- edgenerous
Watchable? Maybe. Robo Vampire
“The worst horror movie I ever saw was fucking great,” Stephen King said to Eli Roth during their conversation on Eli Roth’s History of Horror.
I wish I could say the same thing. I quit on so many movies (quit on just about every TV show). My time is valuable to me and watching terrible shit irks me something awful…but maybe I’m just looking the wrong way. There must be nuggets of enjoyment out there.
In an effort to find positives, I’m forcing myself to watch entire movies that I go into assuming extreme suckage.
ROBO VAMPIRE (1988)
Narcotics agent Tom Wilde is given a second chance at life after being shot and killed. In a futuristic experiment, agent Wilde is returned to life as an Android Robot. He is sent on a very dangerous mission into the depths of the Golden Triangle to rescue Sophie, a beautiful undercover agent who has been captured by the evil drug warlord Mr. Young and his inhuman creation the Vampire Beast.
I picked this one because I have a new sub-genre crossover novella coming soon, TROUBLE AT CAMP STILL WATERS (from Severed Press) and thought it might be good fodder for a guest post somewhere. Slasher meeting giant beasts versus Vampires meeting robots, see the parallel? The cover aided me, too, I almost had to watch because they used an image of Robocop on the poster and I was like, holy shit, do they use a Robocop outfit in the movie and say fucks to American copyright?
They did not use a Robocop outfit. They painted some shit lying around silver and called it metal, absurd. At one point the Robo Vampire calls himself Robo Warrior, absurd. I can only imagine all the shit I missed only watching it once.
The next point, I think they meant zombies, not vampires (the only vampire trope they followed were garlic and sleeping arrangements). These undead creatures consume pounds of heroin in their caskets, but I’m not really sure why. In fact, this movie is wholly confusing, I mean the super vampire wears a gorilla mask. There’s a ghost who shows her boobs in every scene. The dubbing is outrageous nonsense. At one point, a blonde woman leaps through a window and the stunt man (yeah, stunt MAN) is wearing a grey wig! The aim by soldiers and officers rivals Commando, like a 0.01% hit rate.
Pew pew pew pew…nothing. Everybody keeps running, mostly.
I can’t fathom the fantastic dance of fuck ups and poor effort that produces something like this. Like who funded this director’s vision?
Maybe a genius.
This movie is amazing. I am in awe of how unintentionally entertaining ROBO VAMPIRE was. I suppose the real glue holding this thing together is that it’s non-stop action. I bet the entire script is six pages for ninety minutes, every scene has layman martial arts fighting, like kids imitating Bruce Lee. The rope work is wild and visible. The director reversed a ton of scenes to make magic, even did the Three Stooges move with the flying cigarette. The seemingly random vampire abilities were fantastical and surprising. There was no limit on the whims followed in this one.
What does this amount to?
At no time in the ninety minutes it took to watch this movie was I bored.
5/5 – watchable YES.