"The only choice left is how to die: slow and painful, or quick and easy."
In Short

This is a sequel, of sorts, to John Carpenter’s underrated 1998 gore flick, Vampires, but it is only a sequel in various plot similarities and a mention of the priest from the first film. Not that in the end this matters, as so far as the vampire genre goes, Vampires: Los Muertos is a highly entertaining yarn with plenty of gore (though a little less than the first film) and a boatload of action. Perhaps though the biggest surprise is that Jon Bon Jovi does a more than admirable job in taking over the same post that James Woods had in the original as leader of the vampire hunters. While the role does not call for a lot of deep acting, he pulls off the whole macho routine with frightening ease.


Synopsis

In Vampires: Los Muertos, we meet up with badass vampire hunter Derek Bliss (played by Jon Bon Jovi from U-571 and Pay It Forward), who has just gotten a huge assignment to go over a vampire master. Derek has a lot of difficulty in getting a new team together, and things get no better when he has to team up with a vampire, one who is fighting the disease and thus still human - so far - named Zoey (played by Natasha Gregson Wagner from Play It To The Bone and Urban Legend). With her help, and a priest named Father Rodrigo (played by Christian de la Fuente from Driven), Derek heads off to Mexico to face down a very powerful vampire.

In Detail

There are several different kinds of vampire movies released in this day and age, either theatrically or direct to video. The theatrical movies that do well are primarily the Anne Rice type movies with the whole vampire/quasi-gay angle running rampart like Interview With The Vampire and Queen Of The Damned. The other types, which sometimes make it to the theater but are rarely successful, are the gritty vampire movies that go against the rules that Anne Rice and her ilk have established, like After Dark, or a vampire hunting movie like the original Vampires. Here we of course have more of the same vampire hunting goodness that we saw in John Carpenter's original. While it is a little lesser on the violence scale, considering how incredibly violent the original was, do not expect this one to be less than a 10 gallon of blood film. There are a number of interesting aspects of this film, as was the case in the original, about the hunters working for the church and getting paid for each kill. Unfortunately, this is not gone into with any depth, as it would have only slowed down the breakneck pace of this thriller. Vampires: Los Muertos knows well enough not to have to many dead spaces; it is simply one scene after another until the final showdown.


Director Tommy Lee Wallace (who directed the Stephen King min-series "IT" as well as the feature Halloween III: Season Of The Witch) is excellent here; the film looks great, there are some creative shots, and he manages to crank up the intensity on a number of scenes. While most aspects of Vampires: Los Muertos will go just as you expect them to, there are a few minor surprises to be had here or there. The most underdone aspect of the movie is the head vampire herself (who is played by Arly Jover from Blade and Impostor); while she is evil in a beautifully freaky sort of way, we learn absolutely nothing about her other than she wishes to walk around during the day. There is no other history to be had; not that it really gets in the way of the story, but a little depth, anything at all really, would have added much to her character.


Incidentally, if the character of Ray Collins looks familiar, but you just cannot place the face or the voice and exactly where you have seen him before? Possibly it’s because he is played by Darius McCrary, who played the squeaky clean character Edward Winslow on the television series “Family Matters”. While he does a decent enough job in playing a badass, the voice that he uses is clearly a put on and drastically different from his normal voice, which is a constant distraction.


For you gore hounds out there who are tired of renting supposed slasher/horror films and having them skimp on the blood, do not fear to rent this one. While, again, the blood is slightly less than it was in the original, there is still three times as much as most direct to video features from the nineties on upwards. As well, do not let the fact that it stars Jon Bon Jovi scare you away, as he actually does a more than adequate job in this one. It could be worse; they could have had Freddy Prinze Jr. as the vampire hunter, given him a shaved head, and added a CGI version of Matthew Lillard on his shoulder saying, “Arrrrr”.