Vampire Flicks: Vamp (1986)

This is the other review I mentioned back when we looked at The Slaughter of the Vampires that wasn't initially on my radar but ended up a part of the final series of reviews, regardless. In this case, it was because I just suddenly remembered this flick, which I'd never seen it before deciding to do this review, but had always remembered that VHS cover art that you see here from the local video rental store when I was a kid. And since I'd already decided to do the major vampire movies from the 80's, I figured I'd might as well check out this more obscure one that was released amid them. I knew next to nothing about it going in, except that it was a horror comedy that starred Grace Jones, whom I've always known from A View To A Kill, and upon watching it, I felt it was just fine. It's not laugh out loud funny, nor is it ever scary, with some moments that I just don't get, and, if you're a gorehound, there's little here that will satisfy you, but, all that said, it's definitely an entertaining premise and the film has its own unique, quirky vibe. What's more, it's shot and directed well enough, with a very colorful visual style, plenty of memorable characters, some of which are played by familiar faces to genre fans, and, like he did on so many other vampire movies made during this period, you have Greg Cannom supplying some really nice monster makeups and effects.

Keith and A.J. are two college students who desperately want to pledge a fraternity, mainly because their current dorm room is small and cramped, and the dorm itself is full of noisy, annoying students. However, they tire of the Dipsa Phi's initiation method, which involves Gothic robes and the two of them participating in a mock, ritualistic hanging in an old, stone building on the campus. Despite Keith's reservations, A.J. suggests that, in exchange for their being allowed in, the two of them hire a stripper for a party being held at the frat house that night. But when he strikes out with the girls he knows personally, he and Keith have no choice but to drive to the nearest city and hire a professional. However, neither of them have a car, and the city is miles away. Thus, they go to Duncan Spriggs, an incredibly dorky, rich kid who's so desperate for friends that he's willing to pay for them. He agrees to let them borrow his Cadillac, but on the condition that they take him with them and agree to be his friends for a week. Reluctantly, they say yes, and drive to the city. On the way, they look through ads for strip clubs and decide on the After Dark Club. Arriving in town, they end up in a shady area after A.J. has to swerve to avoid hitting a truck. After sunset, they search for the club, which, as per its name, opens after dark, but end up running afoul of a street gang while at a cafe. They manage to fight them off and escape, and then find the After Dark Club. There, Keith runs into Amaretto, a waitress and stripper who claims they've met before, though he doesn't remember where or when. Upon witnessing a strange and surreal performance by a stripper named Katrina, A.J. decides she's the one he wants for the party. He's led backstage and visits her in her dressing room to convince to take the job, only for her to seduce and pin him to her waterbed. And that's when she reveals her true nature, transforming into a monstrous vampire and biting into his neck. This proves to be just the start of a very bizarre and dangerous night, as Keith slowly but surely learns that most of the people at the club, as well as the neighborhood, are vampires, and they're not about to let their potential prey escape.

Vamp was the feature debut of writer/director Richard Wenk, who got the job due to a short film he'd written and directed in 1979 as his NYU thesis called Dracula Bites the Big Apple. After working as a production assistant for John Huston on the 1982 film version of Annie, Wenk met producer Donald P. Borchers, who suggested they work together on a project. They initially co-wrote a spoof called They Came... All Night, but when they couldn't find a studio interested in it, they came up with Vamp. Borchers, who co-wrote the initial story along with Wenk, who then wrote the final screenplay himself, set the movie up at New World Pictures. By all accounts, shooting proved to be quite difficult, not only because of the low budget ($3.3 million), but also because of a number of mishaps, such as the cast and crew becoming ill, a tow truck crashing on the set, and Grace Jones being difficult, as was something of a habit for her at that time. Because of all the problems, the studio nearly removed Wenk as director, but the cast and crew stood up for him and he was able to finish the movie. 

Since Vamp was barely noticed at the box-office and didn't get the best critical reviews, Wenk's directing career didn't exactly take off afterward. In fact, he only directed two other feature films: 1998's Just the Ticket, with Andy Garcia and Andie MacDowell, and an obscure 2002 slasher flick called Wishcraft. He also directed one part of a 1994 Showtime comedy anthology film called Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 In. Women, and an episode of a short-lived TV series called Sweet Valley High. He's had far more success as a screenwriter, mostly on action movies like The Mechanic, The Expendables 2, the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and, most notably, all three of the Equalizer movies.

While something of an ensemble, the film's ostensible protagonist is Keith (Chris Makepeace), and he's definitely the most down-to-Earth character in the entire cast. While A.J. is a fast-talking, scheming smartass, Keith is just a regular clean-cut, likable guy who, despite wanting to get out of their horrendous dormitory as much as A.J., isn't happy when his friend promises to get a stripper for the Dipsa Phi's party, knowing it's not going to be an easy promise to keep. In fact, when A.J. says they're going to have to go and hire a professional when none of the women he knows agree to it, Keith suggests that it might not be worth the aggravation, and it's only when A.J. reminds him of their awful living situation that he agrees to go along with it. During this crazy adventure, Keith not only has to put up with the seriously dorky Duncan, but also garners the unwanted attention of a street gang after he flirts with one of them while at the cafe. What gets them in trouble isn't his flirting, but his horrified reaction when the woman, Maven, smiles and he sees the ugly set of teeth she has in her mouth. She then comes close to sticking him for this insult, but fortunately for him, A.J. manages to take care of the gang. Then, when they get to the After Dark Club, Keith has the misfortune of having to sit near the stage with Duncan, who ogles the dancers, and also deals with Amaretto, whose overly bubbly personality and insistence that they've met before gets on his nerves. And the longer they stick around, the more he realizes there's something not right about this club. His suspicions are particularly aroused when A.J. disappears after going backstage to meet with Katrina, and the woman who took him back there initially denies his existence, then says no one is allowed to see Katrina and he left after being denied. Initially, Keith thinks that A.J. ditched him in order to go back to one stripper's hotel room to hold an "audition," and is taken there by Amaretto. While there, he gets separated from her, nearly gets killed when he's caught in an elevator door, gets dumped by Amaretto when she makes a ridiculous assumption when he rants at her over what he's been through, and is later chased through the streets and into the sewers by the gang from before. But things get infinitely worse when he finds A.J.'s body in a dumpster, along with that of the woman who took him backstage. He calls the police, only for A.J. to show up, seemingly unharmed, and claim the whole thing was a prank. This results in the cops leaving the club, really annoyed about this waste of their time, and once they're gone, Keith finally learns the truth of what's going on and what he's up against.

Keith is cornered by A.J., who's become a vampire himself, but is seriously fighting the urge to feed on his blood. He goes as far as to give Keith the opportunity to stake him, but Keith can't bring himself to kill his best friend. Instead, A.J. stakes himself, then gives Keith the keys to the Cadillac and tells him to run for it. He tries to escape, along with both Amaretto and Duncan, but the other vampires in the club, as well as Katrina's undead servants, Vic and Vlad, stop them. However, Keith manages to outsmart

Vic and start a small fire that enables him and the others to escape the club. Unfortunately for them, other vampires in the neighborhood pursue them in a car chase, one that leads to the Cadillac being destroyed and Duncan, who turns out to be a vampire as well, dying in the process. From there, it's just Keith and Amaretto, who have to contend with more and more vampires, and then have a final confrontation with Katrina down in the sewers. Fortunately, Keith proves to have quite the archery skills, which come in handy for slaying some blood-suckers.

