my attention is a single momentary brush with another possible movie that could have been good. A small group of churchgoers from nearby St. Timothy’s comes around and rings the bell, inviting people to join them for Bible study. Dawn naturally reacts poorly to having a Bible waved in her face, and slams the door on them. But that got me thinking: Wouldn’t that make an amusing movie? A small-town Bible study group, all rosy cheeks and sunshiny dispositions, discovering a vampire conclave in Happytown, U.S.A. Why wouldn’t that movie be more entertaining than this one?

I know, I know; “hot girl-on-girl action.” I’m sorry I had to ask.