Revamped (2007) — Triskaidekafiles

REVAMPED

WRITERS: Screenplay by Jeff Rector and Tyger Torrez

DIRECTOR: Jeff Rector

STARRING: Jeff Rector as Richard Clark
Christa Campbell as Lexa
Martin Kove as Detective Reeger
Fred Williamson as Captain Michaels
Tane McClure as Lilith
Victor Lundin as Professor Van Dyke
Paul Michael Robinson as Detective Peters
Alana Curry as Mary
Sam J. Jones as Jake Hardcastle
Carel Struycken as Mr. Vincent
Billy Drago as Vladimus

QUICK CUT: After a messy breakup, Richard comes back to town and tries to reconnect with a town he no longer recognises.

THE MORGUE

Richard - A rich family man who is almost too nice for being so well off. He takes loyalty very serious, and takes it badly when people aren’t loyal. He’s a nice guy with a sense of humour, and will do the right thing when push comes to shove.

Lilith - The vampire who turns Richard. Typical femme fatale archetype.

Mary - Another vampire who is a half breed thanks to mutations, or something. She’s the girl next door to Lilith’s seductress.

Reeger - A cop who lost his family in the vampire uprising. He’s your average “break the rules” kind of cop, who will do what he needs to do, to get the bad guy.

Hardcastle - The leader of the Stake Force elite vampire task force. Has no time for vampires, and doesn’t see them as human.

Vladimus - The big bad, the evilest of evil vampires, at least in this movie. He wants to cover the world in eternal darkness.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week, we are sticking with deeply silly movies, but this week lands a bit more on the fun quality side of things, as a bit of a treat to myself after...whatever it was Destruction Kings was doing. Revamped is a vampire movie, duh, based on an earlier short film, about half of which is included into the first 15 minutes or so of this movie. So let's get into it.

The movie opens up in Los Angeles, as Richard Clark reminisces to his first short film...I mean, wedding anniversary. His wife isn't around, he's going through bills, and sees a bunch of charges at a fancy hotel. He calls up, finds out his wife has been showing up there with "him" and puts two and two together. Let's just say his name could just as easily be Richard Cuck.

Speaking of names, clever readers will realise this character is named “Dick Clark” and I have to imagine it took great restraint to not reach for anything with that low hanging fruit.

Richard takes this news rather well, and tries to kill himself. And fails. So he tries again. And fails. You know, most suicidal people quit after the first failure, but props for sticking to it I guess.

Did they CGI the shattered glass?? Or is it just the quality of the video?

Dejected, he goes to watch some tv, and tunes into *sigh* Channel 666. He watches a commercial for Kiss of Death, Inc., who is flat out selling on television, "Hey, wanna be a vampire??" And yet, at this point, people don't know they're real.

So, Richard decides, why not? He's got nothing else to lose at this point, and he has a PLAN. He's gonna get sucked off, they'll have a funeral since he's dead, his will when read will reveal his wife has been written out of it so she gets nothing, and THEN come back as a vampire for more revenge.

That's a bit convoluted, but sure, you do you, Ricky.

This sums up the movie's sense of humour, I think.

We get a few vampire fantasy deaths as Richard plots, and it's a bit much in a full movie like this, lots of shifting tones and styles (The classic Dracula homage is particularly well done, though), but I can see in a short film just wanting to have fun and throw out lot of ideas out there, and you only have so much time. This movie is throwing a lot at you.

The vampire Lilith shows up to do the draining, and he invites her in. It's love at first bite, and Richard wants to spend the rest of his unlife with her, after the revenge.

Unfortunately, since she was written out of the will, there's no money for Richard's burial. I don't think it quite works like that, but fine. Instead of all that, Richard gets cremated instead, and his urn stuck on a shelf in the funeral home.

Whoa, lookit the time, gotta go, gotta check in on the Goldmans…

That's where the short film ends, and it seems a pretty final fate for old Ricky. But fortunately, the star had more ideas, and extends the plot, by jumping ahead five years, more or less the same amount of time between the short and full feature.

In the intervening years, the funeral home has fallen on hard times, and has taken to selling corpses for sacrifices to the local Satanists. Sure. Why not?

Shockingly, the Satanists turn on the mortician and his assistant, killing them. In the scuffle, Richard's ashes get spilled all over the floor, and mixed with blood. You know what? I'll allow it, it's a necessary plot contrivance to undo the short's ending.

