A fun, funny vampire comedy from director Richard Wenk, Vamp is one of those endearing movies that, regardless of how goofy it gets, you can’t help but love.
To impress their potential fraternity brothers, pledges Keith (Chris Makepeace) and A.J. (Robert Rusler) agree to find a stripper for the frat’s big party later that night. Borrowing a car from the wealthy yet dim-witted Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), they head into the city, where they stumble upon the After Dark strip club.
The main attraction at the club is the mysterious Katrina (Grace Jones), but when A.J. tries to hire her for the night, he quickly discovers that neither she nor the After Dark are what they appear to be.
While watching Vamp, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it must have influenced Tarantino’s script for From Dusk Till Dawn (a strip club used as a front for bloodthirsty vampires), and like that movie the vampires in this 1986 film are vicious when they’re hungry (the scene with Grace Jones and Robert Rusler is particularly brutal). Along with its bloodthirsty beauties, Vamp is a funny flick. Watanabe gets his share of laughs as the needy Duncan, as does Sandy Baron as Vic, the seedy manager of the After Dark, and the blending of comedy and horror is one of the film’s strongest attributes.
Performance-wise, Chris Makepeace is decent as Keith, though he’s often upstaged by both Robert Rusler (so good as the scheming A.J.) and Dedee Pfieffer (as Allison, the ditzy stripper with a heart of gold). The standout, though, is easily Grace Jones, who, without delivering a single line of dialogue, is both sexy and charismatic as the lethal Katrina. Her dance routine is the highlight of the movie.
If you enjoy horror comedies, you should immediately move Vamp to the top of your queue.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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