Robert Rusler, who most probably remember from Weird Science but I always think of him as Grady in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, manages to score the more memorable of the two leads in A.J. At the beginning of the movie, when his and Keith's initiation into the Dipsa Phi goes awry, A.J. stops everything and stands up to the pretentious head of the fraternity, telling him how they find this whole spiel boring and stupid, saying, "We were under the impression that was the house on campus. But if you're the kind of organization who'll take in any dickhead who'll jump off a stool with a noose around his neck... Guys, obviously, you don't see the advantages of your position." He goes on to tell them that he and Keith are only interested in joining because their current dormitory sucks, and suggests they arrange entertainment for the party they're throwing that night. They're then tasked with getting a stripper, and while Keith isn't too keen on it, A.J. is confident he can pull it off. But when he's shot down by every woman he knows, he suggests they go to the nearest city to find a professional. Once they've gotten Duncan's Cadillac, A.J. drives them to the city, and along the way, decides that they should go for the After Dark Club. However, he has to swerve to avoid hitting a truck, causing them to end up in a very shady part of town. While they're killing time in the cafe, he proves to be far more street smart than Keith, warning him not to flirt with Maven. He's also tougher than you might think, as he manages to easily subdue the gang, going as far as to grab the one guy, Snow, by the balls and tell him to drop his knife, "Or you'll be pickin' these up off the floor." In the end, he leaves Snow dead out on the floor, before they head on to the After Dark Club. There, A.J. gets to enjoy the show, while Keith is stuck with Duncan, and after Katrina performs, he decides he's going to get her to perform at the party. He goes back to her dressing room to meet her and try to convince her to do it. Instead, she seduces and pins him to her waterbed (which is filled with blood), before shifting into vampire mode and biting into his neck.

Though Keith later finds A.J.'s body in a dumpster, after Keith has called the police, he suddenly shows up, seemingly alive and well, and tells Keith it was just a joke. But, of course, we know what's really going on, as after the police leave, Keith finds that A.J. is in no mood to leave the club, saying, "They treat ya real good here." As Keith goes to leave regardless, the stripper who's giving A.J. a shoulder massage turns out to be a vampire and attacks. A.J. tries to stop her but gets knocked aside, while Keith 

unintentionally kills her by stabbing her in the chest with a high-heel shoe. That's when A.J. tells him that everyone at the club is a vampire and he can't go back home. He's then hit with severe hunger pangs, as his newly born vampire side comes out, and he continues to keep Keith from leaving. He tells him, "You wanna know how bad things are? I love you, Keith. But all I can see right now is food. And I'm starving! You're carrying my next meal around with you in your 

veins! They got me. They got me real good." Keith offers to let him take what blood he needs to hold him over, but A.J. says he can't be trusted not to suck him dry. He also complains about his ruined clothes, as well as his lack of a reflection (even though the "mirror" he's looking in at that moment has no glass). Finally, he corners and prepares to feed on Keith, telling him, "You think I like this? Or them? They're boring creeps! They don't call 'em walking dead for nothin'! Try talkin' to one of them sometime." (An American Werewolf in London, anyone?) But, unable

to deal with the idea of killing his best friend, no matter how hungry he is, A.J. instead gives Keith a stake to use on him. Keith, however, is unable to go through with it and A.J., realizing that he's willing to die for him, takes the initiative and stakes himself (though, he still has to really fight his vampire instincts to do so). Before he "expires," he throws him the car keys and says, "Now, get lost fast!"

Gedde Watanabe also has a memorable role as Duncan Spriggs, the rich kid whose Cadillac Keith and A.J. use to get to the city. As wealthy as he is, Duncan is a desperately lonely guy, with no real friends, despite his willingness to pay people for it. When Keith and A.J. first meet him, he's playing golf in a fancy study, surrounded by a group of people who initially seem to be employees. It turns out that he's paid them to do various things for him, with one guy acting like an announcer, commenting on his "talent" for golf, while another finishes writing an essay for him. Once they're off the clock, they immediately leave, despite Duncan begging them to stay, saying he ordered pizza. So desperate is he for companionship that he allows Keith and A.J. to take his Cadillac, but only if they take him with them and if they promise to pretend to be his friends, even if it's just for a week. With that, they take him along, and if it wasn't clear already, you see during the trip why Duncan has no friends: he's both a complete dork and a schmuck. When first introduced, he intimates that he parked somewhere he wasn't supposed to, as he thinks Keith and A.J. are coming to complain about some damage he inadvertently caused. Then, he initially intends to charge them for the use of his Cadillac, before he opts to have them pretend to be his friends, and along the way, annoys them with his constant jabbering from the backseat. And after they've managed to contend with Snow and his gang at the cafe, Duncan has to act all tough and brag about how easily "they" beat them up, before A.J. tells him that, apparently, that was only half of the gang. But it's when they get to the After Dark Club that Duncan really acts obnoxious. Before they go in, he sings, "I'm in the mood for love/Simply because they're naked," then says, "Guys, I'm on a roll tonight, and when that happens, I attract women like flies," before spraying into his mouth (and mostly missing it). Worried he might mess things up, A.J. has Keith keep Duncan outside while he goes in to get the stripper, only for Duncan to declare in no uncertain terms that he's going to see the show.

Though Duncan is able to get him and Keith into the club thanks to a plethora of ID cards and a lot of money (which makes you wonder how A.J. got in), as well as a table right next to the stage, Keith still has to be the one to sit with him, while he continues acting like a sleazy schmuck. When Amaretto first comes up to them as their waitress, Duncan says, "I would like a slow, comfortable screw," but Keith promptly elbows him and he instead says, "A beer." After she walks away, he says to Keith, regarding his not

remembering where he met Amaretto, "You don't remember that? I'm gonna remember that for the rest of my life." And when she comes back with their drinks, he offers her some money, asking, "You have any friends that wanna remember me?" She just takes the money, to which he says, "Nah, I didn't think so." As the movie goes on, Duncan is completely oblivious to everything that's happening, as he continues ogling both the dancers and the waitresses, as well as gets drunker and sleazier. He asks one 

waitress, "What time do you get off?", and when she tells him, he responds, "Can I watch?" When everyone at the club turns out to be a vampire, he does escape with Keith and Amaretto, but during the ensuing car chase, it's revealed that Duncan was bitten at some point and is now one himself. He tries to attack Keith and Amaretto in the front seat, causing them to crash the car, and is destroyed completely when the car explodes before he can get out. Beforehand, there seems to be a little bit of humanity still left in him, as he desperately yells for the others before he gets blown up.

Amaretto (Dedee Pfeiffer), whose real name is eventually revealed to be Allison, tends to really annoy Keith with her bubbly and ditzy personality, as well as her continued insistence that they've met before but she won't say where or when. After she first meets him and Duncan, she repeatedly vies for Keith's attention, which only confuses and annoys him more. Later, when A.J. disappears after going backstage to meet with Katrina, Amaretto suggests he may have gone back to a hotel with another stripper. She then offers to take Keith over there, saying she has to stop over at the hotel, "For a change of tops," but it's more likely that she just wants to get Keith alone. It's also suggested that she may be in on Katrina and the others' plot to wipe out any witnesses. All the while, she annoys Keith by going on about why she works as a stripper and how she hasn't found her purpose in life yet, and when she meets back up with him again they get separated in the hotel, she, very stupidly, asks him why he's so "testy." That leads him to unload on her about the day he's had, and when he then asks, "Where else would a girl like Candy take A.J.?", Amaretto accuses him of being judgemental towards her and her life decisions, before stomping off in a huff. However, when many of the people at the club are revealed to be vampires later on, she's actually not part of it, and escapes along with Keith and Duncan. 

