I'm hooked on those cheap DVDs you find at dollar stores. It's like a disease. Anyway, when I walked into my local Just-A-Buck and saw a fanged Carmen Electra on the front cover of American VAMPIRE (a.k.a. AN American VAMPIRE STORY, for those of you interested enough to care) I thought to myself "We have a winner!" As a bonus, Adam ("Batman") West makes an appearance? I was in B-Movie heaven... until I actually watched the film. American VAMPIRE tells the story of a California surf bum teen who unwittingly opens his rad beach front home to a pack of vampires (led by a pudgy guy named "Moondoggie," I swear to GOD)while his parents are away on vacation. If you're hoping for a bloodsucking variation on RISKY BUSINESS at this point, you're going to be sorely disappointed because...well, nothing much happens. The kid spends much of the movie asking his dim-bulb friend (who was apparently channeling the "Bill & Ted" films in his performance) "How am I going to get rid of them?" until he is led to Adam West, a Hawaiian shirted descendant of the Van Helsings (again, I am not making this up)to help him slay them. This all could've been played out in half an hour but drags out for an excruciating near-90 minutes. Worse, we barely see Carmen Electra and when she is on screen she doesn't do anything. She's basically wallpaper. Don't get me wrong, I love bad horror movies and I love silly comedies, but American VAMPIRE does not classify as either one. If it weren't for the bondage gear that Carmen and her female-vamp com-padre are wearing in the brief time that they're on screen, this thing could run on the Family Channel as a Halloween special. Ignore, delete, destroy. The Dollar Store DVD maven has warned you.
Review of An American Vampire Story
