Fist of the Vampire (2007)
Starring Brian Anthony, Darian Caine & Alex Bolla
Directed by Len Kabasinski
Written by Len Kabasinski
His name is Lee (Antony). He’s an ass-kicking martial arts expert and a DEA agent. He’s been sent in to take down an illegal fight club that’s up to its neck in gambling, prostitution and drugs, so he infiltrates the operation the best way he can – by going undercover as a fighter. But this isn’t your average den of vice and villainy. These particular vice-peddling villains are vampires. Not only that – they’re the very vampires that killed Lee’s family when he was a boy.
If, like me, you’re thinking, “Hey! This is a movie starring Darian Caine, and it’s got the word ‘fist’ in the title...” Well, no, I’m afraid this movie doesn’t have that kind of action. But hey, it does have a fair amount of the more generally accepted variety of fisting. And from the look of things, a good portion of the cast of Fist of the Vampire are pretty decent martial artists, among them the director himself who co-stars under pseudonym Leon South. But being a good fighter is one thing; being a good writer and director is quite another. I should expect you already have a fair idea which area Mr Kabasinski needs to improve in.
To be fair, there is most definitely room for improvement. While there’s absolutely no escaping Fist of the Vampire’s ultra-low budget trappings – namely, atrocious lighting and at times illegible audio, which are swiftly becoming my pet hates in indie horror – steps are taken to make a virtue out of these failings. I don’t know if Robert Rodriguez did any trademarking when he developed the battered print look of the Grindhouse movies, but I should damn well think he wishes he had done, as it is utilised heavily here, accentuated by a fairly decent old school electronic score. On top of this there’s a strong video game aesthetic on show, much of the gunplay and kung fu done in a digitised manner that makes them look as though they literally came straight out of Grand Theft Auto or some such shoot ‘em up/beat ‘em up title. These are nice touches, and they work - to begin with. But when the action scenes are on the whole so poorly paced and edited – way, way too many moments of people standing completely still waiting to punched/kicked/shot – it’s not enough to maintain viewer interest for 90 minutes.
Unsurprisingly, nothing outside of the fight scenes is of any interest whatsoever. Brian Antony is certainly buff and has some moves, but he’s lightyears from being a compelling hero. The same goes for heroine Cheyenne King. Of course, the vapid, endlessly meandering script certainly doesn’t do either of them any favours; for law enforcers anxious to bust the case wide open, these guys don’t half dawdle. Brian Heffron’s OTT big bad boss is of passing amusement, but that routine also gets old quick. And as for Darian Caine – well, she’s Darian Caine, doing pretty much what she does in all her movies, which needn’t be a bad thing. But holy shit, given how much experience she has, you’d have thought she’d be able to inject a bit more life into the requisite gratuitous lipstick lesbian scenes, one of which has to be the most utterly inept, unconvincing attempt at girl on girl action I have ever seen. And I went to university.
Hmm... believe it or not, I’m doing my best to emphasise the positive elements here. But the truth is, that silver lining is pretty fucking thin. The bad by far outweighs the good in Fist of the Vampire. I have no doubt that with higher production values, better direction and – dare I say it – an actual story, most of the people involved are almost certainly capable of pulling off a decent action movie. But they haven’t done it yet, no sir.
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