Vamp (1986)

Grace Jones isn’t sexy. She’s never been sexy. She’s just too weird to embrace as a pop culture fantasy.

There’s no softness to her. Her smile isn’t comforting. It’s sinister. You don’t get warm vibes. You get suspicious.

Unapologetically hard-edged, she’s unapproachable. There’s no lure there. Just a sense that she’s to be avoided at all costs.

This might explain why she was frequently cast as villains in the movies, most notably in A View To A Kill. But it doesn’t explain her particularly strange appearance in Vamp which arrived a year later.

At an unusual strip joint only open after dark, she plays Katrina, a featured dancer. When she takes the stage, we think she’s auditioning to play Pennywise, what with her flaming red wig and stern, ghostly face. Even though Jones is Jamaican she looks African with all that tribal war paint generously covering the rest of her lanky body. She wouldn’t have been out of place in the Hungry Like The Wolf video.

When she strips down, her bikini, if you can call it that, looks like it was made from parts of a stove, like three tiny elements covering all her private areas.

Undeniably charismatic, she just doesn’t know how to seduce. Try as she may to writhe around in suggestive ways, she can’t possibly think this is getting over. The easily impressed men who have come here to see her certainly seem transfixed. But no one paid me to pretend to feel this way.

One young man eager to talk to her privately is AJ (Robert Rusler), a college student here on a mission. Along with his friend Keith (Chris Makepeace eerily resembling a young Mel Gibson), they’ve made a spontaneous, face-saving deal with a fraternity they’re trying to join purely for the accommodations.

After a dark hazing ritual bombs (they’re supposed to be fake hanged wearing just their underwear, for some dumb reason), they counter with an idea. What if they instead find a stripper for the fraternity’s next big rager?

The problem is they have no transportation and less than 200 bucks between them. But they know Duncan (Geddy Watanabe), an annoying people-pleasing rich kid with a car and no genuine friends. Starving for real companionship, he has no problem lending them one of his nine vehicles. Just take him along for the ride, please. They should’ve left him behind.

While en route, they find Katrina’s ad in the paper and head out to find her club. At one point, they almost get into a car accident. But then, once they stop spinning around, totally unscathed it should be noted, they suddenly appear in a completely different place altogether.

It looks abandoned. We soon find out why.

It’s getting late and before they arrive, they stop in a local dive for a quick nip. That’s where they immediately face hostility in the form of Snow (Billy Drago), an albino roughneck who resembles Johnny Rotten. When Keith makes the mistake of flirting with one of his flattered companions who flashes her bad teeth thereby resulting in instant regret, suddenly it’s go time.

But the goons are easily outsmarted and the three college kids finally make their way to the After Dark Club. Upon arriving they encounter Sandy Baron who cares more about their cash flow than whether they’re 21 or not. He also introduces all the dancers. (Don’t eat his snacks. Trust me on this.)

One performer, dressed like a construction worker, inspires his only funny one-liner. I certainly wouldn’t describe Jones as a “builder of great erections”.

After Katrina’s peculiar performance, AJ is sent to the back to make his sales pitch directly. Much to his surprise, he’s under the seriously wrong impression that he’s going to get laid. Yes, there’s a whole lotta licking going on (and foot on foot action) which isn’t remotely arousing. But then, we learn the truth about Katrina.

When he doesn’t come back to go home with Keith and Duncan, inquiries into his whereabouts causes an irritated Baron to panic. They only want loners and degenerates to come here, people who won’t be missed after they’ve been murdered.

This is bad. This is a problem.

Not that they have anything to worry about, though. When the cops are belatedly contacted and start snooping around, as anticipated by Baron himself, they don’t make any arrests. They just tell the college guys to get lost.

The boys do have an unlikely ally in the club’s new waitress Allison, played by the adorable Dedee Pfeiffer who looks like she just walked off the set of a Madonna video during her Boy Toy period.

Charming and endlessly cute, she’s long had a thing for Keith who doesn’t remember them ever playing spin the bottle when they were in grade school. (Put it this way. I certainly wouldn’t have waited until the end of the movie to kiss her, that’s for sure.)

However, the movie constantly teases the idea that she’s not to be trusted, either. One quick shot in a local store makes it seem like she has no reflection. When Keith gets a cut on his finger, she sucks the blood she says to prevent it from getting infected.

While being misled into thinking AJ left the club without them, Allison takes Keith to a hotel to meet with someone who might help them in the search. But then they get separated and suddenly the yearning waitress trying to find herself after acting didn’t work out is gone, albeit briefly. Keith runs into her as he flees the scene.

While in a sewer he even teasingly lifts a manhole cover just to make sure she really can take the incoming sunshine. These are all unnecessary swerves just to jerk us around.

Hybrid horror comedies are tough to get right. Balance is key but Vamp never finds it. The only other laugh is that elevator operator’s ridiculous toupee which even cracks up Keith and Allison who can’t quite keep it together. (Where the hell did he go, though?)

I’m wondering what were these other mysterious “funny lines” Roger Ebert referred to in his somewhat generous pan back in the day. I certainly didn’t hear them.

As for the “scares,” if you think being attacked by an autonomous elevator is frightening or watching Katrina literally rip the heart out of one of her victims is shocking, you haven’t seen many good horror films.

Speaking of Katrina, why doesn’t she say anything? Jones is clearly the biggest name here and yet she’s essentially a supporting player in her own movie. Ebert was right. Hollywood never knew what to do with her.

Released in 1986, Vamp has the curious distinction of featuring three future Seinfeld players. You’ve got Jack Klompus himself Sandy Baron, Morty’s longtime nemesis; Pfeiffer, George’s short-lived paramour Victoria, the one who gets him the job with the Yankees; and Seinfeld Japanese superfan turned freaked out guest of Kramer Geddy Watanabe.

Cheerful babyface Pfeiffer is the only one who delights despite not being given anything funny to say. She’s the opposite of Jones, warm-hearted and loyal, often popping in right when she’s needed. Despite being genuinely hurt that Keith has forgotten her she can’t quite give up on him. She knows he’s her much needed ticket out of here.

Once AJ is seemingly out of the picture which profoundly disturbs him (he will return at a most awkward moment and then a second time just in the nick of time), Keith is able to withstand adversity at every turn, only occasionally needing an assist. Although the movie puts him in several close call situations you never really feel he will meet a similar fate as his best friend.

Can’t say the same for Duncan. Not that he’ll be missed.

For an insulated community that surely knows what its vulnerabilities are, you’d think these bloodsuckers would be a lot more cautious about serving up flammable booze. Or at the very least rethink keeping giant barrels of gasoline in the same room where they sleep during the day.

Are they secretly tired of living this dreadful lifestyle? Is that why they’ve become so sloppy around college students?

And why is that little vampire girl biting Snow? Aren’t they on the same team?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, June 15, 2024
3:22 a.m.