Modern Vampires (1998)

I'm sorry I had to fast-forward this crappy film to the ending just to see how it ends after 15 minutes of watching it. It's tasteless trash instead of being bloody good or even semi-good.From what I've seen, It's overly gory, lame excuses to show nudity, stupid story, and just overall dumb. Now I understand the low rating and bad reviews on this film garbage.If you love Vampires and Comedy-Horror films then watch a film like "Love at First Bite", "Dracula, Dead and Loving It" or even "Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein" (Bela Lugosi plays Dracula in that one). Forget this Modern day Vampire trash film. It's not worth the time to watch it. There are MUCH better films on the market than this.It gets 1 star from me ONLY because of Kim Cattrall and Casper Van Dien both looked hot in the film and I'm forced to give a 1 star minimum.1/10

Other than Rod Steiger doing this tongue in cheek imitation of Laurence Olivier's Mitteleuropa accent and having a ball as a modern Dr. Van Helsing, this rather witless comedy might go over with the juvenile trade, but not too many others. It certainly does make vampires out to be such fun creatures.Natasha Gregson Wagner and Casper Van Dien are a couple of modern vampires who are tired of the rule of that most notorious vampire of them all, Count Dracula as played by Robert Pastorelli. But all of them have to worry that that famous vampire slaughterer Van Helsing who's on the prowl with some new kind of help, a few boys from the hood.Except when Steiger was on the screen I didn't get too many laughs out of this film though. Maybe it's because my taste in music just doesn't run to rap which blares at intervals during the movie. There is one other good scene I did like. Kim Catrall pulling a freight train with the Van Helsing helpers and turning them all into vampires. It's the inevitable result of sex with one.For the juvenile trade strictly.

By the makers of "Freeway"(96), utilizing the same wry, dark humor, with some ham: picture elderly Rod Steiger as an old Van Helsing - ze vampire hunter! Modern L.A. is the scene. Van Dien plays Dallas, a returning blood-sucker who hooks up with his old brood and contends against the local big-shot 'Count' (none other than Dracula himself, it turns out, played by Robert Pastorelli of Murphy Brown fame). Most of the humor stems from Van Helsing's recruitment of Crips gang-members as his helpers. Also, I viewed an unrated version, so the hip notions include traces of lesbianism & racy sex scenes. Winsome Wagner (daughter of Natalie Wood) is alternately cute when whining and vicious when indulging her bloodthirsty ways, growling like a bobcat in heat. Her scenes carry an odd kind of energy. The pace and execution is not as smooth as could be, however, probably due to low-budget problems. Despite the humor mentioned, this comes across as a plodding effort, unclear, episodic and not all that intelligent.

I've never given anything a bad review before, and I do so this time only because I can't believe all the good reviews here are genuine. I think the director rounded up all his pals to try and generate some positive word. What's needed is some authentic moral outrage to restore the balance. I thought this film was largely unfunny (despite some excellent actors) and totally confused in its approach to the subject. The vampires were horrible, and so were the mortals, and I couldn't care less what happened to any of them. The film had nothing to say, even on the most basic level. We were supposed to root for or like Van Dienh and Wagner because they were pretty and cool, but they were just as loathsome as everybody else. I felt physically sorry for Steiger, staggering through this farrago with acute discomfort, and we're supposed to laugh at someone who's both a bereaved father and an ex-nazi? The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. The naked girls are cute, but I couldn't enjoy them with a clear conscience because of the mindless viciousness of the film they were surrounded by. It's not particularly violent or anything, just shallow and ugly. And if you think the bad editing is due to the censor, think again - the European version is sloppy and disjointed too, because the filming itself is flat and there obviously wasn't enough good footage to begin with. Tawdry, unimaginative and doesn't even pay basic attention to vampire rules. Makes INNOCENT BLOOD look like NOSFERATU.