Tuesday, October 16, 2018

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: SUBSPECIES (1991) * ½


Radu (Anders Hove) kills his own father, Vladislav (Angus Scrimm), the king of the vampires because he wants to possess the magical “bloodstone”.  (It looks like a half-melted snow cone.)  Meanwhile, a couple of American college students studying folklore wind up in Radu’s castle.  As Radu tries to put the bite on the girls, his half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) becomes smitten with Michele (Laura Tate) and tries to protect her from being turned into a bloodsucker.

The opening scene where Scrimm locks Hove in a cage, holds promise.  Hove cuts off his own fingertips and the severed digits transform into red-colored minions (who resemble a mash-up of the monsters from The Gate and MUSCLE wrestling figures) who help him escape.  Dave Allen’s stop-motion animation is quite good, but unfortunately, we don’t see enough of these “Subspecies” dudes throughout the rest of the movie to make it worthwhile.

Directed by Ted (Terrorvision) Nicolaou, Subspecies is a slow moving, ponderous, and dull vampire flick.  After the decent opening scene, nothing of interest really happens.  Even once the girls start being turned into vampires, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, or particularly want to see again.  The romance stuff is almost as bad as a Twilight movie as you’re forced to suffer through a lot of scenes of pasty-faced people gazing longingly at each other.  It also doesn’t help when Watson and Tate have absolutely no chemistry together.

Another debit is the character of Radu.  As played by Hove, he feels like an interchangeable vampire villain.  At least Greg Cannom’s make-up, which makes Hove sort of look like a cross between Nosferatu and a Lost Boy, is pretty good.  We also get an okay amount of skin and one or two decent gory bits, but it’s nothing especially memorable.  

The frustrating ending leaves things wide open for a sequel (of which there were three).

AKA:  Subspecies:  In the Twilight.  AKA:  Vampiri.

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