In a bid to level the power imbalance with Zack Morris, Mister Belding entered into a pact with Satan.

Richard's first stop is to find Kato and take him out of the plot. Speaking of the plot, Richard then heads to the home of his friend, Mister Exposition, who covers the events of the last five years.

In short, vampires are real, they overran the country, but the humans fought back, won, and most people believe there are no vampires left alive. But there are still a few stragglers around the edges of the night.

Richard still wants to find Lilith, and his friend suggests heading to a bar downtown and speak to a guy named Boris. And so we do just that.

While Ricky sits at the bar, Sleazy Reggie Bannister comes over, and lures him to a private party down in the basement. Which actually turns out to be a porno being filmed, which actually actually turns out to be a snuff film. And it all goes wrong when they realise Richard is a vampire and not another victim.

We live for the one, we die for the one, we live again for the one.

Oh great, a vampire fighting evil in Los Angeles. How believable. What next, he's gonna have a soul?

Richard fights for his life, leaving a pile of bodies, and is chased by the club's bouncer and some friends. Fortunately, a van pulls up and he jumps in the back.

The woman who saved Richard introduces herself as Mary, and they both agree they should get married and if they have a son, they should name him Peter.

Mary takes Richard to Hell House LLC...er, I mean, Hellman Correctional Facility, where a bunch of vampires are holed up, and working to make their lives better, if not find a cure. And really just to survive.

Back at the club, the cops show up, but immediately have their jurisdiction stomped all over by Hardscastle and his Stake Squad.

Hardcastle gets word his team is ready to hit the safehouse, but before that can happen, Richard is shown around the place and meets some characters for us to attempt to care about when the shit hits the fan.

As if we don't have *enough* factions in this movie, we jump over to the eviler vampires, and THEY are gonna strike the Stake Force at the same time they're hitting Hell House. Huh, best head out, that is gonna cause quite the traffic jam on the 405.

While the Stake Squad gets geared up, Slab Bulkmeat has a flashback to when his wife and child were attacked by vampires and turned, forcing him to take care of them himself.

And then suddenly, he has a flashback WITHIN THE FLASHBACK to happier times! Stoooppp!

That leads us into the raid slash massacre on the facility, and it's pretty much a chaotic fight of no names getting killed and/or turned. A decent enough action sequence to fill out the middle of the movie, though.

We have a vampire with a whip, a vampire clown, I think they tossed in two American Gladiators somewhere in there, and everyone is tossing off witty one liners.

This movie is so gleefully stupid, and it knows it, and I am enjoying the hell out of it.

Vampire AND clown, two nightmares for the price of one.

Richard gets Mary, her adopted kid, and the lead scientist out in all the commotion, then runs into the eviler vampires...and oh hey! Lilith is there! That was easy!

They take Richard back to their lair, arguing about whether or not to kill him. We meet the head eviler vampire, the evilest vampire, Vladimus. Lilith clues him in that Richard might be the prophesied vampire, with a soul.

...I WAS JOKING.

They make a big deal about how when you become a vampire, you lose your humanity, with Richard being an exception. But there's a lot of vampires that seem fine? Maybe it's because they're "half breeds", but doesn't that include Richard? It's all pretty vague... Or got lost in the details.

Meanwhile, the cops are trying to catch up to the plot by shaking down one of their frequent snitches, a vampire named Stank.

Stank? Stank’s dead! That’s stank over there!

Yes, I only mentioned Stank so I could make The Crow reference.

Back at vamp central, Lilith catches Ricky up on the evil plot of Vladimus to blot out the sun, and bring about Forever Knight...er, night, in a ceremony called Maltivore. Wait, wasn't that the big bad from Legacies??

Kinda wild how we got HERE from a silly little short movie about a guy becoming a vampire for revenge on his cheating wife, who messed up and got himself cremated before he could rise from the grave.

We're pretty much racing towards the climax at this point, so the movie crams in multiple scenes of vampire sexy times, just to get in some skin.

At last, I shall have my revenge on Brisco County Jr.

Lilith breaks out Richard so he can muster up...someone, to try and stop Maltivore from, being Maltivated, but not before they profess their love to each other, to be together always and forever.

