Lorenzo Lamas Sucks...Blood

Blood Angels (2004) dir. Ron Oliver

Also titled Thralls, there are several reasons to actually see this film:

1. Lorenzo Lamas as a jerkwad vampire named Mr. Jones. As if being a vampire doesn’t make him enough of an asshole, Mr. Jones also drives a Hummer—thus making him an energy vampire as well. Nice symbolism.
2. The pathetic assistant Rennie (Richard Cox): it’s hard to label him “comic relief” in a film that is laughable enough most of the time, but he is worth a few chuckles. Silliest Renfield I’ve seen in a long time.
3. Leslie (Leah Cairns) should be familiar to BSG fans as “Racetrack.”

If that’s not enough to get you to see this, then…well, I suppose there is something to be said for the entertainment value of just sitting in front of a bonsai tree and watching it grow. But if you’ve had enough of vegetation, this isn’t a bad alternative.

To begin with, why does it have to always have to be about the end of the world?
It’s not enough that Mr. Jones’s thralls (sub-vampire concubine-like servants) have escaped and he’s going to chase them down—no, they also have to be duped into organizing a New Year’s Eve rave that will provide enough psychic energy to power up the ritual opening of some sort of hell-gate that will unleash Belial, a world-killing demon. I know the importance of raising the stakes, but sometimes a film can benefit from kicking them down a notch. In this case, the problem is that when you promise a world-killing demon and you deliver a worm with a puppet head at the end of the movie, you have not impressed upon me the high stakes you were going for. And all this building up psychic energy nonsense through intense rave dancing is almost as lame as counting up midi-chlorians. Almost.

But let’s backtrack a second to what this film does right: a band of attractive women kicking ass and sucking blood while being chased by a smug Lorenzo “It’s demon time!” Lamas doing his best Billy Zane impersonation. The “psychic energy” might be a lame excuse for the Coyote Ugly-style grrl bar scenes at the rave, but hey if that’s what it takes to get writhing thralls, then so be it. And the best part about these thralls is that they are about as nice as vampires can get. They don’t kill anyone, they just apply a light draining to over-eager guys. The best example of this is the lucky bastard whose punishment for starting a fight at the rave is to be taken to a back room by Brigitte (Moneca Delain) and given either the world’s worst fellatio or the world’s most awesome leeching.

It’s great how Mr. Jones keeps his thralls dressed in white, shackled together in an upstairs room bathed in white light. Nothing says “vampire” more than bright white lights. And is it bad that when Roxie (Fiona Scott) takes off her top while taking a break from deejaying my immediate thought was that her breasts would turn into snakes and bite Doughboy (Kevan Ohtsji)? (By the time she says “You like ‘em? Good. They like you, too,” I had already long since foreseen the eel-like serpents that would attach themselves to the poor sap’s neck and drain him.) I think I’ve seen too many movies like this when that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I see a topless girl. Let’s hope this doesn’t bleed into my personal life.

Of course, all this wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t have Leslie’s innocent pig-tailed sister Ashley (Siri Baruc) who is being abused at home and is a cutter. It may be a little trite to throw something serious in here, but it’s not a stretch to say that the super-human vampire strength is a wish-fulfillment metaphor for feminist empowerment. Speaking of which, when the thralls have to turn Ashley into a fully fledged vampire to save her life she instantly loses the pigtails—because vampirism is the opposite of frumpiness.

One liners abound and there’s even an appearance by a Hunter Thompson look-alike talking about bats and we are even set up for a sequel (did they really think that would be forthcoming?) by ending with Lorenzo Lamas’s detached head attempting to give someone the finger.
Good vampires triumph over the bad ones and the one thrall who sells out the rest gets her comeuppance by dying in an embarrassing way with Rennie the loser. Let’s here it for Girl Vampire Power! (Thrall-power?) Or something like that.

And if all that wasn’t entertaining enough, the credits sequence is interrupted with a music video for “Lady Venom” by the Swollen Members, which I’ll admit after a second viewing I think is not a terrible video for a song that has a decent beat and could be a lot worse. And why did I see this video twice? Because the movie was actually amusing enough for me to go watch the whole thing a second time. If you’re up for a decent crappy movie (I warned you about how awful Belial looks but I forgot to mention that the opening scene of the movie looks like an out-take from a Church of the Subgenius video.) then Blood Angels sucks in just about the right way.

Extras
I have to admit that I’m especially fond of trailers and other previews, even the annoying ones that automatically come on at the beginning like these.

1. Evil Remains (featuring Kurtwood Smith, from That 70’s Show) as some guy who is evil and is…remaining…somewhere and Estella Warren as some girl who has possibly remained somewhere that is evil.

2. The Life featuring Daryl Hannah and Denise Richards as prostitutes. This is like the Platonic form of a Skinemax film.

I’d like to say that I’m immune to advertising, but I’ll have to admit that I’ve been tempted by both of these flicks when I’ve seen them inching their way to the clearance bin. So far, I have resisted the temptation, but of course, if I had enough time on my hands to see Blood Angels twice…you might be seeing a review of those movies coming soon. (Call it a titanic struggle of willpower, if you’d like.)