| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Fantasy |
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VAMPIRELLA
Rating: 
USA. 1996.
Director – Jim Wynorski, Screenplay – Gary Gerani, Based on the Comic Book Created by Forrest J. Ackerman, Producers – Angela Baynes, Paul Hertzberg & Jim Wynorski, Photography – Andrea Rossotto, Music – Joel Goldsmith, Visual Effects – Stewart Motion Pictures Services (Supervisor – Jim Stewart), Special Effects Supervisor – Peter Cappadocia, Production Design – Alex Hajdu. Production Company – Concorde/Sunset Films International.
Cast:
Talisa Soto (Vampirella/Ella), Roger Daltrey (Vlad), Richard Joseph Paul (Adam Van Helsing), Lee de Broux (Lieutenant Walsh), Brian Bloom (Demos), Corinna Harney (Sallah), Tom Deters (Traxx), Angus Scrimm (High Elder), David B. Katz (Forry Ackerman)
Plot: On the planet Drakulon, a world inhabited by vampires that feed from the natural rivers of blood, the evil Vlad kills the High Elders and escapes in a spaceship. When she finds her father dead, Ella swears vengeance and follows Vlad. Instead she crashes on Mars where she remains in suspended animation for thirty centuries until a space shuttle crew finds her in the present day. On Earth she sets about hunting down Vlad, who has become a rock star in Las Vegas, and the army of followers that he has trained to prey on humans. Joining forces with Adam Van Helsing of the covert vampire-hunting group Operation Purge, she tries to stop Vlad before he launches his plan to make Earth eternally night.
The comic book Vampirella was created by Forrest J. Ackerman, the fan legend best known as the editor of the seminal prozine Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958-82). The comic book, featuring the adventures of a spectacularly voluptuous good vampire from the planet Drakulon where, with rather scientific improbability, the rivers run with plentiful blood, began in 1969 and still continues into the present-day despite some occasional production gaps and changes of publisher. There are even annual Vampirella model shoots with the costume being filled out by various Playboy models and the like. Hammer Films purchased the rights to Vampirella and in 1976 announced a film production, which would have starred Barbara Leigh. This unfortunately never emerged and Hammer financially folded shortly after. The rights were then inherited by legendary B-budget producer Roger Corman who executive produces this version along with Ackerman.
The Vampirella strip is often drawn with a considerable degree of moody atmosphere. The great disappointment is that Corman has chosen to lavish only one of his customary B-budgets upon the film. The bat transformations and animation are particularly cheap looking. But what finally kills the film is Corman’s selection of director in Jim Wynorski. Wynorski is one of the hacks of B-budget genre cinema, having made the likes of The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), Scream Queen Hot Tub Party (1991), Ghoulies IV (1993), Sorceress (1993), Dinosaur Island (1994) and The Bare Wench Project (1999), among others. The only real virtue of most of these films is a lot of topless women. Wynorski’s films are made with a cynicism that invites the audience to treat the exercise with as much contempt as he clearly does. To Wynorski’s credit, Vampirella is better made than the majority of his abovementioned films – the film is almost PG-rated and lacks any of Wynorski’s usual gratuitous T&A and it is one where at least Wynorski treats the material relatively seriously. That unfortunately only leaves it a slightly better made cheap movie.
The script comes from Gary Gerani, the author of several books on sf cinema as well as the screenplay for Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead (1987). Gerani is faithful to Vampirella’s origin and the basic details of the comic. Although a certain sense of fanboy fawning overwhelms the exercise – Gerani writes in a character called Forry Ackerman and there are film posters and a model head of the robot from Metropolis (1927), Ackerman’s favourite film. What really does the film in as an adaptation of the Vampirella comic book though is Wynorski’s rather indifferent attitude toward it. In the comic book Vampirella cut a provocative figure in her distinctive scarlet-red inch-wide one-piece swimsuit. The film alas more modestly outfits Talisa Soto with a set of plastic red hotpants and a matching top with a ridiculous bat logo. Frankly one has seen more authentic Vampirella’s created by amateurs at convention masquerades.
Moreover the casting of Talisa Soto from License to Kill (1989) and Mortal Kombat (1995) almost kills the character of Vampirella off. Soto is around 5’2” and lacks anything approaching the spectacularly voluptuous figure that Vampirella is drawn with. And while beautiful, Soto seems camera-shy and rarely projects any larger-than-life presence, threat or desirability. Up against her, a ridiculously overacting Roger Daltrey gives an incredibly bad performance.
What is really sad about the film is that a Vampirella with a better budget and a better director could have had the potential to be something magnificently Gothic and moody, not unlike say the Tim Burton Batman (1989). The end credits promise that “Vampirella will return in Death’s Dark Avenger”. One can’t exactly say they’re exactly dying with anticipation.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2002
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