After Duncan is killed, Amaretto sticks by Keith, though she still proves to be a complete dingbat at points. Most egregiously, when Keith is trying to lift a manhole cover for them to escape down into the sewers, she decides at that moment to finally reveal how they know each other: they took part in a game of spin the bottle while they were in fifth grade. Seeing some vampires running towards them as she talks, Keith tells her, "You have incredible timing," and they duck down into the sewers. There, they

come upon the spot where the vampires rest in their coffins during the day, and when Keith needs one of the matches she has on her so he can set them ablaze, she stops and gushes over how he used her real name of Allison. He has to more sternly ask for the matches before she gives him one. And during the climax, she's captured and held hostage by Katrina, but Keith manages to rescue her with his archery skills, before using sunlight to destroy Katrina. However, throughout the third act, Keith is repeatedly suspicious as to whether or not Amaretto is a vampire

herself, and she actually keeps giving him reason to be, due to some weird things she does, like when she licks his bleeding hand and seems to enjoy the taste of blood a little too much. It's only when they both climb out into the sunlight at the end that she's proven to be human. (And yet, this is still a confusing plot-point, as I'll elaborate on later.)

The street gang are so bizarre that I initially took them to be vampires, as they show up at the cafe after the sun has gone down and the owner, who's eager to close up as quickly as possible, is scared to death of them. It also doesn't help that Billy Drago's character of Snow is so weird-looking, with his pale white skin and equally white hair. And when Maven (Paunita Nichols) smiles at Keith, I thought I was seeing a pair of fangs, until I realized it was just a set of really nasty, deformed teeth. Regardless, as threatening as

they may seem when they first enter the cafe, forcing the owner to open back up and planning to cut up Keith for insulting Maven, not to mention how Snow speaks in a typical low, growly voice that's meant to sound menacing, A.J. manages to make short work of them. When Snow throws coffee on him and stains his shirt, which he's very protective of, A.J., in quick succession, subdues Maven by throwing coffee in her face, knocks the third gang member out with a chair, and grabs Snow by the balls to force him to drop his knife, while Keith is able to put his foot on Maven's 

hand to keep her from her grabbing her own dropped knife. But, despite how easily they get their butts kicked, it's suggested that Keith and A.J. were only successful because the whole gang wasn't there. And, sure enough, Keith later runs into all of them on his way back to the club following what happens at the hotel. It seems like the gang may be something of a family affair, as the other guys who show up are also albinos, including a really big guy (Bob Schott) who, according to the credits, is the actual leader. Leading the charge, he manages to trap Keith down in the sewer, and the rest of the gang attempt to corner him down there. However, the leader is the first one to fall prey to the vampires in the neighborhood, as he gets attacked by this little girl who's hanging around by herself. The rest of the gang get it during the climax, when they come upon a big group of vampires who'd just cornered Keith and Amaretto. The gang's appearance actually unintentionally allows the couple to escape, as the bloodsuckers then focus on them. Even though they can clearly see how inhuman they are, right down to their fangs, Snow stupidly asks, "What gang is this?" And that's when the little girl vampire jumps right at his neck.

I have never, in my life, thought that Grace Jones was attractive. Maybe that's a hot take, I don't know, but she's so odd-looking, especially in her face, that, any time they've tried to play off her "sex appeal," like in A View To A Kill, where she gets into bed with James Bond while she's completely naked, it's always turned me off. That's definitely the case here, where she plays Katrina, the unusual stripper who also owns the After Dark Club and, of course, is the queen vampire. A.J. learns the latter the hard way when, after seeing her performance (I'll get to that in a second), he goes to her dressing room to get her to perform at the fraternity's house party. She emerges from the darkness behind him and just looks at him, without saying a word, as he both flirts with and tries to talk her into coming with them to the party. She seems just as interested in him as he is her, and goes as far as to pin him onto her waterbed, straddle him, strip down to the bizarre outfit she wore during her dance, and begin sensually caressing and even licking him. But then, when he least expects it, she goes into vampire mode and bites into his neck. Shortly afterward, it's revealed that Vic, the older man who runs the club, and Vlad, a large guy who acts as a bouncer, are both Katrina's undead servants. And while she never speaks, it's obvious that she rules over them with something of an iron fist. She doesn't have much patience for any insubordination, which usually comes from Vic, who often suggests they move their operation to Las Vegas and also wants to be made into a vampire himself. This gets him snarled at in one scene and he promptly shuts up. Katrina also doesn't take kindly to any major screw-ups. When the Asian woman who brought A.J. to her breaks the news that she made a mistake, that A.J. wasn't a transient or a passerby, as their victims often are, but had a couple of friends out in the club, she pays dearly for it. At first, it seems as though Katrina isn't going to punish her, but then rips her heart out when she lowers her defenses. She also resurrects A.J. as a vampire to both foil Keith's calling the police and have him take care of Keith himself, although the latter doesn't pan out. And at the end of the movie, after the club and many of the vampires she holds sway over have been wiped out, Katrina faces Keith and Amaretto herself, down in the sewers.

Jones' performance as Katrina is just odd. She has no dialogue whatsoever, which was either her own idea, meant as a tribute to the original Nosferatu, or Richard Wenk removed existing dialogue due to difficulties with Jones. Either way, the only sounds she makes are her cackling laugh, and some monstrous snarls and growls. Her movements, body language, and facial expressions are also bizarre, like in the scene where she seduces and then bites A.J, making these short, heavy exhales of breath and

these animalistic growls, while baring her ultra white teeth. And that's to say nothing of the almost cat-like manner in which she crouches down over him, licking and nipping at his bare chest. Then, there's just the way she looks, with her odd hairstyle, the strange costumes she wears, like her stripper outfit, which consists of these spiral-shaped, aluminum coverings for her breasts and crotch, and a similar corset that she removes before she starts seducing A.J., and her naturally unusual, androgynous appearance, which is often enhanced by the surreal, colorful lighting that

permeates the movie. (Speaking of which, I can't tell if her eyes are really that vividly blue, or if it's contact lenses or a result of the lighting.) Some of her outfits are Egyptian-themed, and it's suggested she may hail from Ancient Egypt, as Vlad is seen looking at an old drawing of her wearing a traditional headpiece from that period. She's most definitely the source of the vampires in both the club and the surrounding neighborhood, and they've become a local menace to the point where all the normal people still living there close their businesses and hunker down for the night once the sun goes down.

