Vampirella (1996) Review

Vampirella was a comic book created in 1969 by nerd overlord Forrest J. Ackerman and the title character was designed by feminist artist Trina Robbins. Vampirella was an alien/vampire/femme fatale and became incredibly popular, turning into an icon of horror comics and monstrous females. To this day, Vampirella lives in the form of comics and in pop culture but there was a film adaptation made in 1996 that left people baffled.

Directed by Corman alumnus Jim Wynorski (The Lost Empire, The Wasp Woman, Murderbot, Hard to Die, Dinosaur Island), the film was widely given bad reviews and never managed to achieve any kind of notoriety, most people even forgetting it's existence, or simply labeling it as a disposable piece of camp and a generic pick for a bad movie night. For the creators it was just a chance to make a movie based on a known IP, destined to be dumped into Showtime's Roger Corman presents series. 

Is it fun and cheesy or just badly made? Let's see.

Planet Drakulon is being attacked by vampiric rebels, they are led by the fiendish Vlad, who manages to escape to earth and plans on emptying humanity's blood. Vampirella, previously known as Ella, goes to earth looking to defeat Vlad and his minions. These are elements roughly taken from the comics in a very modified fashion.

Unsurprisingly, while not a major classic, the film manages to be entertaining and digestible enough, especially when compared to a lot of bad movies of its kind. One can see that the people involved were at least aware of what they were making and always intended for it to be as campy and exaggerated (or meager) as it could possibly be.

One thing that it has going for it is how much fanservice it has for the movie nerds out there, it's super referential. Wynorski uses the film more as a way to pay tribute to classic and not so classic horror/sci-fi flicks of the campy and cheap variety, using all of the techniques and implementing the gaffs one might expect from the model. Vampirella even meets and saves her creator, Forrest J. Ackerman, when she first arrives on earth. Another highlight is when director John Landis makes a cameo and drops some titles in one brief scene. It's all just about having fun with the tropes and creating a playful and self-aware game that pays homage to the type of B-movies that originally inspired the Vampirella comic to begin with. It's charming in that way but not everyone can be in on the joke. 

It´s a bit of a deviation from the known Vampirella storyline, more so than one would expect, a lot of the set up entails space politics and long, drawn out dialogue scenes that resemble the typical DTV outing more than the epic fantasy horror film it promises. In that regard, is kind of a let down for a lot of the first act, only really serving the goodies once it gets going about 10 or 20 minutes into the picture. Even then, Vampirella (the best part of the picture) isn't as prominent as she should be, mostly being buried beneath waves of dry dialogue sequences with generic bad guys and such.

I also think that Vampirella's outfit wasn't very well done here. It definitely looks as cheap as it should, but it's so crude and shoddy that it simply comes off as feeble instead of gloriously extravagant, which is what I was expecting.

Wynorski wasn't very happy about Talisa Soto being the titular blood-sucking heroine but he had to use her for contractual reasons. I can see why he wasn't crazy about her, she does sort of look a bit like Vampirella but she doesn't have the screen presence a woman like her should have, she looks more like a normal girl in a cosplay than anything else. Still, she isn't terrible in the picture, but her performance (while not awful) just wasn't up to the task.

At the end of the film we are promised a second film titled Dark Avenger of Death but there were no sequels as Wynorski lost the rights to the character a long time ago. However, in 2021 Dynamite Entertainment announced another picture and maybe a TV series but we still haven't seen any footage, trailer, images or even official material from these projects. While Vampirella is all but forgotten, I still think a more proper and bigger movie should be made about her.

Underworld (2003) Review

Underworld was a project conceived by actor/writer/director Kevin Grevioux, his pitch was basically “Romeo and Juliet but with vampires and werewolves” and he decided to give a spin to the formula by making lycanthropy and vampirism viruses instead of supernatural curses, a product of his formation in microbiology.

Screen Gems and Lakeshore Entertainment ended up producing the film but not without some issues. You see, back in the nineties there was a popular tabletop franchise called World of Darkness and two of their games, Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, had a lot of similarities with Underworld which led the company behind the games, White Wolf, Inc., and writer Nancy A. Collins to file a lawsuit against Sony Pictures. It eventually ended in a confidential settlement. 

At any rate, Underworld was released in 2003 and starred Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, and Bill Nighy. The film received bad reviews but it did good numbers at the box office and became a subject of interest among audiences because the concept of mixing vampires and werewolves in a romantic fashion with an action female lead was too exciting and striking to ignore. Remember, this was way before Twilight, the idea was new for mainstream audiences.

Vampires and werewolves (here called Lycans) have been fighting since ancient times. The Lycans are no longer as active since the vampires have managed to best them, but a group of werewolf assassins known as the "Death Dealers" are still hunting them down, particularly one of the Dealers, Selene (Kate Beckinsale). She falls in love with a medical student named Michael (Scott Speedman), but things get complicated after he is turned into a Lycan. Now she finds herself struggling between her feelings for the human and her loyalty to her clan. 

The film is flawed to its core, there's no doubt that it's too reliant on exposition, it's derivative, it deviates from it's main storyline into irrelevant segways, the characters are dull, the word building is clunky and the film isn't tightly written nor carefully directed enough for any of that to not matter. Its premise had potential but it gets bogged down and loses itself in a sea of overwritten scenes that just clutter the film with exposition and weightless (but cool) action. Lacking any heavy narrative thread that can carry it, the film can't hold the viewers' investment for long. 

The biggest and most solid aspects of the movie are the somewhat engaging action sequences and the gothic look certainly works wonders. There's a lot of generally amusing Matrix-inspired slow motion choreographies and battle sequences shown here, but none of it can be called memorable, it's all disposable and fleeting at best. The director didn't do a bad job and it might have been a solid effort for the time but it's hardly a great spectacle. Len Wiseman's filmmaking results have been on a downward spiral ever since his first movie, creating uninspired and cliche messes like Die Hard 4 and the Total Recall remake, dreadful stuff. While this is his best picture it certainly wasn't anything special.

