Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
When a film is called Vampire Hookers, your expectations are pretty low, but very specific.
‘You like the way I look’
The plot is basically On the Town as a horror, sex comedy.
‘All my life I’ve heard about sailors having a girl in every port’
Manila, Manila, it’s a wonderful town.
‘Man are we lucky to be stationed here’
'Yes we are'‘
John Carradine’s up.
'Moist on my lips'
Vic Diaz is down.
Yes it’s an all-star exploitation cast as we meet sailors on leave Tom and Terry,
the only men in the navy who can’t get laid in Manila, and don’t get how prostitution works.
Their friend Eddie has more luck and heads off with a girl, however…
‘We’re going to do it in a cemetery?’
Little weird.
‘This is where I live’
Getting weirder,
‘I don’t believe this’
At what point do you think; I want sex, but not this much,
‘Not in a coffin’
That’s my line in the sand.
‘Coffin’s are for being laid to rest, not for being laid’
I forgot to mention this film has the dry wit of a Neil Simon play.
To the seal the deal, Eddie turns on the charm,
‘Why don’t we just do it and let me get the hell out of here, OK?’
but it ends badly.
As we meet the girl’s crypt-mates.
'I'm Marcy.'
'I'm Susie'
'I'm Cherry.'
'I'm Richmond Reed.'
John Carradine’s real name was Richmond Reed Carradine
and this vampire is a southern poetry enthusiast,
'Come lovely and soothing death, undulate around the world, serinely arriving.'
Who has retired to the Philippines with his wannabe vampire servant,
‘Pavel want fangs’
and companions,
‘I’ll give anything to go to the beach for at least 15 minutes’
Who are bored of this shut-in existence with their elderly master,
‘I’m sick and tired of these bloody marys’
I quite like the idea of an older vampire for whom things maybe got too hot back home,
moving to a more permissive town where the girls can easily bring back men for him to feed on,
‘I hope it’s a red-blooded American this time’
This vampire retirement plan has the makings of an interesting movie,
especially since the filmmakers have resisted the idea of making the girls his lovers,
and play up the generation gap.
'Go to bed.'
'I never liked going to bed alone.'
The film doesn’t deliver on any of this but the idea did make me think.
Now Tom and Terry go looking for their friend,
‘That would make you a…’
'‘Vampire’
‘We are all vampires’
and nearly pay for it with their lives.
‘It’s not murder, it’s dinner’
Why do vampires need knives?
They now know Eddie is dead but Tom still goes back, alone as Terry is scared,
and it seems as if he will suffer the same fate as his friend,
‘A girl can have a good time once in a while’
but, the girls are lonely and Carradine is willing to wait for dinner,
‘One night with them will kill you anyway’
Tom is torn between death or glory,
‘I gotta get out of here'
'– first thing in the morning’
So the film becomes a sort of Arabian nights,
except it’s just one night and rather telling stories to get a stay of execution,
‘Whose turn is it?’
And after 12 minutes of soft-core writhing.
‘Whose turn is it?'
‘Not mine’
'Not mine.'
'Not mine.'
Like the red-blooded US sailor he is, Tom has satisfied all three, and is ready for his reward.
‘When can we kill him?’
I like the fact they’re not seduced, they don’t fall in love; still gonna kill him.
While this has been going on...
‘I’m looking for somebody’
Terry has come to rescue his friend only to be chased off, by John Carradine’s Philippine body double.
Then he comes back again and is attacked by Vic Diaz,
an encounter which, for no reason I can think of, turns Diaz into a vampire,
which delights him,
precipitating a bad case of ‘How do we end this?...
Oh well now the sex is over no one’s watching any more anymore so who cares?’
Yep. Him jumping up and down makes the crypt collapse,
distracting the vampires enough that Terry can stake them.
I said at the start that expectations were low but specific and, truth be told, this hits its target market.
‘Whose turn is it?’
although only really for 12 minutes in the middle,
‘Perefct would be if the sun never came up and I could stay here forever’
For the rest, it’s level of comedy makes Confessions of a Window Cleaner look like it was scripted by Tom Stoppard.
‘It’s not my ear drums I want blown’
The plot is nothing,
‘That my friend is not the question’
the good guys are whatever is less than nothing.
‘I can handle it’
and yet, maybe I’m crazy, I can’t help thinking there is something in the retired elderly vampire,
spouting poetry no one cares about amidst beautiful women who have lost their appeal to him over the long centuries  .
‘Doesn’t anyone understand poetry any more?’
Sounds like I’m writing a very different film.
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John Carradine is a mainstay of Dark Corners, what are your favourite Carradine performances?
'Wait for me.'
'Yeah sure.'
'Hey, where you going?'
