Vampyres, 2015.
Directed by Victor Matellano.
Starring Caroline Munro, Verónica Polo, Marta Flich, Almudena León, Anthony Rotsa, Lone Fleming.
SYNOPSIS:
Two female phantoms haunt an old house and lure unsuspecting victims into their den of sex and death.
Of all the horror movies on the list of probable remakes one has to question who thought that an update of José Ramón Larraz’s 1974 cult erotic chiller Vampyres was a potentially good idea. First and foremost, the original film is very good and something of a classic amongst connoisseurs of the genre so why remake an already great film? And then you have to wonder who this is being marketed towards, seeing as the subject matter is quite niche and if you’re not au fait with the original then chances are this isn’t likely to sway you on the subject of bisexual vampire women smearing each other in blood whilst sitting in the bath and having an orgasm.
But remade it was and you only have to look at the short making-of featurette (painfully narrated by Jack Taylor) on the DVD to realise that in doing so the filmmakers totally missed the reasons why the original is held in such high regard. Not that they didn’t care about what they were doing because there seems to be a genuine need to try and recreate something from the past as José Ramón Larraz was involved in the making of the film before his death in 2013 and original special effects make-up artist Colin Arthur was also on board but transporting the story from an English countryside full of misty graveyards and abandoned mansions to a very European-looking detached house in Spain has taken away the backbone of what made the original so spooky, namely a setting that was almost a character as much as the actors on the screen.
The story itself sticks fairly closely to the original – even reusing some of the same lines of dialogue – and, if truth be told, there probably isn’t a great deal you could have done to the story as it is a fairly simple one of two bisexual vampire women (although they are never referred to as vampires) who roam the countryside looking for victims to seduce and then feed upon. As in the original, some campers (three instead of two this time) pitch their tent near to the abandoned house where the beautiful vampire women bring back men for sex and murder, and soon become enchanted by the goings on in the old house. It’s worth noting that the ending is slightly different in this one and does fit a little more with the plot but this film also crams in a lot more explicit (note – explicit, not erotic) sex and endless scenes of the two undead women vamping it up in a bath in scenes that have already been done in the likes of Hostel II, so perhaps not as shocking or out of left field as the filmmakers seem to think it is.
Other than that, scream queen Caroline Munro (Dracula A.D. 1972/Maniac) makes an appearance in a thankless role for no other reason than, as it states in the extra features, she appeared in Hammer films (only two of them, and the original Vampyres wasn’t made by Hammer anyway so go figure) but she is far and away the best actor here. Marta Flich and Almudena León play the two vampires and appear to be reading their lines phonetically from a script placed behind the cameraman somewhere, totally not getting the fact that there is a difference between being naked and being sexy, something that the original got exactly right. The special effects are very good though, and not as cheap looking as the rest of the production would have you believe, and there are some nice shots of the lake next to the haunted house that could be great if used in the right film, but this isn’t that film as the clean camerawork is technically very good but devoid of any character or aura, making the outdoor scenes look like a weird tourist video.
Ultimately it comes down to this – the original 1974 Vampyres is a transgressive, erotic, post-Hammer gothic shocker dripping in atmosphere and combining classic horror imagery with contemporary attitudes towards sex and violence. The remake is all blood and tits with no substance, context or atmosphere and would probably make a fantastic black metal music video if somebody fancies making a fan edit, and at least that way you could cut out all of the dull bits as most of the good stuff amounts to about the same running time as an epic Cradle of Filth track. Right then, get to work…
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published September 5, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
