I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

That was an excellent one.

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Other than Rod Steiger doing this tongue in cheek imitation of Laurence Olivier's Mitteleuropa accent and having a ball as a modern Dr. Van Helsing, this rather witless comedy might go over with the juvenile trade, but not too many others. It certainly does make vampires out to be such fun creatures.Natasha Gregson Wagner and Casper Van Dien are a couple of modern vampires who are tired of the rule of that most notorious vampire of them all, Count Dracula as played by Robert Pastorelli. But all of them have to worry that that famous vampire slaughterer Van Helsing who's on the prowl with some new kind of help, a few boys from the hood.Except when Steiger was on the screen I didn't get too many laughs out of this film though. Maybe it's because my taste in music just doesn't run to rap which blares at intervals during the movie. There is one other good scene I did like. Kim Catrall pulling a freight train with the Van Helsing helpers and turning them all into vampires. It's the inevitable result of sex with one.For the juvenile trade strictly.

A complete romp of a vampire movie. Tired of hackneyed vampiric angst? Tired of vanilla Hollywood vamps? Do you prefer your undead driving Camaros, smoking huge cigars and listening to The Reverend Horton Heat? This may just be the film for you. I don't think I stopped grinning at any point during this movie, except when I was laughing. This is a vampire film for people who like movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Snakes on a Plane, Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town and From Dusk Till Dawn. It certainly isn't Nosferatu, but it will expose the entire Blade trilogy and every Anne Rice film adaptation to the sun and then stake them through the heart whilst screaming the Lords Prayer, and at a budget that probably amounts to about the same as two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Highly recommended, everyone who reviewed it badly needs to chill the hell out.

Modern Vampires is the tale of a crew of ghastlies enjoying the night life of L.A. in relative obscurity until someone goes on a killing rampage which brings them to the attention of the local police, as well as the local don, Count Dracula, who likes discretion so much that he even has a special cleaning service for messy vampires. That tells you something about how seriously this movie takes itself. Who's doing the killing, why, and what to do about her (yes, her) is the basis of the plot. A parallel plot involves Dr. Van Helsing on another of his famous vampire hunts, so the predatory vampiress is triply threatened.This is not an easy film to characterize. It's about vampires, yes, but they're not so much scary in the traditional sense of Lugosi and Lee as they are just kind of creepy and weird, and as disgusting as they are terrifying. They turn their victims into human sodas to be drunk in underground nightclubs They transform into gargoyle like creatures that seem to have more in common with modern sfx-driven horror movies than the original vampire legend. And for God's sake don't ever make love to one of them. That too has taken on new and dire consequences.The film also explores the notion of degrees of vampiric evil (no surprise to any Buffy fan). Casper Van Dien's character Dallas has made two vampires to save them from unhappy fates, so humans are obviously something more than just food to him. These vampires have all kinds of family arrangements, from mafia like to almost normal human variety. There is even one who is eternally pregnant, a bizarre state of affairs surpassing even Ann Rice's child vampire Claudia, whose role, to some extent, is played by the (s)punky young vampire portrayed by Natasha Wagner. Although physically mature, she is an emotional child who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'instant gratification.' And Van Helsing himself, a reputed Nazi collaborator, may not be a paragon of virtue. So nothing is quite black and white in the undead underworld of Los Angeles.If you simply have to see every vampire movie ever made, you must see this as well. If you're a fan of Casper Van Dien or Rod Steiger, they're protagonist and nemesis, and you shouldn't miss the chase. Van Dien manages to look good even in fangs, which these particular bloodsuckers sport 24/7 and have to talk around as well as sometimes explain to the curious. If you're fascinated by show business dynasties, catch it for Natasha Gregson Wagner, who is at times eerily reminiscent of her mother Natalie Wood. Just be warned-everything in this movie is a bit overdone. The comedy becomes slapstick, some scenes are more disgusting than truly horrible, and the sex is approached as either grotesque or tongue-in-cheek, or occasionally fang in neck. They even throw in a bit of Lesbian activity, but the most interesting scenes involve Van Dien and Wagner-as visually arresting a couple as you'll ever find anywhere-who, before the movie ends, have managed to swap almost every bodily fluid imaginable. MV can't decide if it's horror, comedy, romance or satire, and so mostly falls short of being really satisfying in any category, but it delivers some characters who can be fun to watch, notably Van Dien and Wagner as the young (in vampire terms) lovers fleeing the old vampire patriarch whose will they have defied. Rod Steiger looks and acts like a cross between Uncle Fester and the decrepit Van Helsing portrayed by Olivier in Dracula 79. And sometimes you just have to laugh at the homeboys who receive The Dark Gift like it was an STD, almost a satiric comment on AIDS stood on its head: this infection lets you live forever, if you don't mind being a homicidal maniac for the rest of your unnatural life.To enjoy MV, you just have to turn off your critical faculties, pass the beer and pizza, and take it for what it is.

I'm not a big fan of the vampire genre. BUT this is the best vampire movie I've ever seen. Rod Steiger was an inspired choice as the vampire hunter, and his involvement with a street gang had me rolling on the floor. Funny, scary, and not your everyday vampire movie.