Great Film overall

Excellent but underrated film

Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ferocious and mysterious vampire prostitute Nico (a pleasingly saucy portrayal by Natasha Gregson Wagner) prowls the streets for victims in Los Angeles. Nico teams up with renegade vampire Dallas (smoothly played by Casper Van Dien) in order to protect herself from a secret community of bloodsucking snobs who want to destroy her. Meanwhile, the batty Dr. Frederick Van Helsing (a gloriously hammy Rod Steiger) enlists the assistance of a motley crew of black gang bangers to aide him on his mission to eradicate vampires off the face of the earth.Director Richard Elfman keeps the entertainingly loopy story moving along at a zippy pace, maintains an engaging campy tone throughout, and delivers plenty of gore, nudity, and deviant sexuality (it turns out humans can be transformed into vampires if they do the nasty with a bloodsucker!). Matthew Bright's wickedly witty script not only puts a few fresh spins on the standard vampire premise (in an especially nice touch, Van Helsing is depicted as an ex-Nazi), but also pokes hilariously wacky fun at the haughty, decadent, and superficial lifestyle of the Californian upper-class. Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: Gabriel Casseus as easygoing homeboy Time Bomb, Kim Cattrall as the sultry and predatory Ulrike, Craig Ferguson as jolly Brit Richard, Robert Pastorelli as fearsome top dog the Count, Natalya Andreychenko as the elegant Panthia, Natasha Lyonne as ditsy party girl Rachel, and Udo Kier as the suavely depraved Vincent. Robin Brown's glossy cinematography provides a slick'n'stylish look. A total hoot.

This movie is sequel to Dracula. Dracula as had a lot of sequels. Most of them are great. And this one is not. If you what to see a Dracula movie at this scary see Dracula (1992) or Nosferatu of Dracula (1931). But this one is not scary. It is badly written. It has an awful ending. I think Van H.e.l.i.s.i.n.g is the bad guy. But I would have to say not really. This is not as bad as it is said to be. But it is still pretty bad. Don't see this movie. Save your time and money. I don't think Dracula was good guy. But some of the vampires were. But not really. At lest I would say so. Don't see this movie. Don't see this movie. Don't see this movie.

Modern Vampires is the tale of a crew of ghastlies enjoying the night life of L.A. in relative obscurity until someone goes on a killing rampage which brings them to the attention of the local police, as well as the local don, Count Dracula, who likes discretion so much that he even has a special cleaning service for messy vampires. That tells you something about how seriously this movie takes itself. Who's doing the killing, why, and what to do about her (yes, her) is the basis of the plot. A parallel plot involves Dr. Van Helsing on another of his famous vampire hunts, so the predatory vampiress is triply threatened.This is not an easy film to characterize. It's about vampires, yes, but they're not so much scary in the traditional sense of Lugosi and Lee as they are just kind of creepy and weird, and as disgusting as they are terrifying. They turn their victims into human sodas to be drunk in underground nightclubs They transform into gargoyle like creatures that seem to have more in common with modern sfx-driven horror movies than the original vampire legend. And for God's sake don't ever make love to one of them. That too has taken on new and dire consequences.The film also explores the notion of degrees of vampiric evil (no surprise to any Buffy fan). Casper Van Dien's character Dallas has made two vampires to save them from unhappy fates, so humans are obviously something more than just food to him. These vampires have all kinds of family arrangements, from mafia like to almost normal human variety. There is even one who is eternally pregnant, a bizarre state of affairs surpassing even Ann Rice's child vampire Claudia, whose role, to some extent, is played by the (s)punky young vampire portrayed by Natasha Wagner. Although physically mature, she is an emotional child who gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'instant gratification.' And Van Helsing himself, a reputed Nazi collaborator, may not be a paragon of virtue. So nothing is quite black and white in the undead underworld of Los Angeles.If you simply have to see every vampire movie ever made, you must see this as well. If you're a fan of Casper Van Dien or Rod Steiger, they're protagonist and nemesis, and you shouldn't miss the chase. Van Dien manages to look good even in fangs, which these particular bloodsuckers sport 24/7 and have to talk around as well as sometimes explain to the curious. If you're fascinated by show business dynasties, catch it for Natasha Gregson Wagner, who is at times eerily reminiscent of her mother Natalie Wood. Just be warned-everything in this movie is a bit overdone. The comedy becomes slapstick, some scenes are more disgusting than truly horrible, and the sex is approached as either grotesque or tongue-in-cheek, or occasionally fang in neck. They even throw in a bit of Lesbian activity, but the most interesting scenes involve Van Dien and Wagner-as visually arresting a couple as you'll ever find anywhere-who, before the movie ends, have managed to swap almost every bodily fluid imaginable. MV can't decide if it's horror, comedy, romance or satire, and so mostly falls short of being really satisfying in any category, but it delivers some characters who can be fun to watch, notably Van Dien and Wagner as the young (in vampire terms) lovers fleeing the old vampire patriarch whose will they have defied. Rod Steiger looks and acts like a cross between Uncle Fester and the decrepit Van Helsing portrayed by Olivier in Dracula 79. And sometimes you just have to laugh at the homeboys who receive The Dark Gift like it was an STD, almost a satiric comment on AIDS stood on its head: this infection lets you live forever, if you don't mind being a homicidal maniac for the rest of your unnatural life.To enjoy MV, you just have to turn off your critical faculties, pass the beer and pizza, and take it for what it is.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*Certain actors appearing in a B-movie scream quality. I'm talking about such heavyweights as Mario Van Peebles or Ice-T. Now add Casper Van Dien to that roll call of B-movie greatness. I long for the day when all three of those giants show up in the same movie. I can see the video box now: VAN Peebles and VAN Dien in "Kill Shoot II!" My VCR would explode with delight."Modern Vampires" continues Van Dien's tradition of quality B-mayhem. He's a vampire in L.A. and things happen. My God, how could you ask for more? The blood and naked breasts are out of control. One scene in a clothing store has Natasha Wagner making out with another vampire woman. WOO-HOO! Loved it. Rod Steiger shows up to kill some vampires and he brings some gang members with him. If you're a Van Dien believer like I am, check this one out. I'm not saying this movie is scary or even pretends to be a horror movie, but it delivers the sleaze to please.