Not of this earth

Title - Not of this earth
Language - English
Genre - Sci-Fi, Vampire

We start with a spaceship flying through space (as a spaceship does).  Then we cut to earth and a couple who are getting intimate in a car.  Something explodes or crashes off screen which interrupts the couple just long enough for the woman to ask ‘what was that’ and then they get back to it.  A man in sunglasses who is carrying a silver suit case walks from the direction of the explosion up to the car he kills the couple by looking at them and then attaches a device to the woman which drains the blood from her.

Then we cut to the opening credits (Do films still have these, if they do they don’t have the same impact) whilst the credits are on we get scenes of various monsters and aliens attacking humans, mainly females.

The film starts properly.  Our man in the sun glasses goes into a hospital for a blood transfusion but won't submit to a blood test to see what type he is.  After the doctor refuses to give him his test he finally allows it but hypnotizes the doctor  into not telling anyone about the results.

Whilst at the hospital the man (Mr Johnson) convinces Nadine, one of the nurses to work for him, as he will need regular transfusions.  Nadine moves in with Mr Johnson and his other helper, Jeremy but it’s not long until she realises that there is something not quite right with her new employer.

Not of this earth is bad, in a good B movie way.  Mr Johnson is a cold emotionless Vulcan like alien vampire who doesn't quite get some of the things that humans do and who occasion goes into dramatic, over the top acting that is reminiscent of a bad Dracula.

Jeremy, the man Mr Johnson has hired as his assistant starts out as a sleazy, likable rogue who is always perving over Nadine but, somewhere along the way we start to like him as he teams up with Nadine to find out Mr Johnsons secrets.

Nadine comes across as likeable most of the time but, when she is with Jeremy she turns really annoying and sarcastic.

There are some parts of ‘Not of this earth’ that puzzle me. Both Mr Johnson’s confusion with some of his interactions with humans & Dr Rochelle’s actions when asked about Mr Johnson seem to be an attempt to bring more humour into the film but I’m not entirely sure  if it is intentional, Dr Rochelle comes across in an almost farcical way that does not fit in with the rest of the film and in some scenes even seems to break the flow of the story (the scene in the restaurant is prominent in my mind) where as Mr Johnson's confusion just seems a bit stilted and weird.

There also seems to be an attempt to get as many topples women on screen as possible.  now i have no problem with breast, in fact I’m quite a fan but you would think that there would be at least a few women who visit Mr Johnson or who live in the area who walk around in clothes that don’t just come open  as soon as they meet an alien vampire.  I mean he doesn't even have to use his hypnosis to get these people to strip.

If you are a fan of ok acting, stilted dialogue and Boobs then give ‘not of this earth’ a watch hey at least it has an attempt at a plot.

I bought a vampire motorcycle

Title - I bought a vampire motorcycle
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy

Nick Oddy (noddy to his friends) has just bought a new, slightly damaged motorcycle & when he gets it home it doesn’t want to start and some has nicked the petrol cap, also the fuel tank appears to be covered in Tomato ketchup.  The Next morning Noddy goes to fix the bike and finds that the petrol cap is back on.  Whilst at work he gets a phone call to go to his friend’s house and when he gets there he finds that his friend has been killed.

After fixing the bike Noddy takes it out for a test run, everything is going fine until he passes a group of Hells Angels.  As he passes them bike seems to take on a life of it’s own and runs them off the road.  As time goes on the bike starts have odd behaviour, it doesn’t always start or it stops suddenly, it seems to move on its own and, if it’s parked on the street overnight it’s found in the garage the next morning.  The problems get really bad when the bike drives away from the FU-King Chinese takeaway, taking Kim, Noddys girlfriend with it.  After throwing Kim off the bike goes on a rampage leaving Noddy to try to find a way of stopping it.

I bought a Vampire motorcycle is a good little comedy horror that has a clever monster which has a fun and thought through origin which is a concept that is sometimes missing from some low budget horror movies and the story has a good progression.  We are not thrown straight into any violence but the sense of threat builds up as the story progresses and even though we know from the film’s title and from the first scene that the bike is going to be the monster we are never sure how it is going to manifest until it happens.

As well as having a good story vampire motorcycle manages to pay homage to a couple of the classic horror movies, there are dream sequences that are slightly reminiscent of ‘An American Werewolf in London’ and the scenes where priest sets up the protection in the hospital and the nurse takes it back down are taken from Dracula.

Vampire Motorcycle has a very British feel to it (it was filmed in Birmingham and has a British cast) with a good mix of humour and gore with a good number of decapitations, people getting cut in half and arrows up the bum mixed with on screen  gags, throw away one liners and a talking Poo.

I would recommend I bought a vampire motorcycle to anyone who likes movies that don’t take themselves too seriously & to people who like vampire movies.