Date With a Vampire (2000) Visual Vengeance Blu-ray Review

Verdict

1.5

Summary

Visual Vengeance, a Wild Eye Releasing specialty label that champions low-fi indie films, has done an incredible job of presenting films that time forgot and making them feel new again, but their offerings are incredibly hit or miss. Sometimes we get a gem (Vampires and Other Stereotypes, for example), but then we get a dud like The Repligator or Suburban Sasquatch. Date With a Vampire is a total dud, unfortunately, but it’s got a ton of sex and nudity and not much else going for it. On the upside, Visual Vengeance offers a ton of bonus features, which includes another “feature” by Arsenault, which runs about 30 minutes. Have at it!

Plot:

A vampire brings her date home to feed on him, leading to a big surprise for both of them.

Review:

After meeting at a nightclub, Violet (Lori Thomas) brings Chuck (Robin Macklin) home. It’s obvious they have chemistry, but what Chuck doesn’t know about Violet is a lot. After all the small talk and sipping of their nightcaps, they make love. That’s when Violet reveals herself (to the audience, not to Chuck) to be a vampire with the appearance of her fangs when she’s about to orgasm, but she keeps her hunger in check … at least for a while. On round two, Violet bites and feeds off of Chuck, thinking that she’s “turned” him into a vampire like her, but she’s in for a big surprise: Chuck doesn’t seem affected by her disease at all, and in fact turns the tables on her when he shocks her into the big secret he’s been keeping from her. But there are more surprises in store for them when the creature Violet has been keeping prisoner in her basement manages to escape, crawling out of her dungeon to feed!

At only an hour long, the ultra low budget, lo-fi shot-on-early-digital-cameras Date With a Vampire is basically a prolonged softcore porn film with some halfhearted attempts to keep the whole thing “legit” with bad dialogue between two unlikable characters. The entire movie is set in a few rooms (mostly, the bedroom), and there are very long (torturously so) sex scenes that take up most of the running time. I’m not sure how this was deemed to be considered a “feature” film at only 60 minutes, which might be why it was relegated to near-obscurity for more than 25 years. After doing a search on its director Jeffrey Arsenault, his entire filmography seems to be comprised of only vampire themed movies of the zero budget variety, and this one was one of his earlier efforts, so there’s that. Maybe he got better at his craft? Who knows?