Nowadays, the film could be remembered as a curiosity of the time, when black leather pants and the whole gothic look were in vogue but it feels incredibly dated and old fashioned, not to mention lacking substance of any kind. It's a lot of overused tropes rolled into one production, a film that never attempts to elevate its material or even to inject it with refreshing or valuable ideas, it's a rethread of old stories and styles but not much else. Completely one dimensional and with a singular and overplayed note, it's not hard to see why it wasn't well liked. 

Although I have been a bit negative, I will say that there are some rather neat aspects introduced here. The material had a lot of potential as certain elements are redeemable such as Kate Beckinsale's performance and look, the film's moody aesthetic (great production design is key here) and the concept of a war between werewolves and vampires was something rather new in blockbusters. Ultimately, I think these were the reasons people showed up to the movie theater and supported further entries in the franchise. It's also very telling that those are the only things people seem to remember out of it.

Other than that, it's not a film I would recommend to most viewers. It's stale and not highly entertaining aside from some sections. I think most people will be put off by its dullness and the lack of characterization of its protagonists. Only for the hardcore 2000's movie fans and for those nostalgic for the goth fad.

Species (1995) Review

This film started life as a project titled The Message in 1987 and was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's comments about an alien arriving to earth through a spacecraft being unlikely, so screenwriter Dennis Feldman decided the extraterrestrial would arrive through information. The concept was changed and spiced up with a female alien-human hybrid who turns more animal-like and after several rewrites we got the 1995 horror thriller directed by Roger Donaldson we know today. 

Species starred Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker, Marg Helgenberger, and Natasha Henstridge as the sexy alien lady. It’s often considered to be top tier 90's trashy horror, featuring some intriguing concepts handled in a rather vulgar way. What could have been a serious alien contact film turned into a strange freakshow blend of sensual chills and action. It's hard to contradict the critics when the concept is about a female alien looking for men to breed with. Having said that, I do believe it's a rather interesting story that not only delivers the sex and violence it promises but also packages it in a nice and round sci-fi adventure.

This is the basic gist: Aliens contact earth and send out instructions for a communication device as well as instructions on how to mix human DNA with alien DNA. The government then decides to create a program with the objective of constructing a human-alien hybrid. The result is Sil, a girl with superhuman abilities. Sil develops at a faster rate than normal humans, going from a baby to a 12-year-old-looking girl in record time. She turns violent and escapes the lab she was created in. Outside, she speedily grows into an adult woman, played by Natasha Henstridge (Ghosts of Mars, She Spies), and looks for a partner to procreate with.

Charming, thrilling, action-packed, deranged and visually appealing, Species is one of the most memorable creature features of its decade. Featuring a captivating performance by Natasha Henstridge as the main lead, the film becomes a wild and unpredictable ride that isn't afraid to turn the tables on you. It's a well told story of  mankind's careless experimentation and ignorance.  

There's lot's of adrenaline fueled action, with impressive practical effects that could have only been done in the 90's before CGI completely took over. There are some rather dated computer effects but nothing too distracting. I think the film still stands to this day in the special effects department.   

H. R. Giger's psychosexual and biomechanical designs are present here as he worked on the film as a concept artist, particularly on Sil's design. I also noticed a lot of elements seen in Alien (1979) that were incorporated into this film's she-creature. Giger also served as a consultant, which explains why the film, while not amazing, manages to have small touches of brilliance. 

I love a fish out of water story, so the first two acts with Sil entering our world were actually very fun to me. You also feel quite bad for the creature, she never wanted to do harm, she mostly acted on instinct and wanted to belong to the world but you do understand why her nature is dangerous to mankind. At first you believe Sil is going to get the E.T treatment and become the heroine, but as the movie progresses she increasingly becomes more vicious and monstrous. It's surprising because they really make you feel for her and suddenly she loses whatever humanity she had left. 

Sil's arc reminds me of not only a typical alien invader movie, but it’s also very similar to Frankenstein, being created in a lab, looking for a mate and being unleashed into a world that doesn't like her and doesn't understand her only to be hunted down. The monster was originally going to die by fire like Frankenstein in its 1931 movie but it was changed to a bullet in the head. Damn. Sil is a solid new interpretation of the Frankenstein story.

It’s also funny seeing how usually supernatural women who hold a sort of power and are aggressive (usually sexually) are portrayed as villainous and “horrible monsters” as the image of the ghastly beastly female can be seen in movies like She Beast (1966), The She-Creature (1956) or in The Wasp Woman (1959) and its 1995 remake, the same year as Species. This movie follows in that formula but I think it adds more compassion for the creature than in previously seen works. So it is a bit progressive, maybe. As always, it’s a small step forward but at least it’s something.

There's a great moment where Ben Kingsley explains that they made the experimental subject female because then it would be more docile and controllable but Michael Madsen’s character replies “More docile and controllable, eh? You guys don't get out much.” It could be just lampshading but the idea that real life and common sense often deny pseudo-scientific notions about sex stereotypes is a very accurate and transgressive critique. 

A perfectly sleazy exploitation film for the season. Relentlessly entertaining and fascinating with its exploration of sexual power and animalistic desires. Species amuses you with its straight-for-the-jugular approach to its rather crude premise.

Natasha would return to the series as Eve (Sil’s offspring) in Species II (1998) and Species III (2004) but the series would then end with Species: The Awakening in 2007. All of them cheaper and dumber but with some fun stuff, however, far removed from the big budget caliber of this first outing.