Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to another exciting edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, a column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the good folks at horroryearbook decide to throw my way.
This time around I was contacted directly by my old chum Sonny Fernandez. Sonny is the hardworking mastermind behind Down Twisted Studios. He currently holds the record for being the director whose films I have reviewed the most. I’ve already reviewed five of his past efforts in previous ICFTMB columns. You can check out those reviews here: Bleed, Aborted/Cold Blooded, The Last Battleground.
Sonny’s latest effort is a vampire chick flick titled THE NEW GIRLS. The vampire chicks are a tasty yet terrifying trio of gothic eye candy with appropriately exotic names – Svetlana, Lenore, and Renai. The film opens with a late night bloodbath that quickly establishes the girls as a deadly force to be reckoned with. The seemingly beautiful young girls are in reality centuries old bloodthirsty vampires that are on the run from their homelands in Europe. The vamps vacation in a hick town in the middle of Nowheresville USA and quickly begin draining the life away from the local yokels. The leader of the pack, Svetlana has visions of gutters being cleaned with blood and vows raining death upon the humans.
The new girls immediately catch the eye of a pack of body count fodder that are planning a weekend beer bash blowout. A dude makes the mistake of inviting the new girls to the party and a deadly chain of events is set into motion. The sexy girls immediately make a big splash at the party. A drunken idiot goes up to Svetlana and offers to suck a fart out of her ass like a bong hit. Svetlana responds by inviting him into the bathroom and then ripping his jugular out with her teeth. Meanwhile, love is in the air. The sensitive vampire chick Renai discovers feelings she never knew before when she meets a tubby emo boy at the party and walks home with him. These two losers immediately fall in love, which does not make Svetlana happy.
I have to admit, I’m not much of a vampire fan. Fuck, I could probably get kicked off of this website for saying this – but I don’t even like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The current trend of vampire loving goth girls with copies of Twilight tucked under their flabby arms leaves me scratching my head. Vampires and vampire flicks are gay. The only exceptions are the original Salem’s Lot and anything with sexy vampire girls. Sonny was smart enough to make a vampire flick with some Salem’s Lot influence and he got three hot chicks to star in it. This was a good call. The girls helped me pay attention and the movie had enough action to keep me interested.
The only downside of the movie as far as I’m concerned is the love story. Now matter how much dramatic music Sonny blasts in the background, the scenes with the vampire girl and her wimpy love interest are time wasters. There is no real emotional connection between the two. It all happens way too fast, and the two actors have no chemistry together. The love story feels forced, and is the only part of the movie that I could do without. The rest of the film is great. It seems to occasionally poke fun of the current vampire genre. For real horror fans, there’s plenty of blood sucking, heart ripping, and gut grabbing.
On the technical side of things, I think Sonny is getting better with every film he makes. Considering how little money he has to work with the final results are pretty impressive. The special effects in this one are mostly blood gags and they look convincing. There’s some hilarious looking monster bats that make a brief appearance. Unlike some of Sonny’s other flicks, the monsters and mayhem are kept to a minimum. This is more of a “traditional” horror film than Sonny usually makes, but it also moves a lot faster than Sonny’s other flicks and is easier to follow. I think his earlier films have a bit more “soul” than this one, but THE NEW GIRLS is probably Sonny’s best overall effort. The improvement from film to film is amazing, I’m really looking forward to seeing more DOWN TWISTED epics!
Sonny was nice along to send along a two-disc (!) screener copy of THE NEW GIRLS. The bonus disc contained a lot of funny bloopers, behind the scenes special effects footage, and trailers. I think Sonny’s flicks keep getting better and better. All horroryearbook alumni are highly encouraged to support the man and check out his flicks! You can keep up with the latest Sonny Fernandez happenings at his official myspace page.
KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!
OK, if you like to do the review thing, I’ll give ya one to look at. It is vampires in the new sense, psychic vamps, and in truth, it doesn’t even mention vampires. Take a look at Annie’s Gift by Holden Herbert. It’s not your normal vampire stuff, it’s got great blood and guts,it’s sexy and has a great sense of humor. I’d say go to Amazon and check it out. If ya want to see if it’s worth it, do the “take a look inside” thing. I did not come from the mailbox, but it does have a little romance even for the guys in the group.
I apperciate the reviews of these things but I really wish you’d break down more on the film. Criticism’s that may seem obvious maybe are not so apperent. I’m talking especially about the acting. Could it be that it was really bad but you couldn’t see our tounges inside our cheeks?
I’m basically saying more indepth reviews would be killer.
The average attention span on the internet is around 30 to 40 seconds. No one reads “indepth” reviews. Especially for films from indy directors that they never heard of.
It’s a fair point. To be honest, a big reason that I don’t get more in depth with the acting/actors is because I’m too lazy to remember all of the character names, watch the end credits, and then write down your names. If I get a press release with that sort of info I’ll sometimes include it in my reviews.
I know that sounds horribly lazy and unprofessional of me…welcome to HYB.