The Vampire Happening 2000 Horror Movie Review

Sexy American movie star Betty Williams (Pia Degermark from Elvira Madigan) flies to Transylvania to get a gander at her ancestral castle. While touring the torture chamber (which inspires kinky fantasies) and the family vault, she inadvertently unleashes her randy grandmother, Clairamonda, an ancient vampire and a brunette double to blonde Betty. A clumsy wig-swapping, door-slamming farce ensues, with Betty seducing a local schoolteacher, Clairamonda feasting on local lascivious monks, and a climactic vampire orgy at a bloodsuckers’ ball where Betty finds herself the only fresh plasma in the building. Less a hippie vampire tale than a sexploitation knockoff of Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, this West German comedy features a spoofing performance from Ferdie Mayne, the vampire king from Polanski’s film, as a groovy Dracula with an eye for female flesh. Former Hammer director and master cinematographer Freddie Francis shows little facility for comedy and exhibits none of his cinematographic skills in this crude but fitfully amusing farce. The leering performances make Benny Hill look subtle, the slapstick gags are undercut by indifferent execution, and the entire production lumbers under bad makeup and atrocious dubbing. Degermark, however, proves to be a good sport, giving a spirited performance while disrobing at almost every turn, and Mayne has a blast in an over-the-top turn as a deliciously decadent bloodsucker. —Sean Axmaker