Vampire Hookers starts with a Vampire named Richmond Reed (John Carradine) talking incoherent nonsense to the camera, don’t worry about it though as it happens a lot. Two U.S. Navy sailors & best buddies named Tom Buckley (Bruce Fairbairn) & Terry Wayne (Trey Wilson) are on shore leave in an exotic oriental port & decide to have a night on the town, lots of beer & plenty of women. Unfortunately the closest they come to scoring is a transsexual, then they meet up with another sailor named Eddie Taylor (Lex Winter) & his guide, a local taxi driver named Julio (Leo Martinez) who takes them to the San Francisco Bar where Julio introduces Eddie to a woman he knows called Cherish (Karen Stride). Eddie & Cherish then hop in Julio’s taxi & Julio takes them to a cemetery where Cherish lives. Cherish takes Eddie down into a crypt where she introduces her two friends Suzy (Lenka Novak) & Marcy (Katie Dolan) plus head Vampire Reed who never changes his clothes, they all feast on his blood. When Eddie fails to return to base Tom & Terry become worried so they decide to look for him, they manage to find Cherish & see her get into a taxi with another man & they decide to follow her. They discover the truth but none of the authorities will believe them, it’s down to Tom & Terry to put an end to the Vampire hookers bloodsucking ways…
This Philippine American co-production was directed by the prolific Cirio H. Santiago & Vampire Hookers was one of three films made by Santiago in ’78, the other’s being Hell Hole (1978) & Death Force (1978), which probably says a lot about the time & effort he puts into his films. The script by Howard R. Cohen is best described as an adult horror comedy, while it never quite satisfies in any department it has a certain something about. It’s fairly entertaining to watch on a silly level, it moves along at a nice pace & isn’t dull or boring & at less than 80 minutes long at least it’s short. The story is virtually none existent, the character’s are basic & John Carradine looks like a knob in that white suit & cowboy hat. The comedy comes mainly in the form of silly one-liners & a bit of slapstick, the funniest thing about Vampire Hookers has to be the dumb farting servant Pavo (Vic Diaz), there is a funny bit where he gets into a coffin & starts to fart so he has to breathe through a plastic tube! They may be juvenile & lowbrow but a joke about a fart can just raise a smile no matter what. The adult elements come in the form of the three Vampire Hookers & a 10 minute orgy scene which felt like it went on forever, it’s not that graphic & I actually found it got pretty boring to watch. Horror wise we have John Carradine looking like he is about to fall over & die at any moment wearing the most hideous white suit, red bow-tie & cowboy hat bizarrely spouting lines of Shakespeare whom he claims was a Vampire. Well, that’s as scary as Vampire Hookers gets anyway. Basically if you want your horror quite light hearted, not too taxing & fairly fun then Vampire Hookers might be worth a punt.
Director Santiago does an OK job although Vampire Hookers is basic, the sets are alright although I can’t remember the last time I saw a stone tomb with an electric lid & revolving steps! Are the filmmakers seriously trying to sell those styrofoam bricks as real? They are the most fake looking bricks I’ve ever seen as bricks don’t usually bounce. Vampire Hookers isn’t really scary but it does have that 70’s horror film atmosphere to it. Forget about any blood or gore as there isn’t any apart from John boy shooting a rat with a crossbow, maybe a real one but the shot was very quick so I couldn’t be sure.
The budget for this thing must have been low to say the least, the entire film looks like it was dubbed, even Carradine. Vampire Hookers looks OK & for the most part it’s competent, fake bouncing bricks apart. The end credits feature the truly terrible ‘Vampire Hookers, Blood is not all they Suck’ theme song, don’t forget to check it out! If you make it that far. The acting isn’t up to much, by this stage of his career Carradine would appear in just about anything & he is far too old & he doesn’t impress. The Vampire hookers themselves are alright to look at but their far from the best looking girls I’ve ever seen.
Vampire Hookers has a great title, how could anyone not be interested in a film called Vampire Hookers? Unfortunately as is so often the case the film itself fails to live up to expectations, it has little in the way of sex or nudity, has little in the way of blood, gore or horror & the funniest thing about it are the fart gags. Just about worth a watch but I doubt it will knock anyone’s socks off.
