|
|
|
|
 |
|||
|
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
| ||||||||||||
|
|
Modern Vampires by Sean Axmaker Directed
by Richard Elfman Starring
Casper Van Dien, Written
by Matthew Bright Director
Richard Elfman’s reputation, such as it is, comes largely from the cult film Forbidden
Zone, which he made decades ago, and the luck of being Danny Elfman’s
brother. I confess that I have yet to catch up with his claim to cinema fame,
and if his latest effort, Modern Vampires,
is any indication, perhaps I’m better off leaving his canon to my imagination. Written
by Matthew Bright, the writer/director of the intelligent post-modern twist on
Little Red Riding Hood, Freeway, and
screenwriter of the Drew Barrymore cable hit, Guncrazy, the story of Modern
Vampires is a promising bit of genre-bending. LA is an underground of
vampire activity dominated, in fact almost exclusively populated, by old world
Euro-types. Americans are tolerated at best and Dallas (Casper Van Dien) is the
quintessential young blood, a James Dean in the land of kinky Bela-Lugosi types:
rugged, daring, a bloodsucking rebel without a pedigree who blows into town on a
mission in a fast car and a fun-loving, fanged smile on his face. Nico (Natasha
Gregson Wagner) is another American and an even more insidious threat to the
well-organized undead empire, a feral girl living in the slums who has earned
the nickname the “Hollywood Slasher” for her risky killings and lone-wolf
lifestyle. The real power of the vampire, of course, is that no one really
believes in them. No one, that is, except Van Helsing. Played by Rod Steiger
chewing his way through an outrageous sauerkraut accent and a holier-than-thou,
mission-from- God attitude. He’s shadowed Dallas to LA to settle a personal
score and has hit the jackpot with the cream of the Euro-vamp royalty thriving
in LA, led by the controlling Count Dracula (Robert Pastorelli). (Aside: with
silky Udo Kier in the cast why make Pastorelli the Count?) Bright’s
busy screenplay tosses dozens of characters into the fray of criss-crossing
conflicts. Dallas is out to save Nico
from Dracula, who carefully regulates emigration to the undead world; he
doesn’t want his court in exile overtaken by Americans. The bad blood between
them simmers to a boil when Dallas and his friends (including a hilarious Kim
Cattral going for broke with a Zsa-Zsa-Gabor flourish) adopt Nico and try to
civilize her. Meanwhile Van Helsing puts out an ad for an assistant and earns
himself a well-meaning gang-banger fresh out of prison (“You’re telling me
you don’t believe in vampires, yet you’re willing to drive a stake through
someone’s heart?” “I really need this job”). Soon Van Helsing is
puttering around LA in a VW van full of dope-smoking, malt-drinking Crip
buddies, blasting their rap as Van Helsing screams for peace and quiet,
hysterical scenes directed with all the grace of a drunk water buffalo. The
script is promising if a little rough but Elfman’s clumsy handling only points
up the deficiencies without celebrating the virtues. Apart from Van Helsing and
all street thug gang, the only humans in the story are screaming victims:
deserving patsies or faceless cattle. When a snarky salesgirl keeps up a barrage
of insults aimed at the fashion disaster Nico, her cultured guardians smile with
bemused resignation and set her loose: “Go ahead, rip her throat out.” Kinky
basement vampire watering-holes are stocked with naked chained humans taunted,
tortured, and noshed on with sadistic delight. Elfman has no love for the Count
and his preening emigrant acolytes, but he has even less use for the humans and
seems to enjoy the brutality perpetrated on them: a sick twist on supernatural
Darwinism. Even Van Helsing is a tarnished hero, accused of being a WWII
concentration camp experimenter (“I only experimented on vampires!”) whose
crusade of undead decimation is less a holy crusade than a mission of revenge
and racial intolerance -- all interesting elements that Elfman plays as broad
slapstick rather than insidious irony. If
he were a more talented technical director it might be forgivable, but Elfman
falls down in the simplest of action exercises. When Nico chows down on the
salesgirl’s throat she first has to dance her off-camera, and their fumbling
looks more like a stunt rehearsal, looking for their marks while trying to keep
their balance. Every cut from a real life action to a special effect is jarring,
drawing attention to the fakery like a sleight-of-hand magician with the
jitters. While hammy vets like Steiger turn their goofy parodies into overbaked
caricatures, the youngsters like Van Dein, Wagner, and Natasha Lyonne (as a
teenage raver) are cast adrift looking for motivation and settling on attitude.
Elfman seems to like what Bright is reaching for but can only hammer his ideas
with sledgehammer skits. There may be no life in these characters, but that’s
not reason to deny them a personality. Ultimately the US-vs.-them conflict
degenerates into a campy bloodfest, with a snarling, invigorated gang of
freshly-turned young Americans taking out the jaded and complacent European
lords in a flailing free-for-all of jumbled tumult and screeching violence There’s
a wealth of ancient hostilities woven through Bright’s script, and in the
hands of an ambitious (or even merely competent) director Modern Vampires could have turned into a captivating, clever take on
the age-old genre. It’s certainly a more interesting premise than such recent
attempts at genre transfusions from Innocent
Blood to Razor Blade Smile (aka
“La Fang Nikita”), but Elfman’s execution is worse than clumsy, it’s
incompetent. Working on a low budget isn’t such a handicap that you have to
flaunt your deficiencies or your distractions. Don't have a DVD player? Didn't find what you are looking for? Look in the back issues of the store or in the extensive catalog of Amazon.COM by entering your search in the text box below: Contents | Features | Reviews
| News | Archives | Store
|
|
|