Katrina's introductory scene is her performance at the club, which has to be seen to be believed. First, she's wearing this makeup that gives her a vivid, white face and bright red lips, along with equally bright red hair, eyes that look almost purple, and this thin, red dress, with black, arm-length gloves that are made to look like the limbs of a big cat, complete with claws. During her dance, she eventually removes the dress, revealing those aluminum coverings for her naughty bits, along with white body-paint that creates a pattern

of tribal-like shapes across her figure and which, combined with her natural black skin, gives her something of a zebra-like look (it makes me think of the body paint worn by that little guy whom Ace Ventura had to fight in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls). It's similar to the pattern on that weird, human-shaped chair she performs on, which I've read was made from a mold of Dolph Lundgren, whom she was dating at the time. And then, there's her actual performance, which, again, words can't do justice to, as it's made up of a bunch of weird movements and

gyrations, as well as extreme facial expressions. When combined with the way she looks and the bizarre song that plays during it (sung by Grace Jones herself), it makes for a surreal spectacle. What it is not, at least to me, is sexy, and I'm baffled by the applause she gets afterward, as well as A.J.'s decision to get her for the frat party. Why?! That wasn't arousing, it was freaky!

I doubt that those who do find Jones attractive would argue that it goes out the window whenever she becomes a full-on vampire (which only happens twice). Her teeth not only turn into fangs but also become misshapen and nasty, she develops both claws and some equally gross-looking, long toenails, and her face becomes truly monstrous and hideous. It looks even worse during the climax in the sewers, where she's lost her hair, is wearing some big earrings, and is lit by that green and pink light, all while she growls and cackles in a nasty, throaty manner.

According to Donald Borchers, he and Richard Wenk had hoped that Jerry Lewis would play the role of Vic. If Borchers is to believed, Lewis, amazingly, was interested, but the studio wasn't enthusiastic about his casting. Instead, the role went to Sandy Baron, who does a good job in his own right. Vic is basically Katrina's Renfield, right down to how, at one point, he's seen snacking on cockroaches. While not a vampire himself, he's still undead, and his function, when he's not running the club, is to do Katrina's dirty work. This mostly entails cleaning up the mess after she's done feeding on her victims, as well as tying up loose ends, such as dealing with A.J.'s friends. He also tends to annoy Katrina with his desire to be turned into a full vampire, as well as his suggesting they move their operation to Las Vegas, due to all of the expendable tourists there. When she kills the woman who messed up by bringing her A.J., and holds her still beating heart in her hand, Vic, knowing she could easily do the same to him, nervously says, "Well, I... guess Vegas is out." But, when he pleases her, she allows him to drink some of her blood, likely the source of his immortality. Most significantly, Vic is all about enforcing the number one rule, that all of their victims are to be people with no friends or connections, and so, he's furious at the one girl who made the mistake with A.J. 

When Keith, along with Amaretto and Duncan, are cornered in the club, Vic makes his feelings about their operation clear when Keith insists they'll be missed: "Do you know how many people disappear off the face of the Earth every year? Not thousands. Tens of thousands. You're a statistic, kid... Who'd you tell that you were comin' here? Nobody tells anybody when they come to a joint like this! Quite a racket, huh? See, I run an essential service here: waste disposal. Oh yeah. Look around, look who comes

here. The sickies, the degenerates, the forlorn, the lost, the lowlifes, the fuckin' dregs of humanity wind up here and we take care of 'em. It costs you nothing." Keith then says that it cost him his best friend and Vic says, "Hey, nobody's perfect. Okay?! I do the best I can with what I got! Your self-pity makes me sick, you know that? Listen, kid. I used to own this club. You know who worked here? Louis Prima, Buddy Greco, Phil Harris. Class." And on top of that, he tells Keith that there are more vampires outside the club, and seems to not just mean those in the neighborhood.

Regardless, Keith does manage to outsmart Vic. When he asks Keith if he's ever been to Vegas, Keith, in turn, asks if he and his friends can have one last round, saying that's what they do in Vegas. That impresses Vic enough to where he allows it, and Keith, along with Amaretto's help, take the opportunity to pour the booze everywhere. Keith then creates a Molotov when no one's looking, and sets the place on fire so he, Amaretto, and Ducan can escape. Meanwhile, Vic, knowing he's beaten, has one last drink himself, which he says will also be his first in 75 years. And, as expected, he spends his last moments lamenting that he never got to see Vegas and toasts, "To the good old days."

While he does as she says, Vic has no real respect for Katrina, calling her the "queen bitch" at one point. The same, however, can't be said for Vlad (Brad Logan), the heavyset guy who acts as a bouncer and also takes out the "garbage." It seems like he and Katrina used to be an item, given the scene where he looks at the drawing of her in her Egyptian garb, and how Vic tells him, "All you are to her is a quick fix." Vlad angrily snarls at Vic for that, making him back down. It never goes into where or how Vlad first encountered Katrina, but given a look we get at his bare back, which has a bunch of scars and pieces of shrapnel embedded in it, we can surmise that their relationship was very kinky, to say the least. Though he seems to go up in flames with Vic, following Katrina's death, Vlad appears in the sewers. Furious at them for killing Katrina, he takes Amaretto hostage and declares that he'll kill them both out of revenge (the only bit of dialogue he has in the whole movie). But then, Keith and Amaretto are rescued by a very unexpected savior.

Not only is just about everybody who works at the club a vampire, but the same goes for many of the people in this shady part of the city, right down to a bus driver, a guy who drives a wrecker, and another who drives a dump truck. One notable vampire is the desk clerk at the hotel Amaretto takes Keith to. He's played by Hy Pyke, who was also in Hack-o-Lantern around that same time, and while it's a very small role, he's just as weird and flamboyant as he was as the cult leader grandfather in that movie. He's 

ordered by Vic to get rid of Keith while he's there, and he's quite frustrated when his plan goes up in smoke. He's also among the vampires who surround Keith and Amaretto during the climax, only to then turn their attention to the street gang instead. Another memorable vampire is this little girl (Robin Kaufman) who's first seen playing by herself on the steps of ta building. However, she proves to be anything but helpless, as she kills the street gang's leader while they're looking for Keith, and later leaps right at Snow's neck when he and the rest of the gang are faced with the vampires.

At the beginning, Vamp has a pretty average look to it (though, the cold, bluish, overcast look to the opening, as well as some of the camera angles and use of shadows there, nicely help with the misdirection they pull on you), but that changes once the story moves to the seedy part of the city where the After Dark Club is located. When it does, nearly every scene is bathed in this mixture of bright green and pink lighting, very similar to what you would see in a Mario Bava or Dario Argento movie. It's not just the scenes set inside the club itself, but also those on the 

city streets and even down in the sewer tunnels, which doesn't make any logical sense but, like with those aforementioned Italian films, it's so visually striking that you're not likely to care. In addition, there's good use of shadows and low lighting, with the club's interiors having a dim, murky quality to them, which works well with the colors and makes it feel all the more sleazy and tacky. The same goes for the city streets; in fact, there are some shots out there that make the movie look like an unusually colorful film noir. As for Richard Wenk's actual direction, it's

nothing amazing, but does its job well. Like I said, he nicely subverts your expectations about the opening, making it seem like it's taking place centuries in the past, and possibly somewhere in Europe, with opening shots of a big, tolling bell, a Dutch angle on a very old, stone building, a wide establishing shot of a large room with candles on a table and old-fashioned windows, and a group of people dressed in medieval cloaks who force two guys who seem to be stripped to the waist up to the 

top of the building. The really dark cinematography in some shots and the music score also contribute to this feeling, and it's only after Keith and A.J. are unmasked and about to be hanged, only for things to go wrong, that the whole thing is revealed to be a modern day fraternity initiation. That sequence is probably the most noteworthy example of Wenk's direction, but there are others, like how he shoots the city streets, does a number of wide establishing shots for some of the major sets, and, again, skillfully uses 

the lighting, such as when Katrina appears behind A.J. in her dressing room. There are some moments where he gets a bit obvious with the latter, though. For instance, after they've managed to evade a trap during the car chase in the third act, and the lighting on Duncan in the backseat suddenly gets really dark, you know he's about to be revealed as a vampire. But, at the same time, when the lighting suddenly gets dark on Amaretto near the end, you're expecting her to turn out to be a vampire, but it never happens.

