90 min
2.3
2005
US
Martial artist Ron Hall stars in this dark vampire thriller reminiscent of BLADE. Ambitious cop Derek (Hall) is dogged by a phobia that is unfortunate in his line of work. Having witnessed his father's murder as a young child, he is deathly afraid of blood, but when he takes the law into his own hands to catch underworld counterfeiter Gustoff Slovak, he is forced to face his fear. The operation blows up in his face, resulting in a massacre that leaves Derek the only one of his team to survive. Derek reaches the shocking conclusion that Slovak is actually a vampire, and joins forces with the last in a long line of vampire hunters, Master Kao, who agrees to train Derek in his ancient art. However, in order to combat Slovak--whose past intersects with Derek's own in disturbing ways--Derek must become that which he hates the most: a vampire.
Overview
Reviews
SkippyTexas77 wrote:I first discovered this movie when I was working in a video store right after high school. I saw the cheesy cover, the Lions Gate logo, and thought, "How bad could it be?"
It was baaaaaaaaaad.
Ron Hall seems like he does have some martial arts chops, but acting and directing are definitely not his forte. Once the credits started rolling, I immediately recognized the production company as the same guys who made 'Future War' and a ton of Gary Daniels' early flicks. None of which were particularly good, but all entertaining in that low-budget sorta way.
Back in '05, it seemed Lions Gate was buying up nearly every low-budget independent film, slapping a decent-looking cover on a DVD, and hurling them into video stores every single week. I wound up renting most of them (hey, it was free) and 'Vampire Assassin' is one of the few that stuck with me. So much so that a couple months back the film popped into my head and I had to track down a copy on eBay. (Shipping cost more than the disc.) Either way, the film is clearly shot on mini-DV, so it has that mid-2000s digital video look. The special effects are terrible. The fights are painfully staged. Occasionally they speed up the frame-rate of the fights, causing it to look like a drug-enduced Benny Hill skit.
I remember laughing hysterically when I first rented it. Now, nearly ten years later, I laughed just as hard. And, if nothing else, whether you're laughing with or at it, the film succeeds in being entertaining. And for that, it's worth seeing.
