Dinner with a Vampire (1987)

I usually claim Lamberto Bava only directed three really good movies: Demons, Blastfighter and You'll Die At Midnight, but truth be told he's made some other decent movies (and I'm not counting Blade in the Dark to those). One of them is the fun and colourful Dinner with a Vampire, according to IMDB one of four movies made for Canale 5 under the banner Brivido Giallo. Like many Italian horror movies made for TV the gore is less than usual, but often a bit more than American counterparts - and so even here, which makes this ambitious production raise slightly above average.

Jurke (George Hilton) is a famous horror director who also happens to be a 1000 years old vampire. There's just one thing: he's pretty tired of being alive and tries a slightly unorthodox way to kill himself: he hires a bunch of young wannabe-actors for a movie, but instead he invites them over to his castle over the weekend and gives them an ultimate, either they kill him or he will kill them all! Now our heroes must find a way to kill something that can't be killed, before Jurek unleashes himself and his monster army on them!

Dinne with a Vampire has a very light-hearted feeling with a lot of in-jokes, from the obvious nods to Mario Bava and the very cool black & white gothic horror movie the kids are watching (it feels like Lambert put a lot more effort into that than the rest) to small stuff like one of the characters is trying to choke Jurek the vampire with Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers (written in English on the tape, but changes to the Italian title, Per favore, non mordermi sul collo!, moments later). Another tape visible in the same scene is Black Sabbath!

It's not much of a story but I still think the basic idea is pretty good, or at least works fine for easy-watching entertainment. Not so much to analyze, just a bunch of young actors running around in a gorgeous castle chased by George Hilton in a cape and vampire teeth. That castle yeah, it looks fantastic! Anyone know which castle it is? Here's the exterior:

If I wasn't so lazy I would have taken a couple of screenshots of the interior, which looks like something right out of Suspiria - just without the creative lighting. Layers upon layers of weird patterns and colours. I would get dizzy if I lived there, but I would love to visit the place some day if it's open for the public. What's not working is some of the broader comedy, like the hunchback - dubbed by Nick Alexander doing a Marty Feldman voice. He's not important at all for the story, just some padding to make it a slightly longer movie. Another disappointment is that the monster army hardly is in the movie, just a few seconds at the end and they hardly do anything.

Many years ago, on the page Cinema Nocturna I think, someone claimed that Dinner with a Vampire was completely dry, no gore or blood at all - but it actually has some very nice effects including a wonderful heart-being-squeezed-out-from-a-chest and a graphic melting head (plus a few effects here and there) and the make-up looks very cool, specially in the black & white movie within the movie.

It's clearly visible Lambert enjoyed making this movie. It's closer to the non-horror he likes so much and he had a glorious location to shoot + an inspired George Hilton doing his best to over-act himself into Italian horror movie history. It's worth a watch for you who needs yet another obscurity in the collection. 

Blastfighter (1984)

Gotta be honest with you girls and boys, this is an old review that I made a few changes in. The main reason for this is that I’m slightly involved in the new Swedish DVD release of Blastfighter. There’s a huge quite from me on the back of the cover (and on the front there’s one from Quentin Tarantino) and on the DVD itself it’s an interview I did with star Michael Sopkiw some years ago. So I decided to use this review again, because it was written long before I even knew it would be a DVD here in Sweden. So here it is, either you like it or not…

One day a napkin arrived at my doorstep. It was sent directly from the US and the sender was David Zuzelo. The napkin was special because it was a message to me, written directly over pieces of food and saliva and signed with "Mr God". I will share a photo with you someday. Well, this napkin is holy for me, because "Mr God" there is actually Michael Sopkiw, the best action hero ever to hit the screen. He only made four movies, and I would say that at least two of them are among the best I've seen in Italian action: After the fall of New York and Blastfighter.

I’ve never been a real fan of Lamberto Bava. He's always been too uneven for his own good and has a tendecy to make movies that look like TV-productions. But of course, he's the man behind Demons, You'll Die At Midnight and Macabre. He also directed Monster Shark (with Sopkiw) and the extremly boring Demons 2. But I always hail Blastfighter as his masterpiece. The rumour says it started as a science fiction-movie by Lucio Fulci, but sometime along the way it transformed into a Rambo-esqe action-opera!

For once the story is quite well written, but the star is (except Sopkiw of course) is the action and atmosphere. Shot in Georgia, US, and with Billy Redden (the banjo-boy in Deliverance) in a fun cameo, it's a real beauty of a movie. Wonderful dark forests, a tense little town with more rednecks than in Skåne (a part of Sweden) and grim faces in every corner of the screen. Sopkiw plays Jake 'Tiger' Sharp (ain't that a perfect name of a hero?) and he returns to his old city after spending some time in prison. He's getting to know his daughter (who seems to be almost his own age) and also George Eastman as old friend Tom.

