| Review by: Devon
Bertsch |
| Date:
27/4/06 |
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Director: Lee Bennett
Sobel
Starring: Stephen Blackehart,
Paul Stevenson, Margaret Lancaster, Valentine
Miele
Screenplay: Lee Bennett
Sobel, Paul Gambino
Country: USA
Year: 2001
AKA: Burnin' Love; Rockabilly
Vampire: Burnin' Love |
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Rockabilly Vampire was originally
called Burnin' Love. Troma
re-christened the film Rockabilly Vampire:
Burnin' Love, but on the DVD sleeve
left out the Burnin' Love
bit. And this sort of pointless info is EXACTLY
why you read this review, isn't it?
The Rockabilly Vampire DVD begins
with an intro by Lloyd Kaufman, president of Troma
and creator of the Toxic Avenger. Lloyd claims
the two bands with live footage in the extras
are 'many bands.' Lloyd also refers
to one of the bands as the 'Amazing Crowns,'
which is also what they're called on the
DVD menu. A discrepancy arises when you actually
select their live video, where they appear to
be the Royal Crowns.
Anyway, Rockabilly Vampire is
the story of a young man who was turned into a
nosferatu by his brother in the 50s. This leaves
him saying things like 'make like an
Eskimo Pie and cool it,' because evidently
vampirism freezes your vocabulary as well as your
physical appearance at the time of the bite. So,
Mr. Rockabilly meets his soul mate, a bookworm
lady stuck in the 50s (despite being too young
to have lived in them). She is an investigative
author wanting to prove that Elvis is alive, yet
doesn't seem to realise that the biggest
proof is that his name is an anagram for 'lives.'
She initially falls for Mr. Rockabilly because
he looks like Elvis, and immediately accepts he's
a vampire. Unfortunately for the would-be happy
couple, Mr. Rockabilly's bro is still tracking
him down, and traces him to the lady somehow.
An obvious comparison for this film is Rockula,
but I'm not sure which film comes out ahead.
While there are some oddly funny things, like
menacing toenail clippings, the general storyline
isn't ludicrous enough to be humorous, or
even engaging, on its own. This leaves Rockabilly
Vampire as just a slow movie where not
much happens. The film tries to be funny, but
the pacing is off, and the film is just too slow.
The dialog can be trying, even more so than the
Eskimo Pie line, and the acting, well, actually
the acting isn't bad at all for the budget.
If you like rockabilly music, though, this movie
has some. |
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| Video |
| Rockabilly Vampire is presented
full frame. The film was shot on 16mm, and looks
it. The film is grainy as hell, and has specks and
scratches. |
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| Audio |
| The audio is a two channel English track. The
track suffers distortion, and the volume levels
can fluctuate a bit between people speaking in a
scene. The dialogue can be hard to understand at
times. The commentary track mentions the dodgy sound,
explaining the plan was for the sound to be fixed,
but it was never done. |
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| Extra Features |
| The DVD comes with a fair smattering of extras.
There's a commentary with director and co-writer
Lee Sobel. He's a talkative guy, providing
the usual info and anecdotes, but I just didn't
care much. The best extra is Blond Fury,
a 44-minute shot-on-video Sobel film, starring the
female lead from Rockabilly Vampire.
Blond Fury is much funnier than the feature
film, but the score is much, much worse. The plot
concerns two husbands faking their own kidnapping
and the subsequent attempt of their wives to rescue
them. The DVD also has live footage from two of
the bands from Rockabilly Vampire's
soundtrack, Atomics and Royal (Amazing) Crowns,
with the later given an intro by Sobel. A few rockabilly
bands are interviewed in a separate extra, but this
lasts less than one minute. Rockabilly Vampire's
trailer is included, under its original title, but
the other Troma trailers are blocked. Perhaps best
of all, the DVD includes an ad for Rue Morgue and
an ad for a NY swing website, which is supposedly
where the Easter egg is. It didn't work for
me, but here's the info from the Troma site:
'Go to the Rock N' Roll extras. Once you get
on the extras screen click on WWW.NYC-SWING.COM.
When that screen comes up press "down"
on your remote and it will take you to men calling
a guy with a "Burnin' Love" tattoo a girly
man because he has "girly" arms.' |
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| The Verdict |
| Rockabilly Vampire is a generally
uninteresting film that is rarely funny. The closest
thing to excitement it provides is the brief nudity
near the end, and that's just not worth the
wait. |
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| User Comments |
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0 user comments have been posted so far |
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| Regional Coding |
All |
| Format |
NTSC |
| Aspect Ratio |
4:3 |
| 16x9 Enhanced? |
No |
| Audio Options |
English DD 2.0 Mono |
| Subtitles |
None |
| Country |
Australia |
| Distributor |
Stomp Visual |
| Running Time |
91 minutes |
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