Imagine if Jess Franco made a spaghetti western for Troma and that gives you an idea what Glenn Danzig’s Death Rider in the House of Vampires is all about.
I knew Death Rider in the House of Vampires was going to be something special from the very first scene in which Death Rider (Devon Sawa) rides his horse through the desert alongside a topless companion (porn star Tasha Reign) while the theme song (sung by… who else? Glenn Danzig!) blared, “Death Ride rides… a-lone!” The lyric, of course, makes no sense because Death Rider is NOT alone. He’s got a topless chick with him!
As you can probably tell, Death Rider in the House of Vampires is destined to become a classic based on that first scene alone.
Death Rider may not ride alone, but he sure rides. And rides. And rides. And rides. Danzig establishes this fact for minutes on end while the soundtrack goes on and on. And he continues to ride until the title sequence (an homage to spaghetti westerns) kicks in and… there is no music! Odd. Most directors would’ve put the music over the credits and left the riding scene silent. Glenn Danzig is not most directors. This is just another example of how he breaks with all forms of traditional cinema and blazes his own cinematic path.
Let’s, for instance, talk about his use of zooms. As we all know, Jess Franco is the master of the pointless zoom. Danzig doubles down and matches the master zoom for zoom. Danzig’s zooms have the same rambling, unfocused, listless, gratuitous quality as Franco’s. Experienced directors could try a thousand times to replicate the look and feel of a Franco zoom, and somehow fail miserably, coming off looking like a father with a new camcorder who just figured out how the zoom buttons works. Somehow, Glenn cracked the code.
Not only that, but Danzig also managed to achieve the same kind of beautiful looking shots and majestic use of color Franco is known for. Then, like Jess, it’s back to long zooms, awkwardly staged dialogue scenes, and romantic interludes that look like they came out of a porno. The change in quality from scene to scene could give a viewer whiplash.
Yes, just like Jess Franco.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Franco was Danzig’s inspiration after all. I mean Danzig spent all those years with The Misfits singing songs based on B movies like Horror Hotel, Return of the Fly, and Astro Zombies. If Astro Zombies is where Danzig set his cinematic bar, then he exceeded his grasp with Death Rider in the House of Vampires.
Danzig’s previous film, Verotika was a mess, but it was a fitfully fun mess that contained glimpses of a true mad genius at work. It pleases me to no end to report that Death Rider in the House of Vampires confirms my suspicions and Danzig makes good on that promise. And then some.
You might be tempted to call Death Rider in the House of Vampires a “bad movie”, but this is one of those films that is beyond good or bad. This is art. Like Ed Wood before him, Glenn Danzig is blissfully unaware of his shortcomings as a director, and yet, he plunges fervently forward, putting his unique vision on the screen in bold, brazen fashion.
I think the reason why I never did anything creative in a professional setting is because I continually doubt myself during the creative process. A little voice always seems to pop up inside my head and question me relentlessly, repeatedly asking, “Is this any good?” This form of self-criticism cripples an artist from achieving any sort of forward momentum when it comes to creating a work of fiction. Danzig has no voice in his head. He just goes for it, guns blazing, and you have to respect that and his vision. Of course, it’s easy to respect a vision that includes:
• Minutes-long close-ups of a woman’s ass as she rides through the desert.
• Insert shots of people on horseback that look like they were filmed on one of those kid’s horse rides they have in front of K-Mart where you put in a quarter, and it rocks back and forth.
• Scenes of vampires biting their victims’ throats and then letting blood spurt everywhere, EXCEPT in their mouths. (Pardon me if I’m wrong, but aren’t vampires supposed to DRINK the blood?)
Danzig also assembled an amazing cast. We have Julian (Warlock) Sands as the main vampiric villain who mostly sits on a throne looking puzzled. Many times, you wonder if his character is busy contemplating something or if Sands is just waiting to for Danzig to call cut. Shots are held so long that it becomes almost a game of chicken. Who will flinch first? The actor, the director, or the audience? Fellow director Eli Roth is quite good as a gunslinger named “Drac Cassidy”. (The characters all have names that are a hodgepodge of western heroes and vampires.) Kim Director is a revelation as a busty bloodsucking bordello babe. If they ever made an Elvira biopic, she’d be a shoo-in. Danny Trejo is also in there too, because this is exactly the kind of movie Danny Trejo would be in.
It’s also fun seeing Danzig in front of the camera as well. He’s pretty intimidating as the badass “Bad Bathory”. Remember in the ‘90s when they were hyping him to be Wolverine in the X-Men movie? Well, in his brief screen time here, you get a sense he might’ve been spot-on casting after all.
I can honestly say Death Rider in the House of Vampires has the potential to be the next Rocky Horror Picture Show. I can envision midnight screenings of this thing with audience members dressed as the characters and shouting dialogue at the screen and singing along with the theme song. If not Rocky Horror, then definitely Plan 9 from Outer Space. Either way, Danzig has given fans of out-there cinema a real treat. See it with as many people as possible. You won’t regret it.
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