Review of Vamp (1986) by Vince K — 02 Dec 2009

Grace Jones only starred in about 3 big movies in the '80s, then just seemed to fall off the face of the earth. But she sure made one hell of an impression. Who could forget her as the villain-turned-good-guy in the James Bond movie A View To A Kill? Or as the savage coon woman in Conan the Destroyer? Grace Jones was a delight to watch, and in 1986's Vamp, she's basically the only reason to see this.

Vamp is not a bad movie, just slow-paced, boring, and ill-conceived. I wanted to see this movie 24 years ago so I guess it's a relief to know I wasn't missing anything. The story is about 2 college guys who are trying to get into the hottest fraternity on campus, so they have the brilliant idea to hire a stripper to show off at the frat party.

They find a stereotypically bad Asian driver and the 3 of them take his car 200 miles (!) into the city. This is where they find the After Dark strip club, after having a bad run-in with the local albino gang (WTF?).

The gang is led by Billy Drago, who I instantly recognized as the voodoo guy from a very good X-Files episode. He has such a gaunt, freakish-looking face that is hard to forget. He kind of looks like an ugly David Bowie.

But back to the club, Grace Jones takes the stage in a very exotic performance where she appears in white-face with a giant red clown wig. When one of the guys goes backstage to fuck her she turns into the goofiest-looking vampire I've ever seen on film, and sucks him to death.

Meanwhile the friend accidentally eats a cockroach out of the club owner's candy dish, which is the 1 image that always stuck in my mind from the preview I saw way back in the '80s. The movie moves very slowly; it seems to take forever to find out that the whole club is full of vampires, what the albino gang is up to (nothing), and the other guy running down the street and back to the club and then back again looking for his friend (who is dead, then a vampire, then dead again, then alive).

And every time Grace Jones appears in another scene she is in a new crazy-looking outfit. The vampire make-up is horrible, the blood, or lack-thereof, is too fake, and you never get invested in any of the characters.

Probably the worst vampire movie of the '80s.