Die Hard Dracula

Welcome back Sporefans. I know that I've been AWOL lately, but we do have a new review for you. Sit back and enjoy, because this week we're covering the 1998 movie "Die Hard Dracula"!











At first glance, it looks like this movie intends to mix "Die Hard" with "Dracula". Unfortunately, that is not the case, as the only thing that Die Hard Dracula has to do with Die Hard is the title, which is a sad thing because this movie would have been much better with a cheesy John McClane rip off as the star.

Die Hard Dracula attempts to retell yet again the story of Dracula with a modern twist. Again. The movie starts in the past where a king attempts to have his "kingly privileges" with one of the local peasant girls. She runs to the old abandoned castle where the king stabs her on top of Dracula's coffin. A bloated and ugly Dracula (played by Ernest M. Garcia and Chaba Hrotko and Tom McGowan) emerges and proclaims "How dare you screw on top of my casket!" and kills the king. Then he turns to the dying girl, and makes her into his bride.










Dracula: Vampire or Creepy Pervert? Is there a difference?


Cut to present day America. Some kids are out on a boat water-skiing. Julia (played by Kerry Dustin), a Californian bimbo, decides that she doesn't need a life vest because she's too cool for that. She dies.

Julia's boyfriend Steven (played by Denny Sachen) is mortified by her death. And what does every red-blooded American guy do when his girlfriend dies? He goes to Europe. Steven wanders around Europe for a while, getting wasted and lamenting Julia's death, waking up in a European gutter every morning until he has an accident and wanders into a small village. Once there, Steven finds the local inn, where the innkeeper's daughter Carla, recently came back to life for no apparent raisin. Coincidentally, she looks exactly like Julia, which is probably because she's played by the same actress.










Carla's turn ons are "not being turned into a vampire" and "being turned into a vampire". Confused? So is she.


Also coincidentally, this village sits in the shadow of a castle occupied by Dracula.

Dracula has been looking for a place to obtain blood for his wife, who is a constant pain in his undead ass. While he's out he meets a peasant girl, drinks her blood and turns her into one of his wives. You would think that he would have learned his lesson after the first one, but Dracula seems to be a sucker for peasant girls.










Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Dracula?


Unfortunately, the peasant girl is one of Carla's friends. Steven and the local cronies decide to enlist the help of Dr. Van Helsing (played by Bruce Glover), the worlds most famous vampire hunter. Van Helsing shows up at the inn and reveals that he knows magic; the David Blaine kind, not the Harry Potter kind. Van Helsing makes fools of the local villagers by using slight of hand and making fire without a flint. Afterwards the local villagers become his loyal peons.

Dracula shows up at the pub, dressed as an ordinary hunter. I guess he was trying to get away from his horrible wives for a while. This prompts Van Helsing to test whether or not this strangely dressed man is a vampire. So, Van Helsing saunters over and makes idle conversation with Dracula, and performs several "tests" on him. Its like that scene in "The Lost Boys" where the Corey twins try to find out whether or not Max is a vampire, except that the sound is awful and its not funny. Also, Dracula is most definitely a vampire. Here are some of the things that didn't convince Van Helsing that he was sitting across the table from a vampire.

-Obvious fangs.
-Orders a bloody steak.
-Can't touch silver without screaming.
-Doesn't like Van Helsing's crucifix.
-Doesn't let Van Helsing see if Dracula has a reflection.

Oh, yeah. There was one other thing that stuck out.

-His name was frickin' "Dracula".

STILL unsure of the undead condition of his dinner guest, Van Helsing gives Dracula the ultimate test. He gives him some garlic bread. After the Count freaks out and leaves without paying, Van Helsing is now sure that he's a vampire.










I don't know. Could this guy maybe, possibly, kinda be a vampire? Maybe?


Van Helsing and Steve... (I love the way that fits together: Van Helsing and Steve. Like Bob Dylan and Frank the pizza guy. Anyway Van Helsing and Steve..) set off to Dracula's castle. Somewhere along the way Van Helsing must forget that he already determined that Dracula is a vampire, because they walk in on the Count and his bride necking. Get it?

