Jay's One A Week Reviews #25: Vamp Vixens (with a surprising twist at the end)

Read to the bottom, as that's where I "Buried the Lead," as it were...

Vamp Vixens 

 The kind and lovely people over at MVD Entertainment Group saw my review of their recent release I Am Virgin and most generously proceeded to send me a big ol' box of fab DVDs for my perusal and review. Typically, I took that opportunity to flake out for a month and am only now turning my weary, bleary little eyes back to their box of delights.

What can I say about the oddity Vamp Vixens? As it launched from a menu featuring a gal with plastic fangs and silicone implants and into credits that state it's "Hosted by Mistress Luna Moon" (her given name, I'm sure), I wondered what was in store.

What I didn't expect is a woman in a leather getup and Betty Page bangs lisping around her mouthful of fake vampire teeth introducing a series of vignettes... which turn out to be all the sex scenes that felt shoe-horned in to I Am Virgin. It's no wonder they felt so awkwardly injected into that film's storyline, as they're a kind of multi-purpose semi-porn. She has a "pet" man on a chain and aims for the witty aside, a la Elvira, but doesn't add much spark to the dire, simulated, and very unconvincing scenes of (ahem) "erotica."

Ok, seriously, it does take marketing balls to sell this as a separate item. Kinda smart to repackage these soft-core sex scenes featuring tattooed, kinda "Suicide Girls"-style strippers simulating sex with each other or a couple of nondescript hunks who don't have much more presence than the gals do. Even in terms of appealing to those with the fetish for vampire-play or the near-"Rollergirl" look, I find it hard to imagine Vamp Vixens delivering for them.

Slowly paced and, yes, almost depicting intimacy on occasion, on the whole the aesthetic is just off. Dime-store Halloween fangs added to shot on video soft-core do not make it somehow hotter. Also, even though they have discretely labeled this DVD as being "Rated X," this is definitely soft-core. If you're going to watch adult programming designed with fetishes in mind, and something this completely lacking in storyline, you may as well go "balls out," as it were, and watch the real hard-core thing.

Awful, awful, awful. Sorry, folks, there's just no point to this flick.

And now, the "surprising twist"...
In the end, I suppose you could play this in the background at parties and bars, but the only thing really recommending this DVD is the "special feature." Surprising and timely, the "Also from Brookland Brothers" link leads you first to the trailer for Palin: Erection 2008, a satire-porn featuring Stephen Hill, AKA Steve Driver, the porn actor who murdered a coworker and attacked two others with a prop samurai sword and then fell to his death off a cliff June 5th, 2010 after a 9-hour standoff with police that ended in a tasing that may or may not have contributed to his fall. A surprising coincidence to see the same day on a DVD in my home I'd received a month before. Ah, coincidence...

Jay's Reviews: I Am Virgin

 Sometimes, kiddos, I take one for the team and watch something so you don't have to. This dvdsnapshot review is one of those times.

I AM VIRGIN

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
The end of the world comes... and you don't.

It came without warning. The virus wiped out most of the world's population in just a few days, and everyone who survived became a vampire with an insatiable thirst for sex. Everyone except Robby. He's the last normal man in a world of unbridled sexuality, and he's a virgin. Accompanied by his trusty Basset Hound, Billy, he's looking for love in a city full of vampire vixens who want nothing more than the next depraved thrill. Faced with temptation, Robby must resist the lure of this world of lust and sensuality or risk becoming one of the sex-mad undead creatures himself!

OUR TAKE

Three years after the breakout of the H1D3 virus, Robby is one wandering virgin in a world full of nymphomaniacal vampires that all seem to be former strippers and adult models. I Am Virgin is a soft-core sex-spoof of I Am Legend that feels like it wanted to be a full-on porn-film but wimped-out in the end. The story, such as it is, grinds to a halt every few minutes so that Robby can stand off to the side want watch some truly harsh-looking, tattooed women and a few muscle-bound men simulate sex. Each of these breaks is interminably long and follow porn-scene structure so the viewer is left to wonder why they added the fangs but left out the penetration. Being that he's pretty sure he's the last man on earth and his life consists of hiding in his parent's old house with only his dog and an inflatable sex-doll (an alien one, no less) for company, he deserves whatever entertainment he gets, such as it is. Each time he runs away from the vampires so he can go home and bemoan his virginity when he should count his blessings that the electricity still works and the spam keeps flowing into his inbox. If anything, you'd figure he'd be throwing himself at these sex-crazed vamps. He'd sure be a lot happier. I mean, it's not like they want his blood.

Spoofs get the luxury of having the films they're sending up do the actual work while they can just coast of the structure and add jokes. I Am Virgin does this but traded in most of the humor for the sex scenes. Was Robby looking into a Men's Room and saying "What a bunch of junk?" supposed to be funny? I ask because it's the only laugh I had.

When a low-budget film comes out, viewers tend to be forgiving because you admire the filmmakers' moxie and commitment in getting it made at all. I'll leave it at that.

SPECIAL FEATURES
The case touts "with 12 additional minutes not seen in the theatrical version" though I doubt this got much in the way of a theatrical run. The I Am Virgin DVD offers a commentary track by the film's director, a slightly amusing 8 minute behind-the-scenes feature called "T&A of Darkness" that seems mostly an excuse to highlight the local Portland ladies featured in the film, and a collection of Z-grade movie trailers from IMD films. The film is presented in widescreen, and there are no extra audio options.

CONCLUSION
I Am Virgin is the type of film where you have to say "good for them for getting together and putting on a show." There's not much else to endorse. An overly long riff on I Am Legend stuffed with deathly long simulated sex scenes, it's not one for the kiddies. It's only for the immature adults, really.  A good solution for the budget conscious who'd like to go see cheap strippers but are unwilling to spend the money?

OVERALL PICTURE
MOVIE D+
EXTRAS C