Verdict
Summary
From first time director Kevin Lindenmuth who put everything he had into this ultra low budget horror comedy, Vampires and Other Stereotypes has some really inspired moments that made me laugh out loud and pay attention, and while it’s generally a very low grade but earnest effort, the product overall might be too off the grid for a mainstream audience.
Plot:
A couple’s third date to a back alley rave party turns into a trip to hell.
Review:
Kirsten and Erik are on their third date when he takes her and a couple of her friends to what he assures them will be a great party, but when they follow the directions to a back alley in the middle of nowhere, the girls get nervous and want to leave. Erik insists, and they enter the warehouse, but as soon as they get in, the place goes in lockdown, and they find two other guys, plus an older man strapped to a chair … and some bodies hanging from the ceiling. Turns out the man strapped to the chair is Kirsten’s dad (very weird coincidence), and the two guys are some kind of demon hunters, and oh by the way: the warehouse is a gateway to hell. With a gaping pit in the center of the room and a handful of doors leading to various areas in hell (one has mounted, chatty heads of demons on the wall, another has demon arms), this place definitely seems like the real deal, and with everyone trapped in the warehouse, Kirsten’s date might very well be a demon in disguise sent to lure her and some others to Satan’s dominion. When the group splits up and go different ways, and with one of the girls infected by demon blood, there’s a limited amount of time before an even more malevolent force (vampires!) show up, so Kirsten and her friends have to figure out how to survive the netherworld before the night is over.
From first time director Kevin Lindenmuth who put everything he had into this ultra low budget horror comedy, Vampires and Other Stereotypes has some really inspired moments that made me laugh out loud and pay attention, and while it’s generally a very low grade but earnest effort, the product overall might be too off the grid for a mainstream audience. It used some of the same crew as Rolfe Kanefsky’s much more polished There’s Nothing Out There, and it really does go for broke sometimes with its makeup effects, gore gags, and oddball humor, and yet Lindenmuth’s script is sometimes very loose and confusing and makes no sense. The acting by a bunch of hungry non-actors is uneven, but endearing to a point, and the film’s no-rules approach to filmmaking is fun to a degree. I appreciated the movie for its grungy appeal, and there’s definitely some stuff here for the most diehard low budget horror movie enthusiasts if you have the patience and fortitude to explore it.
Visual Vengeance’s deluxe Blu-ray edition of Vampires and Other Stereotypes is overloaded with bonus features, including three audio commentaries, tons of interviews (I watched all the interviews), early short films by the director, a fold out poster, a slipcover with artwork by The Dude Designs, and so much more.