Richard heads back to Hell House, runs into the cops, and find out Blood Meatsack is still alive too. However, Ricky makes a quick meal of him. Yeah, hard to convince me he's a "good one" with a "soul".

One of the other Hell House vampires finds Mary and Half Pint, and sends them right into the arms of the eviler vampires, since Mary is perfect for the plot...er, sacrifice.

So, everyone heads to Vamp HQ for the final fight and sacrifice. The cop's partner gets captured to be revealed as a virgin sacrifice switcheroo instead of Mary, because why not?

Detective Reeger and Richard show up to stop the sacrifice, as chosen ones and their pals tend to do. Reeger whips out his cross, and sends Richard peeling away in fear. Which is a GREAT hilarious moment, and might be my favourite gag of the movie.

Reeger manages to hold his own though, with his cross and holy water, and we get some pretty great, for the budget, explodey vampires.

Psychos do not explode when holy water hits them!!

After a bit more fighting and exploding vamps, Reeger finds Mary and Halfpint and surprise! Mary is his missing daughter, whom we only found out about five minutes ago! There sure are a lot of dead families in this movie’s backstory.

Finally, we get a fight between Richard and Vladimus, which is pretty short as he turns into a batman. Reeger shows up, shoots out a window, and the sunlight makes the bad guy go boom.

Lilith's sister, whom I have failed to mention up to this point, throws a stake at Richard to avenge her master's death. Unfortunately, Lilith takes the shot, protecting her sired lover.

She dies in Richard's arms, and he vows to hunt down the rest of the surviving vamps, to make the world a better place.

Remember Bat Boy from the Weekly World News? Well this is him today.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks okay, a bit what you’d expect for early 2000s straight to video low budget stuff.

Audio: Average.

Sound Bite: “I hate clowns”

Body Count: A very nice showing, and I once again surrender to the raid massacre, since it’s hard to tell who is dead dead and who is just injured and never shows up again.

1 - 10:30 minutes in, and Richard is drained by the vampire Lilith. Don't worry, he gets bette.r
2 - The mortician gets stabbed by a satanist
3 - And Jimmy gets shot by the other
4 - Kato gets eaten by Richard
5 - Poor guy gets killed for the vampire porno
6 - One of the bouncer twins gets shot.
7 - Sleazy Reggie Bannister gets shot
8 - Another guy gets sliced
9 - The director gets killed
10 - Vampire actress gets staked
11 and 12 - Hardcastle's wife and and daughter are bitten and turned and he kills them again
13 - A whoooole lotta deaths at the raid on Hell House
14 - Vampire bodyguard gets slit in the throat
15 - Lexa rips out Celeste's heart.
16 - Harcastle gets bitten by Richard.
17 - Reeger shoots a vampire goon
18 - And then another
19 - And then the blonde vamp gets holy watered and explods
20 - Another vamp gets blasted from a UV light gun
21 - And another gets the same off camera
22 - Vladimus gets killed by Reeger and sunlight
23 - Lilith gets staked by her sister accidentally

Best Corpse: No contest, that first exploding vampire was nicely done.

Blood Type - B-: There’s a lot of splats, and some solid effects. I’d like a bit more, but well done.

Sex Appeal: We get a couple sex scenes

Drink Up! every time you recognise a character actor.

Movie Review: I can’t quite say this is a GOOD movie. The pacing is messy, with a lot of plot, a ton of tonal shifts, and that’s in just the first ten minutes. I joke, but it does persist through the movie. But most of the acting is solid, the plot is all right, if a bit derivative, and it’s shot well enough. It does rely a bit on stuff just kinda happening, and throws a lot of stuff at the wall that doesn’t go anywhere, like the Satanists. And having multiple characters lose their families, until a daughter is revealed, was a bit lacking in clarity. Still, there’s some cleverness and wit here, and some attempts at craft, three out of five blood patches.

Entertainment Value: This is actually a very fun movie. Like I said, it’s gleefully stupid, in all the best ways. Because I didn’t want to explain every joke and setup and payoff, you don’t get much of a sense of it from my write up, however this movie has a wicked sense of humour, and a joke is never far away. It’s not the best, most clever comedy, but it does keep things going, and there are more than a few laughs to be had. Not a great movie, but it is quite fun if you’re in the mood for something just kinda silly to have fun with. Four out of five vampire clowns.