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Modern Vampires (aka 'Revenant')

June 10, 2007

“The films Modern Vampires and Shrunken Heads are my often misunderstood yet dearly cherished bastard children. An emasculated Modern Vampires was released on cable and VHS missing much of the sex, gore…and a shockingly outrageous scene which explained the ending. The cover art was an absurdly deceptive attempt to catch the Blade audience; grim-faced stand-ins holding knives — nothing to do with the actual film!

Neither Modern Vampires nor Shrunken Heads are really straight-ahead horror films. Both, in fact, are darkly comic, lovingly low-budget social satires, written by Matthew Bright (Freeway), full of twisted humor tinged with dollops of absurd pathos. So take out your garlic and voodoo charms, my friends, tuck your tongues firmly in cheek, and please enjoy my quirky little movies.” – Richard Elfman

Modern Vampires is set in Los Angeles, which, like most of America, is covertly run by blood-sucking vampires. Dr. Van Helsing (Rod Steiger) is hot on the trail of Dallas (Casper Van Dien), a rebel vampire who “turned” a young street hooker (Natasha Gregson Wagner), contrary to the orders of Count Dracula (Robert Pastorelli). The good doctor unwittingly hires crack smoking gang-bangers (led by Gabriel Casseus) as his posse, which only further obscures the lines between Good vs. Evil — that and Van Helsing’s alleged Nazi past (although he claims to have only experimented on the vampires). Kim Cattrall, Craig Ferguson, Udo Kier and Natasha Andreichenko play chic, fun-loving nosferatu who, unfortunately, find themselves dragged into a conflict filled with blood, lust and plenty of wry, pitch-dark humor.

Modern Vampires: 1998, 95 min. Featuring score by Michael Wandmacher, title theme by Danny Elfman, and music by Three 6 Mafia, Reverend Horton Heaton, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi and the Beatnuts.