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OK. This is going to be my first attempt at doing the whole CS thing without having the actual DVD handy to rip screens from. Someone suggested I watch The Hunger, to wash the taste of The Man Who Fell to Earth out of my mouth. It's got David Bowie. It's got vampires. It's from 1983. The opening scene is someone singing in this dark punky night club and it honestly is just giving me visions of this alternate universe were The Matrix came out in the mid-80s. I mean, we've got everyone in black leather with shades, and this girl here even looks a little bit like Trinity and boobs-by-paragraph-3'd! Anyway as I was saying, there's a lot of similar visuals to The Matrix here, except then everyone has these pompadours and big gold bracelets and black leather stewardess hats and such.
So... OK that was a lot of stuff we were cutting between. We've got David Bowie making out with topless girl, we've got someone else making out with 80's Trinity,and then we've got someone stabbing a monkey into a pile of hamburger with a pair of ahnk earring/knives. Apparently topless girl is Bowie's vampire girlfriend, and I get the feeling that this movie is really into showing us her boobs, because that's two clear-view makeout sessions of them and counting. Also I think I actually have seen this once, or at least bits of it. Also, here's another monkey! Hmm... apparently this monkey is the prime suspect in the murder of the other monkey. And now here's someone giving a presentation on progeria... or as they call it, PROgerIA. So yeah, this is the Progeria Vampire movie. I don't remember anything more about it than that really, but I definitely recall having used the phrase to describe something before, and well, I kinda hope this was it.
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And oh hey, there's an oldschool horror sound effect. You know that crazy violin screechy thing that kinda sounds like the sort of thing you get when you find a secret exit in Zelda? Yeah that. Also, this movie really seems fond of throwing in 3 second long establishing shots of people really not doing a heck of a lot... or less. It's like, MEANWHILE DAVID BOWIE IS WATCHING TV OK NOW BACK TO THIS STUFF BUT I JUST THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO KNOW! Then we have Countess Boobula going to learn more about this progeria AND NOW HE'S TAKING A NAP business and, yeah, it's like that. So... yeah. Our plot would seem to be that this girl is a vampire, but she gets all lonely, so she I guess maybe makes other people into vampires, but eventually their immortality runs out and they suddenly rapid age and die. Oh. Maybe Bowie here didn't even get to be immortal for a while, and you just plain get progeria from making out with vampires. And he just had a really weird anachronistic haircut in that flashback for the heck of it.
Hmm... while we haven't managed to CURE progeria with this research, we've worked out how to age a monkey 5 years a minute and turn into a rapidly rotting claymation corpse in real time! I'm pretty sure rapid aging doesn't include the rate at which your corpse decomposes like that. Also, while the scientists totally pulled that Doctor Who Season 3 finale on that monkey, David Bowie was out in their lobby rapid aging into a creepy old guy. When they finally get out they're all "oh dude sorry you'd make a GREAT case study!" but he's all bah, I'm cranky, bye! Now here's someone roller-skating around in a weird place while listening to some 80's metal, when suddenly, David Bowie jumps out from around the corner, and stabs him or her in the neck with his little ankh dagger dealy. Because... I guess he needs to drink blood to not age to death, but doesn't just bite people because he has no fangs and/or doesn't want to make more vampires?
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And there's that little generic sound effect again. Apparently he decided not to whack that last weirdo, and instead is going to go home and maybe whack this kid who gets violin lessons from Boobula. Oh. OK, he killed her and this uh... really did not work out. So... being a vampire officially SUCKS in this movie. You get the murdering urge, you age to death, and there don't even seem to be any benefits of any kind. They don't even get fangs. I mean, why the heck did you even make your boyfriend into a vampire here? Was it an accident or did you just forget that you're in a movie that has totally lame worthless vampires that day? OK, so now that he's SO decrepit, she's taking him up to her strangely pigeon filled attic and stuffing him in a crate. OK, technically it's a coffin, but it's a really really dumpy coffin. Which is... in a stack with all her many many other previous love interests, all containing crazy decrepit but still technically alive folks who she's turned into progeria vampires. OK, seriously, what is WRONG with you lady? I get the using people up and stuffing them in the attic so you don't have to look at them, but why sealed in coffins? Why not let them hang out together and have little withered mummy tea parties? Maybe play parcheesi?
Now here's someone investigating the disappearance of dead girl, which goes nowhere. Now here's Researcher Lady almost getting hit by a truck, which goes nowhere. Seriously, it's like the first edit of this movie was 2 hours too long, so they hacked out a whole bunch of scenes, but they were really sloppy about it so they left little bits of them laying around all over or something. Anyway, the one plot thread we seem to actually be advancing is Boobula targeting Researcher Lady as her next lousy-vampire love interest, presumably in the hopes of motivating her to advance her research and maybe find a cure for her attic full of living mummies. So... yeah, we've apparently got a lot of courtship to get through here. To help pass the time, might I point out that Researcher Lady here is played by Susan Sarandon, who's famous for a lot of things and thus it was really shocking to see her play Speed Racer's mom in the surprisingly good live action movie. And now here are HER boobs. Wow what a cheesy scene this is. It's all "uh-oh, I spilled wine on your shirt." "Well then, I guess I'll have to take it off!" Except instead of cueing the porn music, we get Vivaldi. Then we get a prolonged makeout session between Susan Sarandon and this other girl. And OK, I guess Boobula has fangs, just not the lame agey vampires she makes. So... yeah now we're just spending an excessive amount of time showing these two being naked. I'm not generally up on these things, is naked Susan Sarandon most people find themselves wanting to see? I mean, I know this movie's 27 years old but she still has the weird puffy eyes and generally old lady flavored look going on.
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OK, now we're at least starting to kinda turn into a vampire movie. With the why do i have this weird bite mark on my arm and why don't I like any of this food oh yeah I did that and by the way you're kinda my slave now. Seriously though, she was totally able to use her halfway decent vampire mind control thing to lure her to her creepy make-out session, and we just established that this is the whole I drink you drink vampire conversion system so... why turn her into a hyper aging lame vampire? Why not just leave her as a regular aging human who's still your slave, and is way better able to deal with that research you're so concerned with?
Anyway, after a lot of boring genericry, Researcher Lady stabs herself in the chest, so Boobula goes to dump her in the attic and seriously, what's with the pigeons? Apparently though, all the mummies have somehow managed to get loose, and want to give her hugs and kisses. She freaks the hell out because zombies are grody. Fleeing them, she falls down a rather huge stairwell, apparently deactivating her good immortality in the process, goes all zombie looking herself, and the attic mummies die and crumble away. So... everyone who's at all a character is now dead. Oh, good. Now the credits are starting. And aha. Boobula was played by Catherine Deneuve. Another very famous actress too generally middle-agey for most people to want to see naked.
Honestly, while I actually did like the ending there and could imagine a series of events leading up to it that would make for a pretty interesting movie? If you want a British movie from the 1980's with a nude female vampire whose victims rapidly turn into walking mummies that are really clingy and want to make out, you should really just watch Life Force instead. Of course, if that's something you're specifically looking for, odds are you've already seen Life Force like 20 or 30 times. I mean, exploding mummy space vampires! How do you avoid seeing that?
