3/5 Slayer... Man I miss Buffy
  by Julian Kennedy (St Pete Florida)


Slayer: 5 out of 10: Okay a Sci-fi original film staring B-movie maven Casper Van Dien? How good can it be? Well at least it is no Raptor Island or Chupacabra Terror (All hail Eris).

Actually, for an original Sci-fi channel film this is a reasonably good ride. Well at least the first half is reasonably good.

The film starts Predator style, with a team of marines in the Amazon battling vampires which are not affected by sunlight and rip old ladies in half. (This is actually the best scene in the movie.) Yes, I know they jump around like Circus de Soleil rejects and somehow the Russian twin acrobats from Octopussy were bitten and wandered onto the set.

Anyhow, Casper Van Dien gets back to the states and Linda Carter (Yes Wonder Woman is in this film and no she still can't act) sends Van Dien back to the jungle with a new team (his last team having become vampire chow) to kill the vampires and rescue his ex-wife. (No one actually cares that the natives are being slaughtered but one lost blond woman and the marines are called out.) Why is Van Diems ex-wife in a jungle infested with day walking vampires to begin with? Neither I ,nor as far as I can tell she, knows.

The vampires are now led by Van Diem's second in command (Kevin Grevioux at his gravelly voiced, over-sized best) and are using military tactics. This is surprising since both the fight scenes (and the vampires) actually become less effective.

The movies continuity also takes a large hit during the second half as characters apparently are using a Star Trek transporter to get from one location to another. (Prepare to be disoriented.) The less said about the pathetic ending monster the better (except it reminded me of Raptor Island and Chupacabra Terror).

One last note to the screenwriter. If the bad guy is going to have a flowery speech about how encroaching civilization is causing the vampires to attack perhaps it would be wise to show something (an idle bulldozer or maybe some condos going up on the river) at any point during the film to make the ridiculous politically correct speech less laughable.

5/5 WATCH IT NOW.
  by Helen Beemon (Michigan)
THIS MOVIE IS FULL OF AWESOME-SAUCE. Seriously. The only issue I have with it is the gross misuse of Ray Park, who obviously owns at everything. Don't hold back, Ray! Don't hold back. (It's ok, baby... I still love you.)

NEXT PARAGRAPH.

I watched this with my boyfriend and we had super fun poking fun at it, fun. Don't go into watching it thinking it'll be a beautiful piece of cinematic art; it's not. It's just awful graphics, bad gore, cheesy lines, bad accents, unnecessary (awesome) flips and cartwheels... The type of movie that 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' is made up of. It's one of those movies that is awesomely bad. Watch it with friends, bond, be awesome together! *punch dance*

4/5 Fun vampire hybrids and lots of blood!
  by Gregory Holmes
This is a pretty good little action/horror film with some extremely beautiful location photography and an attractive cast who do their best with a fairly silly script. Alexis Cruz gives a memorable performance and of course there is the great Danny Trejo. Casper Van Dien does a good enough job with his character and has one really humorous scene with Cruz that is the highlight of the film. It's also great to see Linda Carter again. The visual effects are extremely bloody but not especially sophisticated. Certainly this film has some problems but it isn't that bad if you are fond of low independent horror films. As usual, Anchor Bay gives us a first class release of the film. It is packaged in an elegant embossed slip case. The transfer is flawless and looks quite spectacular if upconverted. Dolby 5.1 is good although not remarkable. Also included is an entertaining commentary track with director Kevin Vanhook and Casper Van Dien. There is a still gallery collection that features pre-production art work as well as stills. The screenplay is included as a DVD-ROM feature and there are trailers from other Kevin Vanhook films included. All in all this is an entertaining film given an excellent DVD release.

2/5 I need less friendly Casper and more Spooky !!
  by Jolene Rogers (San Antonio, TX)
Picked this up at the rental store hoping it might be good judging it from the cover (I should have learned from Dracula 3000-dont EVEN get me started on that one). Actually I can give this an little praise because it has quite a bit of action but not much gore and it is not scary in the least except when the 'jungle' vampires go up and down trees and buildings on obvious wires. Casper is the soft leader and his counterpart Captain Grieves is the tough guy who succumbs to the vampires and becomes their new leader since he has 'military' skills needed by the vampires to take on the world. Well guess what? Casper must fight Grieves to the death and then face the secret actual vampire leader who changes into a bad CGI creature (I saw a Land of the Lost-1974 episode the other day and the dinosaur in that looked better) in order to save his ex wife who somehow ended up in the exact same part of South America as he did. If you like 'B' movies while having a couple of beers with your friends, this is not a bad choice.

3/5 Fun in the sun
  by Trevor Merris (Carmicheal, CA USA)
A fun film but if you are a hard core vamp fan this movie will insult you. the vampires have the ability to walk in the sun and can feed on anything. but its not bad as a new version on the occult story.