When Elizabeth is kidnapped by the jet black fu manchu-ed ghoul, your’re not sure if a professional WWE wrestler (Bryniarksi is 6’5”, 350 lbs.) has crashed the set Undertaker style and stormed off with the love interest — an altogether more interesting plot twist. The mannered soap opera histrionics lead to a showdown between Elizabeth’s fiancé and father against the pointy-toothed bloodsucker. Impregnating Elizabeth, the insomniac archfiend has "planted his seed" as a means to exact revenge against her father for a score unsettled.
If you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, filmmaker Feifer is proof that mere mortals can passionately suck too, even with a measly $4500 Panasonic HD camera as their preferred instrument for tormenting. Setting up and knocking down shots fast enough to make legendary first-taker Clint Eastwood’s head spin, the director's work might be a suitable companion piece to community college Filmmaking 101; making use of no budget, no story, no talent. His service of affordable real world set pieces (Ex. Victorian homes, a mausoleum, natural caves) around southern California are a testament to his resourcefulness, if not his auteurness.
The frugal Feifer trudges blissfully forward with the use of one-day shooting locations, whilst the wind is blowing 50 miles an hour. He turns the camera on, gets the shot, and then moves on. No delays. The production values are so poor that a two-shot scene outside looks sun-drenched and pristine from one angle and shade-draped and grainy from another. Seventies drive-in B movie purveyor and guru Roger Corman in his heyday would have demanded re-shoots.
Production budget notwithstanding, what gives almost any celluloid endeavor its legs (Star Wars, 1977, a notable exception) is the acting — which doesn’t necessitate large sums of money, though its availability for luring talent doesn’t hinder. With a cast of unknowns, the acting here is so wooden that were it to be carved into the shape of a cross it could be used to kill the hemoglobin-starved antagonist. Bloody stiff.
Article comments
1 - TED
Regarding Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest. So bad
that I believe that it will never even make it to
camp stage. The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes has been moved up 100 points with this film's introduction.