But of course the shit hits the fan quite fast and suddenly everyone with a rifle and with a sister and brother as parents, starts hunting Tiger... and he hits back, fast-hard-brutal! It might take a little while to unfold itself, but Blastfighter is one hell of a movie. The action fastpaced and gory and Sopkiw is THE MAN! He fights, shoots, cuts and explodes himself through the enemy. This is really good. I'm getting more and more impressed by this movie everytime I see it, and it's a shame that Sopkiw just did these four movies and Bava returned to his horror movies.

Finally Blastfighter gets a Swedish release, and as usual it’s Njuta Films who’s behind it! Blastfighter is out on DVD in Italy and Germany since before. I haven’t seen the Italian version, but I heard that one has the correct ratio. This has the same ratio (widescreen of course, 1.85:1) as the German DVD but with a superior sharp picture quality. One odd thing is that this version has the Italian dub track as the main one and the English as a bonus. Theres only Scandinavian subtitles, but that wouldn’t be a problem for non-Scandies because of the English language track.

The only bonus material worth mentioning is the awesome interview I did with Michael Sopkiw some years ago, in text of course.

Exclusive: The infamous Sopkiw-napkin!!!

So here it is, the legendary napkin that I've mentioned in the Blastfighter-review. Some interesting swedish there, "Hey Do" and "Tjen Tjen", but that's not bad for a man who hasn't been in Sweden for many, many years :)

I wonder who's napkin it was? David Zuzelos or Michael Sopkiws? In any way, sometime in the future I can probably create exact copies of them with some simple do-it-yourself DNA-cloning kit.

Here's the exact message:

Yo! Fred!
Hey Do!
Tjen! Tjen!
They're all talking
about you in Boston!
Mr.God!

Of course it's possible to click on the photo to see it more close-up. If you want to feel how it is to be me and own something that Sopkiw has signed ;)

I will try to take some photos of the other signed stuff I have here at home, but no hurry. Life is long and... The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Remember. Miles to go before I sleep...

Blastfighter (1984)

One day a napkin arrived at my doorstep. It was sent directly from the US and the sender was David Zuzelo. The napkin was special because it was a message to me, written directly over pieces of food and saliva and signed with "Mr God". I will share a photo with you someday. Well, this napkin is holy for me, because "Mr God" there is actually Michael Sopkiw, the best action hero ever to hit the screen. He only made four movies, and I would say that at least two of them are among the best I've seen in italian action: After the fall of New York and Blastfighter.

I never been a real fan of Lamberto Bava. He's always been to uneven for his own good and have a tendecy to make movies that look like TV-productions. But of course, he's the man behind Demons, You'll Die At Midnight and Macabre. He also directed Monster Shark (with Sopkiw) and the extremly boring Demons 2. But I always hail Blastfighter as his masterpiece. The rumour says it started as a science fiction-movie by Lucio Fulci, but sometime along the way it transformed into a Rambo-esqe action-opera!

For once the story is quite well written, but the star is (except Sopkiw of course) is the action and atmosphere. Shot in Georgia, US, and with Billy Redden (the banjo-boy in Deliverance) in a fun cameo, it's a real beauty of a movie. Wonderful dark forests, a tense little town with more rednecks than in Skåne (a part of Sweden) and grim faces in every corner of the screen. Sopkiw plays Jake 'Tiger' Sharp (ain't that a perfect name of a hero?) and he returns to his old city after spending some time in prison. He's getting to know his daughter (who seems to be almost his own age) and also George Eastman as old friend Tom.

But of course the shit hits the fan quite fast and suddenly everyone with a rifle and with a sister and brother as parents, starts hunting Tiger... and he hits back, fast-hard-brutal! It might take a little while to unfold itself, but Blastfighter is one hell of a movie. The action fastpaced and gory and Sopkiw is THE MAN! He fights, shoots, cuts and explodes himself through the enemy. This is really good. I'm getting more and more impressed by this movie everytime I see it, and it's a shame that Sopkiw just did these four movies and Bava return to his (mostly) mediocre horror movies.

I have, not mentioned a couple of different tape versions, the german dvd. It's slightly cropped on the sides, but it's worth buying because of the nice cover-art and it's uncut. The quality of the picture itself is good, far from perfect, but still the best english version out right now. I heard the italian dvd has the correct aspect ratio, but only an italian language track and nothing else.