Review of Vampirella (1996) by Antony S — 27 Jan 2007

D-readful comic book adaptation. Vampirella is sadly very much a movie of its time, cementing the silly vampire movies of the 90s, all shlock and nonsense with plenty of wizz-bang. With the exception that this is so low-budget, there's not even much wizz-bang.

The only 'name' actor is Talisa Soto, best known for the Mortal Kombat movies, which is warning enough. Not only is her performance hammy as all-get-out, but she has to wear a comically skimpy red outfit for the duration, which looks like it was grabbed from a fetish shop for small change. The rest of the acting's crap, too, but the sets and special effects are the real stars of the show; the 'outer space' scenes were apparently shot in a shopping mall! There's more than one silly chase sequence in which to 'enjoy' the locales to boot.

Respect must be given to its influence (van Helsing line ~ Dracula 2000; sun-gun ~ Underworld), and in the third act Vampirella is given a neat ultimatum to accept the vice she tries so often to be above.

But the rest is dire, with special kudos to Daltry as the most unthreatening vamp ever, who ends up killed by coincidence!!