Vampire Zombies... From Space!

2024

Comedy / Horror / Sci-Fi

7
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 94%
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 356 356

vampire satire parody slapstick comedy ufo crude humor

Director

Michael Stasko Photo
Michael Stasko

Top cast

Michael C. Gwynne Photo
Michael C. Gwynne as K-TIT radio announcer
Judith O'Dea Photo
Judith O'Dea as Vampira
Lloyd Kaufman Photo
Lloyd Kaufman as Public Masturbator
Simon Reynolds Photo
Simon Reynolds as Col. Harlan Talbit
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
902.62 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 38 min
Seeds 71
1.64 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 38 min
Seeds 100+

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by 6 / 10

Loved it!

Reviewed by 6 / 10

Not bad or "bad", just a confusing vibe

I really wanted to like Vampire Zombies...From Space! The trailer looked like a ton of fun: a campy send up to 1950s style sci-fi horror, complete with cheesy effects, flying saucers floating on visible wires, and a goofball premise. Campy and schlocky are my jam.Unfortunately, the movie can't really find its vibe. On one hand it wants to be a parody of classic B movies, but at the same time it's trying to be an homage to these movies. It reminded me a bit of Birdemic, a film that desperately tried too hard to be a "bad" movie. Both films misunderstand why cult classics endure. You can't set out to make a cult film, it just happens.The film is clearly drawing inspiration from Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958), the much-maligned (but beloved) Ed Wood curiosity that's often labeled "the worst movie ever made." (It's not.) Plan 9 survives because it's sincere. Ed Wood legit thought he was making a great movie. People today enjoy the film because it was so incompetently made. There's something endearing about watching a train-wreck made with the best intentions. It accidentally struck a chord with fans of unfortunate cinema.Vampire Zombies...From Space! Is competently made, but tries to look incompetent, selectively, and the result is an odd tonal tug-of-war that never settles into anything cohesive. It's like they are hoping people will stumble across the movie and laugh uproariously at how poorly made it is. But it isn't. Yes, I'm advocating for incompetence.The black-and-white photography looks good. The sets, lighting, and framing all suggest filmmakers who know exactly what they're doing. (Weird back-handed compliment, but okay.) Then you'll get a shot of a UFO that's very clearly a model dangling on a string, wobbling across the frame. That stuff is fun. It's a low-hanging (lol) nod to low-budget effects from the era it's imitating.But then the movie undercuts itself by dropping in CGI effects. And that's where the illusion collapses. You can't lovingly recreate the aesthetics of 1950s sci-fi cheapness and then suddenly rely on digital effects. It's confusing, and not as charming as the filmmakers probably hoped.The story itself is aggressively corny, which is kinda fun. A vampire from space leads an alien invasion, turning townspeople into zombies via vampire bites. To stop them, you don't destroy the brain, zombie-style. You pierce the heart, vampire-style. There's also a bit involving a small-town mayor and local law enforcement trying to downplay the murders, very much in the tradition of small-town B movies. The police chief is also a drunk, which is amusing, but the gag wears thin pretty fast.None of this is inherently bad...or "bad". It's just too broad. The humor isn't parodying the style of 1950s films: the jokes are loud but not particularly sharp. I chuckled a couple of times, but I never laughed out loud, and I definitely never felt surprised.There's a fun cameo from Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma, playing a character called "Public Masturbator," which becomes a recurring gag. Whenever he's spotted, someone always asks if he "finished." It's crude, sure, and maybe mildly amusing in isolation (or even in a Troma film) but it also feels weirdly anachronistic. That kind of joke could work ironically in the moral universe of 1950s sci-fi, if the parody was a bit more clever. It's another example of the film not really understanding what it wants to do with its source material.Strangely enough, the thing that reminded me most of Plan 9 from Outer Space is that I got bored. After a while, the intentional silliness becomes tedious. The cast is large, the runtime feels padded, and the jokes start to feel like variations on the same note.I honestly think this movie would have benefited from a smaller budget, fewer characters, more practical effects, and a runtime closer to an hour. Strip it down. Commit fully. Make it a loving send-up instead of a hodgepodge of styles and tones.The people making Vampire Zombies...From Space! Were clearly having fun, and that joy does come through. Unfortunately, it didn't align with my sense of humor, or my love of schlock cinema done with sincerity. I do think this will find an audience of people who love it.
Reviewed by 7 / 10

Vampire Zombies ... From Space is simply GREAT at being terribly bad!

Making a feature film is a tough job, and anyone involved in a film production has quite a difficult profession. Can we all agree on that? It's easy for reviewers - like myself - to claim that a film is bad, while dedication and hard work went into it. Many directors and their crews work with the best intensions to ultimately deliver a bad film. It's difficult to make a good movie. What is even more difficult, though, is to deliberately make a bad film! Can everyone still follow? It might be easier to give an example...In the fifties of the previous century, a dedicated director named Edward D. Wood really did everything he could to make good and genuinely suspenseful films. He never succeeded, though, because he did not have the financial means and especially not the talent. His films, such as "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" are notoriously bad. More than 70 years later, the clearly talented Michael Stasko is doing his best to make a film that deliberately looks as bad as the work of Ed Wood.And Stasko pulls it off, too! "Vampire Zombies... From Space" is very good at being bad! Stasko and his crew, unlike Mr. Wood, know darn well what they're doing, and their tongue-in-cheek parody/homage to zero-budgeted 1950s Sci-Fi horror is simply wonderful to watch. It's all there: measly black-and-white photography, bats on visible strings, buzzing flying saucers, a Bela Lugosi lookalike Dracula, tough rock 'n roll youngsters in convertibles and greasy hair, hopelessly incompetent Sheriffs and deputies, beautiful girls in distress, pubs full of impenetrable cigarette smoke, and - of course - the total annihiliation of the human race. And, just because it was possible, a cameo appearance of Lloyd Kaufman as the village perv who runs around town masturbating in public. Admittedly, not all characters and plot elements are equally funny and successful, but you happily accept the less good moments and the slightly overlong playing time. Hopefully, this will become a cult favorite!
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