Ladies of the Night: Vampire Hookers (1978)
My dear readers, while the familiar comforts of one’s native land may be difficult to resist, there is undoubtedly much value to be found in the sort of cultural immersion that can only come from settling down in an entirely foreign nation. I have often found cause to admire my great, great uncle Grayson Hauntedhouse, who spent years living among the natives of an elusive Amazonian tribe. He had heard reports that the local witchdoctors could shrink a man’s head on command and he very much desired to make this secret wisdom his own. Sadly, the head shrinking for which the tribe was known turned out to be a figurative reference to a remedy for the overly confident that involved prolonged periods of chastisement. I understand that Poor Grayson endured many years of insults and put downs from the tribe’s elders before the metaphorical nature of their powers became clear. Nevertheless, while he might not have acquired the precise knowledge he had sought, I have to imagine that his time spent among the tribespeople was intellectually enriching in other ways.
Color coordination is an essential part of being a vampiric courtesan
Richmond Reed (John Carradine) is also deeply familiar with life as an expatriate. Mr. Reed is a somewhat posh vampire living beneath a mausoleum in the Philippines. He spends his days parading about in a spotless white suit, reciting poetic verse to an unappreciative and undead audience. His often vacillates between whimsy and melancholy, musing about the likelihood of Shakespeare and Whitman being Nosferatu themselves and bemoaning the monotony of consuming Bloody Marys. Ordinarily, vampires have to be a touch more active in order to maintain their sanguinary diet but Richmond, the clever old dandy, has a trio of vampire seductress who do all the footwork for him.
These three “ladies of the night” lure healthy young men to Richmond’s lair with the promise of intimate relations. The winsome women are consistently successful in their endeavors, as few men can resist the opportunity to pay for sex in the privacy of a secret underground crypt. Richmond and his bloodthirsty harem have a particular fondness for consuming citizens of the United States and their plasma preferences put them in contact with Tom Buckley (Bruce Fairbairn) and Terry Wayne (Trey Wilson), two American Navy men with deeply amorous designs for their time on shore. One can hardly blame the women for targeting Tom and Terry, as they seem both unworldly and overly eager. But this cheery duo manages to surprise even the seemingly unflappable Mr. Reed, ultimately causing him quite a bit of bother.
The women like to ensure a healthy blood flow in their victims
Though I am deeply reluctant to provide any details that might give away essential portions of the plot, I feel that for the purpose of critical evaluation, I am forced to mention that things go rather poorly for Richmond and his company. They can certainly be formidable under the right circumstances but when confronted with human opponents who have not been ambushed, the lot of them are felled with minimal heroics and very little effort. Few movies, in fact, make the case so clearly that stakes and crucifixes can be handily improvised with any old stick, making more or less anyone capable of extinguishing a centuries old intellect. Even Richmond’s underground abode, which has presumably stood for some time, is easily reduced to a crumbled ruin by the bouncing enthusiasm of a mildly rotund individual. While its racy plot elements and flatulence humor might mask its more serious purpose, prolific director Cirio H. Santiago eventually reveals that Vampire Hookers is a meditation on the painful fragility of life, a film where even immortal beings can be snatched from existence with a few well-timed twigs.
Vampire Hookers runs 88 minutes and is rated R.
