What is it with our current Vampire fixation? The kids today seem to love that “Twilight” motion picture (haven’t seen it), and the “True Blood” television program is doing very well (haven’t seen that either), and there still are a lot of  “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” fans (have seen it, in fact I own every episode, in fact I think it’s one of the best TV shows ever).  Vampire stuff is more popular than ever now, so perhaps what kept “Blood Of The Vampires” from being a big hit in its day was the fact that it was released about thirty or forty years too soon.

 “Blood Of The Vampire,” like the current crop of successful Vampire movies and TV shows, doesn’t depend on blood for its thrills as much as it does romance. “Twilight” has a big teen love element to it, and most of the demonic storylines on “Buffy” were metaphors for teenage lust and high school angst.  “Blood Of The Vampires” lays the romance on even thicker.  Even though there is a lot of blood sucking and satanic mayhem going on, “Blood Of The Vampires” is at heart a chick movie that expresses the idea that true love lives on for all eternity (after a suitable amount of people have been brutally mutilated and killed, that is).

I just hope that the vogue for romantic adolescent vampire movies lasts long enough for me to pitch my brilliant, can’t-miss, guaranteed-blockbuster movie idea, “Teen Count Chocula.”

We’ve spent a far amount of time with this movie: writing and then performing, and this film really does have it moments. More than anything, “Blood of the Vampires” has a passion to it. Director Eddie Romero and Producer Kane W. Lynn did a lot with a little and along the way brought some interesting wrinkles to the vampire genre – but, really I’m a casual vampire movie observer so don’t quote me or anything.  This same team brought to the screen the feature we’re currently performing live on the road “Danger of Tiki Island” (originally titled “Brides of Blood Island”). In fact, if you watch both movies, and I really hope you do – you’ll see lots of the same sets, locations, and swords on the wall.

The setting of the story is Mexico: wealthy land barons and vampires and the church. The overall theme that emerges is, what I feel, a unique premise for the time: the Catholic Church is where you go when you absolutely positively have to get rid of your vampire problem. It’s a pretty rockin’ combo: the elegance of the Spanish Catholics in the 1800s: steeped in ritual, history, and symbolism up against the blood drunk swagger of swarthy Latino vampires -- and really, can you have one without the other? Of course, I know:  vampires hate the cross – it burns them. I know Van Helsing sort of acted like a priest, as least Peter Cushing did when he played him, but I’ve never seen them actually enlist an actual priest before. This is a good solid 8 years before the movie “The Exorcist” was made, and started a world wild fascination with good and evil and the hard luck life of Linda Blair.

“Blood of the Vampires” bring in lots of the other symbols and religious relics from the Catholic church too – besides the crucifix, there’s sort of a parade at the end, before the final face-off between the clergy and the hive of vampires. The townspeople chant in what I assume is Latin as they pull these “floats” with different saints represented up to the house where the vampire family lives. I had never seen these artifacts before, and I presume will never see again. I guess they sort of represent the “heavy artillery” when you’re vampire-fighting. The lesson here is: vampires just can’t abide with Jesus, and it really really pushes their buttons when little dolls representing the saints get involved.

 The all Filipino cast works surprisingly well mimicking Mexicans but hits a speed bump when they try to replicate the black slaves owned by the land-baron Don Carlo. These are obviously Filipino actors with really dark make-up on them. It’s a bit unsettling to watch in this day and age… Yet, given this was shot in the sixties you have to wonder: did Filipinos really have the social leverage back then to even be considered racist, or were they just working with what they had? Of course – filtered through time and our ever- changing media context, it just looks goofy.

 In short: Romero and Lynn blend cultural upheaval with faith, progress, and superstition into an excellent host body for we riff-pires to feed off on – I hope you’re hungry!

 You know, Blood of the Vampires gets me every time. I’m not just talking about its torrid over- the-topness, the badly dubbed sheer melodrama-ness of it all.  I get a little teary-eyed over Leonore and Daniel’s love story. I’m not proud of it, I’m just tellin’ it like it is. 

Now, I know it’s a bad movie, but it kind of moves me when Leonore is so heartbroken after Daniel dies and she doesn’t want to live. Anyway, I think that’s how the movie goes and I think that’s who those people are. I’ve only watched it about four million times, so I may be a little foggy on the details.

 I myself have had some intense and soul sucking relationships, so I get how things could get so dysfunctional. I mean, whose father hasn’t forbidden you to marry because your mom is a vampire and then insisted that the family home be burned down?

 And I am soooo not a sucker for romantic movies. Hate ‘em.  Unless they’re funny and dark - and then just happen to be romantic.  But Daniel’s a pretty damn good boyfriend. He asks God to take him instead of Leonore.  And he promises Leonore he will never be far away, and sure enough, he comes to her in her distress and anguish. He’s good on his word, and she never doubts him. And yeah, it gets me every time.

This is that rare movie that even though we’ve performed it many times, I become very engrossed in it, beyond executing the riffs and enjoying my colleagues’ performances. I’m actually engaged in the movie itself, as if I’ve never seen it before. So much so that sometimes I’ve gotten so caught up in it that I lose my place. I got caught up in it to the point where I started mouthing along to the dialogue and imitating the grand, melodramatic gestures being played out by the actors on screen. This is something I used to do at mass when I was a kid: I’d mirror the priest’s elaborate arm gestures during the ritual. With their eyes fixed straight ahead, concentrating on the priest’s ritual and never saying a word, my mom or dad would gently press my arms down.

 And Josh basically has had to do the same thing.  During sound check before one show, he gently told me that my acting out and mouthing the dialogue was becoming, ahem, distracting. I was so embarrassed. 

The thing is, this movie may be completely melodramatic while managing to be offensive and racist, but it does execute some things rather competently. There are a lot of interesting shots; I’d go so far as to suggest that the filmmakers were pretty competent in showing what it might look like if your brother-in-law came back from the dead and appeared as an apparition and refused to engage in a swordfight with you.

And I really like it when Leonore is forbidden to marry, and she declares fiercely, “I too am an Escodero and nothing can change my feelings.”  So take that, Pop! One thing that really bugs me is that when Leonore comes to from almost dying from her vampirism, she’s surrounded by doctors, priests, family members, household staff, the exterminator, the UPS guy, the PTA, you name it.  Me, I just want to be alone when I’m not feeling good.