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5.0 out of 5 stars
Biting the Big Bloody Apple, Mar 17 2004
This review is from: Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires (DVD)
"Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires--The Curse of Ed Wood" pays affectionate homage to Ed Wood, the legendary filmmaker whose reputation for making truly bad movies began in the 1950s with such science-fiction turkeys as "Plan Nine From Outer Space." Johnny Depp was widely hailed for his performance as the heterosexual but cross-dressing Wood in the bio-pic that bears the late director's name.But despite the references to Wood made in both the title and even some of the graveyard scenes in "Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires," the film perhaps owes more to the Andy Warhol/Velvet Underground mindset of the 60s and 70s. As we watch the New York City street scenes that open the movie, we almost expect to hear Lou Reed singing "Take A Walk On The Wild Side" as we slowly begin to confront the evil we know is lurking in the darkness just ahead. The film, made by the well-known producing, writing and directing team of Timothy Swartz and Timothy Green Beckley (whose alter ego is that of Mr. Creepo, and who always does a cameo in his own movies, a la Hitchcock), begins in the bedroom of two gay female lovers. While the lesbian eroticism may offend some sensibilities, it should be pointed out that the sex throughout the movie is basically soft core and is even less explicit, say, than the lesbian love scenes in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive." Lilith, the heroine of the story (played by scream queen honey Stephanie Bloode), broaches the subject of commitment on the morning after, and is rebuffed by her lover (played by Theda Baire). Feeling hurt, Lilith leaves and begins walking the streets in a disappointed daze. As she sits and rests on a park bench, she is approached by Carmilla, Queen of the Lesbian Vampires (played by the lovely, raven-haired Lolita Langsuir), who convinces Lilith to accompany her to her secret lair in the aforementioned graveyard. There follows a bizarre seduction scene in which Carmilla begins the nightmarish process of converting Lilith to vampirism, with the Queen's fellow ghouls looking on from the shadows. Again, the combination of standard horror elements with kinky sex conjures just the right sense of eerie, frightening abandon. Meanwhile, a character named "Muffy the Vampire Slayer," in an obviously tongue-in-cheek bow to the similarly named television program, appears and enlists the aid of Lilith's lover in a quest to bring the heroine back from the grip of the undead. At a party thrown by Carmilla to show off Lilith as her new acquisition, Muffy (played by an actress named simply Circe) storms in and declares that everyone in attendance is under arrest. "You have the right to remain silent," she announces, as she threatens the demonic revelers with a large bottle of holy water. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in the afterlife." Such flashes of humor are common in films made by the Mr. Creepo team, but this particular joke lightly touches on the almost profound. There are a couple more surprise plot twists on the way to the film's half-terrifying, half-comic ending, but it wouldn't be fair to give them away. "Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires" mines the same dark, hidden parts of the human psyche that all horror movies explore and exploit, using sex and violence and gallons of blood to tell its story. That it works as well as it does, given the extremely low-budget constraints endured by its makers, is a testament to the creative abilities of Beckely and Swartz and the entire Mr. Creepo crew. You may not know whether to scream or laugh from one moment to the next, but that's the kind of double-edged blade that makes "Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires" such a kick. Ed Wood would have been proud.
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