Again, both the exteriors and interiors of the very old stone building seen in the opening, particularly the the room at the top, where Keith and A.J. are to be "hanged," can fool you into thinking you're watching a scene that's set centuries ago, possibly in another country, and you'd likely never guess it's actually part of a modern day college campus (specifically the University of Southern California). Following the opening, the other settings during the initial part of the first act are pretty standard, although we do see why Keith and A.J. want to get out of their current

dormitory. Their room is fairly small and cluttered, with little space between their beds, and there are a bunch of people acting like morons in the hall right outside their door. We also see Duncan's room, which is like a large, fancy study, with cabinets filled with books, a white leather sofa, a refrigerator and a countertop in the corner behind the sofa, workstations for the people who are doing his homework for him, with computers and printers, and a spot where he practices his golf game. There's some lovely California scenery during the drive to the city, and the

latter is bustling when they first arrive. But when they then wind up in the bad part of town, everything becomes more rundown and shady-looking, with few people out on the streets after dark (human people, anyway). There's also a really claustrophobic feeling about this setting, as it feels like we never leave this one section of town, and Keith is chased from one end of it to another. Besides the After Dark Club, we do have some other notable places, like the small cafe where the guys first run into the gang, and the drab

hotel that Amaretto takes Keith to. The latter is the far more interesting one, as the lobby has a distinctive, black-and-white tiling pattern to the floor, an old, wooden elevator that's clearly seen better days, and nasty-looking hallways, with a very ugly brown and white color pattern to the walls.

As A.J. himself notes, the After Dark Club hardly looks like Caesar's Palace on the outside, and on the immediate inside, it's about what you would expect: a sleazy dive, with numerous spots of tacky-colored lighting (a lot of it apparently provided by lava lamps), a lit up stage where the strippers do their thing, similarly lit-up tables that the customers sit, a spot with a pool table, and a bar area. Speaking of the latter, there's a trapdoor behind it that leads down into the cellar, where they store all the booze. This is 

where Keith, Amaretto, and Duncan escape to when Keith sets the club on fire, and they then use a freight elevator in the back to reach the outside. The restroom, which you see twice, first when Keith goes in there and sees the scars and shrapnel in Vlad's back, and second when he encounters the now vampiric A.J., is especially nasty-looking. Vic's office, which you see a couple of times, is a small room that often has shadows cast by the window blinds, and a number of old pictures on the wall, including one of Boris Karloff, and another of Curly 

Howard from the Three Stooges (it's a very dapper photo of him, but I've seen it in documentaries, so I know it's him)! The backstage area, where the dressing rooms are located, looks more like what you'd expect to see in the back of an old theater, as there are some strange masks and wooden figures sitting around back there. There's one particular dressing room, lit with green lighting, that has these "mirrors" with purple neon lights on their rims, but since the dancers are vampires, there's no glass in

them; instead, two strippers apply makeup and lipstick to each other, reaching through where the glass would be. And out back is the area where A.J. and the one girl's bodies are placed in a dumpster after they've been killed.  

As expected, the most striking room in the club, is Katrina's dressing room, which is in an upstairs area backstage. Very dim overall, and with all sorts of different colored patches of lighting, with some red and purple mixed in with the pink and green, it's adorned with a green-lit fish tank that has a skull at the bottom of it, an open closet area to its left where her costumes are hung up, a spot that seems to have a picture of Katrina on the wall behind a dresser or nightstand, as well as a bust of her wearing an 

Egyptian headpiece on the wall to the right and drawings of her in such a getup on the opposite wall, and, in the back of the room, an area, separated from the rest by some drapes, that houses her waterbed, which is filled with blood, and a very interesting bit of wall decoration behind it. And like I said before, even the sewer tunnels beneath the streets, where a fair amount of action takes place, including the final confrontation, are lit with that green and pink color, as well as a bit of red. The sewers also happen to lead

to the spot where the vampires sleep in their coffins during the day: a tomb that looks like a medieval dungeon, as it also houses the rotting remains and skeletons of some of their victims, as well as oil drums, ropes, wooden crates, and an Egyptian sarcophagus, which is no doubt where Katrina rests.

While other 80's vampire movies like Fright Night and The Lost Boys do have humor about them and never get too dark, Vamp is meant to be a full-on horror-comedy. As such, it's not the funniest one you're ever likely to see, but it does have its moments. A lot of the really successful humor comes from the great chemistry between Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler, as they manage to come off like a pair of guys who've been friends for a long time and know each other really well. During the opening, when A.J. is 

telling off the fraternity for their ridiculous initiation, Keith effortlessly punctuates everything he says, either by repeating one word or saying something more specific, or even by yawning when A.J. says they find this whole thing to be really boring. What's really great is how, when A.J. first suggests that they help the fraternity with their party and he brings up the issue of entertainment, Keith says, "Booze is easy," and he's especially irritated when A.J. says they can provide them with "anything." This is a mistake he actually has to keep him from making again when 

they talk with Duncan about borrowing one of his cars. Once A.J. has, offscreen, promised them a stripper, Keith, as they walk back to their dorm, makes it clear he has no faith in his ability to come through with it: "After all these years, you don't trust me?" "The truth?" "No. Lie to me." "Yeah, I trust you." Then, when they're in the dorm room, as A.J. makes some calls, Keith practices his archery by shooting an arrow from one side of the room to the other, slicing an apple in half in the process, and A.J. nonchalantly leans back, out of the way, as if Keith 

has done this many times before. After that, you have them singing a duet while on their way to the city, A.J. warning Keith not to flirt with Maven in the cafe, and the two of them playing for who has to chaperone Duncan while the other is getting the stripper. And, as dopey as it is, I do smirk at the exchange they have about the club's hours while they're waiting in the cafe: "The ad says the club won't open until after dark. What the hell that means." "Well, it's dark." "Yeah, but, is it after dark?" "No, but I definitely 

think it's dark." "But it might've just turned dark." "Well, how you supposed to know the exact moment it's dark? I mean, if we knew that, we'd wait a few seconds and it'd be after dark, right?" "So when's that?" "I don't know." "But you know what I'm saying. After dark could mean morning. Am I making sense?" "Nope."

Humor also comes from the characters themselves, such as in how Keith is an effective straight-man to the weird stuff he sees and experiences, like when he sees Vlad's maimed back, ends up eating one of Vic's cockroaches by mistake, has to deal with both Duncan and Amaretto, comes close to getting crushed to death when he gets stuck in an elevator door, gets chased around by the gang, and has to accept that most of the people at the club, including A.J. himself, are vampires. Similarly, you have Duncan being a 

complete and utter dork, as well as a bigger sleazebag the drunker he gets (and yet, Gedde Watanabe is able to keep from becoming insufferable); Amaretto being such an airhead, even when she and Keith are in serious danger; and Vic being a grumpy old guy who's sick of having to serve Katrina, but has to if he doesn't want to wind up truly dead. And there's some cartoonish and over-the-top humor here and there, like how the cafe's OPEN/CLOSED sign lists its hours as "6 AM to Dark PM," the way the guy who 

runs it is apparently a priest as well, how utterly nasty Maven's teeth are, the various jobs that the vampires in the neighborhood hold, and the sight of Amaretto brandishing a rocket launcher when she and Keith break into a store in order to arm themselves, as well as a moment beforehand, where Keith tries to smash the store's security bars, only for Amaretto to find they were already open.