...

Anyway they figure it out... eventually... and spend the rest of the movie making inept attempts at breaking and entering into the Castle to A) defeat Dracula. B) rescue Carla. and C) Make off with Dracula's gold. No, this isn't a multiple choice question, they're attempting all 3 goals.










The dynamic doofi.


In the end, Dracula wins. Yes, you heard me right, Dracula bites Carla and then Dracula has his brides turn Van Helsing and Steve into vampires, and then they dance. Roll credits.










Feel the power of the dark side!


Now you can imagine my disappointment with this movie. It had such potential, and it was squandered. There were no scenes with a barefoot hero tossing a vampire corpse down an elevator shaft with a message written in blood on it. Think about that Sporefans, it works on so many levels. It could have read "Ha ha ha, now I have a mallet and a wooden steak". Dracula could have eaten the message too, it was made of blood! But, no, this movie had to be mediocre. It had to be a regular vampire movie. How bad does a movie have to stink to make "Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness" look good by comparison? "Pretty frickin' bad!", that's how bad.

Still, they did have a flying coffin. That was pretty cool.










The only way to fly. Blah!


OK, until next time Sporefans. Keep reading. Keep watching. And join the Sporeboard. If you're good, I'll post the short story I've been working on for the last three weeks on the Sporeboard. Yes, I've been cheating on you all... with fiction.


OK, I couldn't find a video of "Die Hard Dracula", so I found something better. I found the best thing Christopher Lee ever did. Ever. Debate over. There is no topping this. None. This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

The Sporeboard

Well, its done. The votes are cast. The ballots totally totaled. And here it is, Sporefans. I give you

THE SPOREBOARD!

I want to strongly encourage all of my readers to join the Sporeboard. Now you don't have to use that lame "Comment" button on the bottom of the blog, you have an entire board to let your voice be heard. I'm going to make a discussion thread for each new review, so you'll have plenty of room to post what you want to say.

Join up now. Meet other Sporefans. There are more of them than you think. Post stuff. Post more stuff. Go crazy with it. Totally abuse your workday lounging around the boards. As new innovations come up I'll try and work them in. In the meantime, enjoy!

One day left

There's only one day left to vote on where you want the new Message Board to be held. So far Google groups is winning at 63% of the vote. Get your votes in quick!

Coming up soon, there will be the new message boards, I'm expecting a guest review of "Hercules in New York", and as soon as I finish my creative writing assignment I'll get to work on a review for "Die Hard Dracula".

Sleepaway Camp

Welcome back Sporefans. I know that we've been gone for a while, but we're back with another exciting review for you. This week is a classic movie from 1983. Some of you may remember the title "Sleepaway Camp", but for those of you who don't know this movie, think Friday the 13th but without Jason... or his mom.

Sleepaway Camp stars Felissa Rose as Angela and Johnathan Tiersten as Ricky, two young cousins who have arrived at a Summer camp full of hormonally driven teenagers, questionable camp councillors, and a greasy cook who "likes em' young". Its not surprising that soon after the camp opens people start to have horrible fatal "accidents". Accidents that are covered up by the shady camp manager.

Also, take a minute and check out Felissa Rose's myspace.

Now, before I get too far into this review, I just want to say that I really had not seen this movie before and honestly did not know the ending. An ending, which, was summarily spoiled for me when someone brought up that Robot Chicken had actually done a parody sketch on this movie, which I had in fact seen, but had not remembered when I was watching the movie due to my inebriation. Click here to see the parody of the ending for yourself.

Now some of you may ask why I would review a movie who's ending is so available to the public? If everyone knows how the movie ends, who am I saving from having to watch this movie? And why would I purchase this movie in the first place?

Well I have an answer for you Sporefans. I bought and watched this movie... to save America from Scurvy.













Arrr... beware the Scurvy, dogs!


