Vampire Night

Described as "an action-horror flick," writer-director Jason Stephens' movie is more like a well-produced porno without the sex, which is to say it's shot on video, has a good visual sense but extremely low production values, boasts laughably wooden acting and bad dialogue, and features numerous busty ladies who don't disrobe. The central conceit, of a Hollywood casting agent whose actual goal is to select young women to turn into vampire chow, is amusing and could make for many a gratuitous sex scene if this were X-rated, but it's tamer than that -- nothing much comes of it. It all leads up to a run-of-the-mill showdown between a tall, fanged villain (Robert Michael Ryan) in a black trenchcoat (ho-hum) and an ex-marine (Jimmy Jerman, looking like the WWF's Kurt Angle without the acting ability) who is in search of his naive sister Peggy Sue (good name -- not!), played by Heather Metcalfe. Stephens shows a lot of potential visually, but as a writer he sucks about as much as the goth chicks onscreen. Sample dialogue, delivered in absolute monotone by the hero's equally muscleheaded sidekick: "His lies were like a signal flare." Also, an abandoned theater draped in black plastic garbage bags does not a convincing vampire lair make.