The reveal that the opening sequence isn't what it seems is not only well done in its execution, but is also probably the movie's funniest moment. Just as Keith and A.J. are about to be hanged, with Keith looking at the body of a previous victim to his right, the fraternity leader's profound voice and declaration turn out to be from a cassette tape which he's lip-syncing to (it's Christopher Plummer's voice, by the way), which messes up and get destroyed by the player. The guy then tries to continue the speech using his own voice, but A.J. and Keith have had 

enough at that point. A.J. yells, "Cut!", adds that he'd rather actually hang then have to listen to this again, and hops down, before proceeding to heavily criticize how lame this is. And as he and Keith put their clothes back on, A.J. complains about his shirt being wrinkled and demands to know who's responsible. None of the guys are willing to own up to it, and he and Keith then eye the "corpse" that was already hanging, which turns out to be someone made up to look dead, as he says, in a very wheezy voice, "It

wasn't me." (Thus, you can safely assume that the hanging scar around the leader's neck is also just makeup... at least, I hope it is.) After that, A.J. continues railing against them, which leads into him promising to provide them with some entertainment for their party.

Above all else, there's no denying that Vamp is a very uniquely quirky flick. A plot about vampire strippers is already an out there concept, especially for the time (I'm sure there are plenty of obscure, no budget ones nowadays; heck, I've even seen two of them, thanks to my late friend, Jeff Burr), but Richard Wenk manages to make it all the more offbeat and unusual thanks to the characters, the setting, the constantly colorful cinematography, and touches like the mostly albino street gang, who are not only unaffiliated with but are completely ignorant of the vampires in the

neighborhood; said gang turning about to be not as tough as they may seem during the confrontation in the cafe; the notion that there are vampires lurking around the town, holding various jobs; the odd and sometimes goofy way some of the vampires look; the implied kinkiness between Katrina and Vlad; and Vic's relationship with her and his function at the club. It's still not an overlooked classic by any means, but it does, if nothing else, have its own strange identity.

Getting to its depiction of vampires, it dispenses with the shape-shifting and hypnotic abilities, but keeps just about everything else: immense strength, no reflections in mirrors, needing to sleep in coffins during the day, and their being vulnerable to sunlight and getting staked through the heart (like Jerry Dandrige, Katrina seems to be immune to the latter due to her powerful standing), as well as being burned. While you never see it onscreen, you can also assume that they're repelled by holy objects, given how the cafe owner loads up with crosses while he's 

closing up. And while Vic and Vlad don't seem to be vampires themselves, they're also vulnerable to at least some of those same deterrents, as Vic burns up and Vlad is also killed when he's impaled through the chest. As far as becoming a vampire goes, not only does this happen as a result of being bitten, but you can also be killed and then brought back to life as one if Katrina wishes it, given how A.J.'s body is initially thrown into a dumpster, before he's resurrected to screw up Keith's plan to call the cops. Going by what 

both A.J. and Duncan say, the process of becoming one seems to involve a painful, gnawing hunger that they desperately need to satisfy, leading them to attack even their friends. Finally, while most of the vampires seem to be under Katrina's sway, A.J. is able to resist both her, as well as his hunger, in order to keep from killing Keith.

There are, however, a couple of things pertaining to the vampires that are either confusing or just plain dumb. One is how, after Keith first suspects Amaretto might be a vampire, the camera pans up to a mirror as the two of them leave the store, and it seems as though she has no reflection. The way the music sounds even suggests that she really is one, and so, I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and for her to turn on Keith. But then, at the end of the movie, after Katrina and Vlad have been dealt with, Keith and 

Amaretto climb up to the street, into broad daylight, and nothing happens to the latter. And this is after another hint that she may be one, as she licked Keith's bleeding hand. So, either she's a daywalker, was cured of her vampirism when Katrina was destroyed, or it's a plothole. Actually, the second option doesn't seem valid, since Vlad is still undead when he shows up after Katrina has been killed, and also because of who kills him: A.J., who's still a vampire, but seems to now have a handle on his hunger. Oh, and if you're 

wondering how he's still kicking, despite having clearly staked himself, the only explanation we get is that the stake was made of Formica. I guess real wood is needed for a staking to work, which may also explain why Katrina wasn't killed when she got impaled through the chest with a pipe (and yet, Keith killed one of the strippers by stabbing a shoe's high heel through her chest), but still, that was an idiotic attempt at a joke.

The vampire makeups vary in how intricate they get. Some, like Katrina and the stripper named Cimmaron, are very monstrous-looking, and the same also goes for A.J., who noticeably deteriorates when he first reappears after Keith finds him dead, becoming paler and more sickly-looking. Eventually, he goes into full vampire mode, with a mouth filled with fangs and sharp teeth, hideous facial features, and yellow, inhuman eyes, which many of the vampires tend to sport. Duncan's vampire form is also quite exaggerated, but because he was such a comedic

character, he just looks goofy. But, probably because they didn't have the budget to do elaborate makeups on every single vampire, a lot of them just look pale, disheveled, and have fangs, as well as maybe slightly pointy ears (the one played by Hy Pyke suddenly has cuts on his face when he shows back up during the third act, which I don't remember him receiving). Greg Cannom, however, is able to come up with some other great work, like the fake hanging scar around the fraternity leader's neck in the opening, the shot of 

Vlad's mangled back in the restroom, and the albino makeups for the gang members (if you know anything about Billy Drago, you know his hair was quite dark, so they had to put him through a major bleaching), as well as Maven's nasty teeth.

Like the other major vampire movies of the 80's, Vamp is not a gorefest by any means. There are definitely some bloody moments, like when Katrina bites into A.J.'s neck (Grace Jones' fake fangs apparently went through the latex and into Robert Rusler's actual neck!), and you get a good look at the wound later when Keith finds his body in the dumpster; when she rips the woman's heart out and holds it in her hand as it continues beating; a moment down in the sewers where Keith comes across this weird guy who takes a bit out of a rat; when Katrina 

cuts her wrist open with a razor blade and lets Vic feed on her blood; and the various stakings and impalements, which include Katrina getting an arrow through the mouth and out the back of her neck in the sewer, but it's never really extreme (not that it needs to be). Even Katrina's death, where she's exposed to sunlight, isn't too gruesome, with her head becoming all burned like charcoal, with pieces of skin flying off, revealing an ashen skull underneath. Her body is then reduced to a charred husk of a skeleton, which then 

flips Keith and Amaretto off, before she finally bites the dust. Her death scene is also one of two instances where there's any real visual effects work, used to depict some green energy that lifts out of her head while she's in her death throes, which then seems to explode and blow the flesh off her face. The other is at the very end, when a rainbow appears on the horizon as Keith and Amaretto head off together. There are also many instances of firework, vehicle

stunts, and explosions that are quite impressive for the low budget, although the moment where the little girl vampire jumps at Snow's neck, as brief as it is, looks like really bad wire-fu in a chop-socky movie.

