This was released by The Asylum back before their mockbuster days. It’s supposedly based on the vampire classic Carmilla. I haven’t read the story, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have scenes where the title character argued with greasy gas station clerks about using the bathroom.
During a zombie outbreak, a concerned woman (Brinke Stevens, the lone star of the film) asks Travis (C.S. Munro) and his daughter Jenna (Bonny Giroux) to take her daughter Carmilla (Maritama Carlson) to safety. Little do they know Carmilla is actually a vampire who is looking to put the bite on Jenna. After a series of setbacks, the group presses on and eventually makes their way to an abandoned convent where they are attacked by a horde of zombies.
Basically, Vampires vs. Zombies boils down to a bunch of driving scenes. Whenever our main characters stop for gas or break down on the side of the road, they are attacked by zombies in bad make-up. This quickly gets monotonous. The useless dream scenes only add to the running time (and confusion). It’s also annoying that when the big confrontation finally happens, the camera cuts away and/or dissolves once bodies start getting chainsawed. Not only that, but it gets even more confusing once the movie tries to pull off multiple “it’s all a dream/hallucination” scenes. Just because your lead character is trapped in the nuthouse and dreaming the whole thing (or is she? Argh!) doesn’t mean you can just cobble a bunch of nonsensical unrelated scenes in the last five minutes and call it an “ending”.
More than likely what happened was the filmmakers had a Carmilla short they couldn’t sell, so they added a bunch of zombie footage to it (zombies became highly marketable at the time thanks to the success of 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake) and The Asylum picked it up for distribution.
Stevens also shows up as a State Trooper at one point. I thought it was going to be revealed that she was actually her evil vampire character in disguise, but nope. She’s just playing another role. While she easily gives the best performance(s) in the movie, Brinke fans are bound to be disappointed.
On the bright side, the lesbian scenes between Giroux and Carlson, while short, are decent. Both ladies also appear topless, which prevents it from being a total waste of time. Ultimately, Vampires vs. Zombies winds up being a losing battle on all fronts.
AKA: Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire.
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