That's right, by purchasing this movie, I've kept it in the hands of people who can truly appreciate cinema of this caliber. If I had not purchased this movie, there's no telling what would have happened. But it would have happened exactly like this:

Picture a typical day in the supermarket. A woman and her children are shopping for groceries on a limited budget when the woman makes a choice that many parents make these days: to sedate her children using the television. Because of her inability to buy top quality Disnified entertainment, she sifts through the bargain bin and lazily selects a few movies with titles that sound like they would appeal to small children.

Movies with titles like "Sleepaway Camp".

And like many parents these days, this young mother is too busy yelling at her children for throwing cans of vegetables at each other and daydreaming about Brad Pitt to read the back of the box, and is blissfully unaware that she had purchased an "R" rated movie containing violence, bloodshed, and murder. All of which this woman might consider all right for her children if it weren't for the one scene of full frontal nudity.

The woman, in a fit of all American outrage, would then return to the shopping establishment and demand of a pimply faced clerk not only a refund, but satisfaction for the trauma caused to her children by the shocking fact that someone didn't have any clothes on for three and a half seconds.

The pimply faced clerk, who is not given the authority to act of his own accord, would then contact a manager to help him with the situation. The manager, being too busy trying to hook up with the new cashier would distractedly tell the clerk to "give her something to shut her up". Having a juvenile sense of humor, the clerk offers the woman a pair of melons to give to her kids as a healthy token of apology for her inconvenience. The woman, who now perceives herself as the moral victor in this struggle against naughty bits, proudly marches out of the store with her melons held up victoriously before her.















Man, what a pair of melons.


Not only until one of her children makes the comment, "Wow, those are some nice melons, Mom", does it occur to her that there was some sort of innuendo that could be attached to her free fruit.

With a renewed sense of moral indignation, the woman contacts a lawyer, who immediately sues the store for ten million dollars on the basis that the fruit was a form of sexual harassment. Not satisfied, the woman then launches a campaign to rid the United States of America of fruit that has sexual connotations attached to it. The group calls itself Mothers Against Sexual Harassment Through The Use Of Fruits And Vegetables, or MASHTTOUFAV.















You knew this would be on the list.


United by a common sense of perceived slight, the members of MASHTTOUFAV launch an all out campaign to rid the U.S. of melons. But even this does not satisfy their desire to rid the world of plant matter that resembles or is associated with naughty bits. Soon, bananas and pears are banned, cucumbers and zucchini are squashed. Even the apple, main component of the former all American apple pie, is outlawed for its association with Adam and Eve.















Pears resemble the female form... kind of...


MASHTTOUFAV finds new allies in the meat industry, who rush in to fill the void that was once occupied by the now forbidden fruit. Meat pies soon replace apple pie as the most American food, and signs that formerly read "Meat and Potatoes" now read "Meat: The food of a better morality".












Apple pie? That's obscene!


Soon after, a terrifying new plague sweeps America. Its symptoms are dark purplish spots on the skin, especially the legs, spongy gums leading to tooth loss, bleeding from the gums and all mucous membranes, pallor, sunken eyes and in the most extreme cases the opening of healed scars and the separation of knitted bone fractures. The cause of the plague is largeley unknown, but it strikes everyone across America with frightening speed. Pharmaceutical companies, unable to find a cheap and effective way to combat this new disease develop costly drugs that can only treat, but not cure this disease.

Little did they know that they were affected with Scurvy, a simple lack of Vitamin C. Well, I guess the pharmaceutical companies knew, but everyone else was in the dark, much like they were in the dark before John Woodall made the first observational attempt to combat Scurvy in 1614.

As you can plainly see, the reason that I watch these movies is not always to get a review out of it, or for cheap laughs; but sometimes to protect us from our greatest enemies, ourselves.

No, wait. I was wrong. Its for cheap laughs.




And now, instead of another youtube link, this week we have a poll. In order to expand our services, Spored to Death Publishing is looking to open a bulletin board. And you, the Sporefans, get to vote on where we're going to post it. So far its a choice between Google Groups and MSN Groups. Take a look at both and vote for the one you prefer.