For much of its first half, the movie goes at a pretty leisurely pace, with a few notable moments like the brief fight at the cafe and A.J. falling prey to Katrina. Then, after Keith nearly dies in the hotel elevator and gets left behind afterward by Amaretto, he runs into the street gang again when he tries to cut through an alleyway. Faced with more than the initial three at the cafe, including the gang's big, burly leader, he runs for it. He's chased, both on foot and by the gang's car, driven by Snow, into a construction area, and quickly

hides while they search it. It turns out that he ducked down into a manhole and is holding onto the ladder, just a few feet below the opening. But when he thinks they've gone and goes to crawl out, the leader appears right above the opening. He pulls the ladder up, stranding Keith down in the sewers, and slides the lid over the hole. Hearing the others yelling taunts at him, he starts wandering the tunnels, looking for a way out. One of the gang members reaches down through some grating at him, and he then finds

another section of grating looking out onto the street. Spying the little girl, whom he and Amaretto saw earlier, he tries to get her attention by going, "Psst!", when the leader walks into view and menacingly approaches her. But when he touches her shoulder, asking, "Where's your mama, little girl?", she suddenly latches onto his arm, biting into it, while he flails around, trying to fling her off. In his struggle, he moves out of Keith's line of sight, only to then fall down right in front of the grating, dead. Keith promptly runs down another tunnel, only to run into 

a strange man who's holding a rat. Keith turns to go the other way, when the guy says, "Hey! I found my friend!" He then laughs, prompting Keith to run faster, while the guy takes a bite out of the rat (which is still alive, I might add).

Keith breaks his way through a weak brick wall, and finds another ladder leading up to a manhole. He climbs up through it and gets back onto the street. Unfortunately, the gang spots him and the chase begins again. He runs down another alleyway, only to find a locked gate at the end of it. With no other choice, he climbs into a nearby dumpster and, to his good fortune, the gang bypasses the alley. He peeks over the top of the dumpster and sees their car pull into the head of the alley, but when he ducks back

down, it pulls out and heads on down the street. Just as he's about to climb out, he uncovers A.J.'s body, with the massive bite wound in his neck. Horrified at this, he jumps out of the dumpster, also uncovering the body of the woman who was killed as punishment for her mistake. A dump truck comes down the alleyway towards him and he tries to get the driver to stop, but then has to outrun the truck when it comes right at him, pointing its hooklift bars at him. He's briefly cornered up against the gate but then rolls out of the way, causing the truck to knock the gate open. 

He rushes back to the street, as Vlad shows up to dispose of some more trash. He sees Keith, but doesn't give chase. Keith runs until he finds a pair of payphones and, when he finds one that works, calls the police.

After Keith has been confronted by A.J. when he's reappeared as a vampire, and he's seemingly staked himself, Keith tries to escape with Amaretto and Duncan. However, this is momentarily foiled when Vic intervenes, along with some of the other strippers, who reveal themselves as vampires to Amaretto and Duncan. Keith tries to warn some of the human customers about what's going on but, naturally, they don't believe him. During Vic's speech to Keith at the bar, where he talks about how nobody will miss him

and his friends, and about his "service" to the community, Keith notices the trapdoor behind the bar that leads down to the basement. He then asks Vic to buy him and his friends "a last round," and Vic agrees when he says it's what they do in Las Vegas. Keith orders three brandies and also asks the woman tending the bar to leave the bottle there. When she does, he takes two of the filled glasses and the bottle and carries them over to where Amaretto is, coyly dumping some of the brandy along the way. He gives 

Amaretto the glasses and tells her to dump the brandy everywhere she can, while he walks back to the bar, pouring some out of the bottle as he goes. When he sits down, he offers a toast to Vegas and "accidentally" gets some brandy on Vic's clothes. He laughs it off and goes to clean himself, while Keith grabs a napkin, stuffs it into the third filled glass, and lights it with a cigarette lighter. He then slides it across the bar and it slams into another bottle of booze on the opposite end, starting a fire that spreads quickly. This traps two vampires in a corner, while 

the human pedestrians quickly flee outside. Keith makes another Molotov cocktail out of the bottle and throws it near the pool table (as well as pretty close to Amaretto and Duncan), creating another fire. His friends quickly join him at the bar, as he uses the lighter to fend off Vic, while Amaretto goes behind the bar and starts taking money out of the register because, "The bitch owes me money." As the fire spreads throughout the building, the three of them jump through down the trapdoor, into the basement, and rush to the freight elevator in the back, using it to get back onto the street.

They pile into the Cadillac and Keith struggles to start it, when a wrecker suddenly comes at them and slams into the car's left side. Somehow, Keith is uninjured by this, and he drives the car down the sidewalk, while the wrecker drives parallel to him on the street. Then, it pulls ahead and turns onto the sidewalk itself, aiming right at them. Keith throws the car in reverse, only for the dump truck to appear down the sidewalk behind them. It lowers its hooklift bars, aiming them squarely at the car, and prepares to come at them.

That's when Keith notices a pedestrian getting into his car that's parked next to the sidewalk, and anxiously waits for him to pull out and give them an opening to escape. Both the wrecker and the dump truck come at them from either direction, while the pedestrian has trouble getting his car out of the tight squeeze between two other parked cars (the guy proves to be a dick, as he bumps the front and rear of the cars with absolutely no regard for other people's property). Both of the trucks are almost on top of the Cadillac,

when the other car manages to get out of that tight spot. Once it does, Keith guns it for the opening, causing the wrecker and dump truck to crash into each other, the impact sending the latter's driver flying through the windshield. As they drive down the street and round a corner, it seems as though Keith, Amaretto, and Duncan are home free, when Duncan starts complaining about being hungry. Keith says they'll order some pizza when they get back to the university, only to look in the rear-view mirror and find that he can't see Duncan's reflection. He's 

revealed to be a vampire himself and reaches up into the front seat, grabbing at Amaretto. Keith swerves the car to throw him off-balance, but he furiously claws at him from the back. Keith then drives through an opening that has those spikes meant to keep people from going in the one way, and his tires virtually explode on contact. They crash into another car parked at the other end of the lot, and the engine explodes. Keith and Amaretto quickly climb out and run for it, while Duncan, who's trapped in the backseat, bangs on the window and yells for them in 

a possible last glimmer of humanity. But then, the car explodes into a massive fireball, putting him out of his misery. And when they look back, they see his burning corpse leaning out of the window, before he finally gives out.

Keith and Amaretto run to a nearby store and, after managing to get inside, Keith finds a gun and asks Amaretto to search for bullets. Looking around, he then finds a bow behind a rack of guitars (what kind of store sells weapons and musical instruments?), and grabs an arrow for it. Amaretto pops up with a rocket launcher, but when Keith asks if she has any ammo for it and she realizes she doesn't, she puts it away. She then finds that Keith is pointing the arrow at her, suspecting that she may be a vampire as well. She 

opens her mouth, showing that she has no fangs, but he's not convinced and demands to know who she is. Still being a total ditz, she starts babbling about how this isn't the scenario she had in mind for telling him, when he fires an arrow. She ducks, but it turns out he was aiming at one of the vampire truck drivers, who was coming through the door behind her. He gets him through the chest, killing him instantly, and the two of them head back out into the street. Spotting a public bus approaching, they think they're saved, but when 

it stops in front of them and the driver opens the door, exclaiming, "Last stop!", he turns out to be a vampire as well. Keith can be heard yelling, "I don't believe this!", while Amaretto says, "This sucks!", and they both run back down the street. They don't get far, though, as they find themselves surrounded on all sides by various vampires who close in on them, baring their fangs and hissing. But the kids get some unexpected help when the street gang's car comes peeling in, knocking two of the vampires to the ground, and giving Keith and Amaretto the 

distraction they need to escape. Meanwhile, the gang, not realizing the danger they're in, step out of the car and find themselves faced with the vampires. Snow then asks what gang this is, and gets his answer when the little girl leaps at his neck. Elsewhere, Keith stops Amaretto when they come upon a manhole, but as he's attempting to remove the cover, Amaretto steps onto it and tells him, "Keith... it's time." But just when you're expecting her to vamp out on him, she decides to tell him who she is and how they know each other, much to his irritation, especially when he sees the vampires coming for them. He then opens the cover and the two of them hop down into the sewers.

They make their way through the tunnels, when they hear the sound of footsteps, coming from various directions and getting closer. They duck into an alcove on the wall to their right and Keith finds that there's a door behind them. Heading through it, they walk into an old room made out of stone. Amaretto's flashlight begins to fail, and she's about to strike a match, but Keith tells her not to, as he smells something potentially flammable. Her flashlight comes back on and illuminates a corpse nearby, and

as she pans it around, they find that they're in the tomb housing the vampires' coffins, as well as Katrina's sarcophagus. They turn to leave, when they hear the door open and duck down behind some metal barrels and other junk to their right. They watch as the vampires come through the door and walk down into the tomb, getting into their coffins since it's close to dawn. Once they're all inside, Keith and Amaretto attempt to sneak out, but the latter is startled by something sitting a wooden box in front her. She screams and knocks it over, along with the fuel drum

it was sitting on, soaking the floor in gasoline. The vampires begin reemerging from their coffins, as Keith and Amaretto run up the stairs. Along the way, Keith pushes over two more fuel drums, then has Amaretto give him one of her matches. He strikes it and tosses it to the floor, igniting the fuel. Two vampires attempting to follow them up the stairs are instantly set ablaze and, within seconds, the entire tomb is engulfed, with some vampires futilely trying to escape their coffins. Katrina's sarcophagus is also destroyed along with everything else.

In the chaos, Keith and Amaretto get separated. He then finds her purse lying on the floor in one tunnel, then hears her scream his name. He runs towards the source of the sound, climbing through the weak brick wall he smashed earlier, and into another tunnel, where he finds her being restrained by Katrina. He aims his bow and arrow, but Katrina threatens to bite into Amaretto's neck. Amaretto implores Keith to take the shot, but they're at a bit of a stalemate, with Keith pulling back on the bow until his fingers begin to 

bleed. But then, seeing a small beam of sunlight coming through a hole in the ceiling, he gets an idea. Despite Katrina's threat, he aims and fires, getting her right in the mouth and through the back of her neck, pinning her against the wall behind her. Freed from Katrina's grasp, Amaretto then grabs a piece of pipe and stabs it through the vampire's chest for good measure. She runs back to Keith and tells him they should escape, as Katrina manages to yank the arrow out of her mouth. Laughing evilly, she approaches 

them, removing the pipe from her chest as well. As she closes in, Keith glances up at the spot where the sunlight is coming through, waiting for Katrina to reach it. When she's right in front of him, he hits the ceiling with his bow, knocking a brick loose and letting in a full beam of the light. Katrina recoils from this back into the darkness, but Keith uses his bow to knock open another section of the roof behind her. Now that she's thoroughly trapped, Keith delivers the coup de grace and opens up the bit of ceiling right above her. Fully exposed to the sunlight, she grabs at

her face and screeches in agony, before she begins to disintegrate. She collapses to the floor, where the sunlight reduces her to a charred corpse and then a skeleton. It seems as though she still isn't completely dead when her right arm lifts up, but all it does flip them the bird in a final act of defiance before it crumples, with Katrina's skull detaching from the body, ensuring that she's now dead.

Keith and Amaretto walk back down the tunnel, when Amaretto notices that Keith's hand is bleeding. He assures her that it's nothing, but she takes it and licks up the blood, which she seems to enjoy a little too much. They then find a ladder leading up to a manhole cover and Keith moves it slightly ajar, letting a bit of light in. He has Amaretto climb up alongside him and exposes her to the sunlight to see what happens. All it does is blind her for a bit, proving that she's really not a vampire. Keith climbs 

up onto the street and Amaretto is about to follow, when she's suddenly yanked back down. Keith goes after her and finds that she's now being restrained by a very angry Vlad. Furious that they've killed Katrina, he intends to kill them both, when he's suddenly speared from behind. Amaretto runs back to Keith, as Vlad falls over, revealing their savior to be none other than A.J., who says, "Well, don't everybody thank me all at once!" After he reveals that he staked himself with Formica and that it apparently doesn't work on vampires, Keith and Amaretto climb back up to the

surface, leaving him down there. While Keith and Amaretto kiss for real on the street, A.J. goes on about how he'll deal with being a vampire by going to night school and working the graveyard shift at whatever job he can find. The couple walks off, with A.J. apparently following them through the tunnels below.

The music was the work of Jonathan Elias, who'd previously done trailer music for notable movies like Alien, Blade Runner, Gandhi, and Back to the Future, but had only recently begun scoring actual movie scores. At this point, he'd done the music for the original Children of the Corn, and had also begun working with not only Grace Jones on her own music career but also Duran Duran. In any case, his score for Vamp is interesting in that, when the movie starts up, the music enhances the feeling that this is taking place centuries in the past, with a very classic, bombastic Gothic sound, not unlike the word of Hammer composer James Bernard, and also incorporating the sound of some voices chanting in Latin. But after it's revealed to be a ruse and that we are actually in the 1980's, the score has a more electronic sound from then on out. It's not the catchiest score overall, but it does have some memorable parts, particularly the piece that plays sort of in the background during the scene where A.J. is seduced and then fed upon by Katrina, as well as the music you hear throughout the third act and the action sequences. The soundtrack is a bit more memorable, featuring an English version of the Italian song Volare, which plays on the cafe's jukebox as A.J. fights Snow and over the first part of the ending credits, and the bizarre title song that's sung by Grace Jones, which you hear both during Katrina's performance at the club and the latter part of the credits. There's also a bunch of rather trashy songs you hear playing in the club, as well as That Old Black Magic by Louis Prima, which you hear when Vic decides to have one last drink as the club burns down around him.

Vamp may not be an 80's vampire classic like some of its peers, nor is it among the best horror comedies of all time, but it has more than its fair share of reasons to check it out. It has some memorable characters, played by a good cast, and with two leads who have great chemistry; some well done direction; a very striking visual style, as well as some nicely done settings and locations; plenty of good vampire makeups and effects by Greg Cannom; some impressive stunt-work and fire effects; a third act that is virtually nonstop; a fair enough music score and soundtrack; and a central premise that you can't help but smile at, as well as a quirky tone all its own. That said, it's never a laugh riot, with some attempts at humor that fall flat, as well as some moments that don't make sense, and if you're like me and don't find Grace Jones to be the least bit attractive, that part of the story is not going to play for you at all. But, still, there are far worse ways to spend 94 minutes.