Vampira The Movie
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Movie Reviews of Vampira The Movie
Movie Review: Hardly a movie!!!!!!
Summary: 3 Stars
Misleading title!!
It's like an extended DVD extra. Good interview but would have liked better directing!! And please who cast the interviewees?????
Nice to see some rare footage of the show. Vampira herself id quite interesting to listen to!!
Movie Review: ok
Summary: 3 Stars
well,the idea was great,but the documentary is boring,dull,no excitement.it's a shame they didn't put rare tv footage of vampira,only a coupleMovie Review: Could have been much, MUCH better....
Summary: 2 Stars
In the early 90's, there was an excellent documentary, a good two hours long with very well done visuals. This one comes nowhere near it. For someone who knows absolutely nothing about Vampira, it might be somewhat interesting. But if you are "seasoned" or knew her, you will find very little of value herein. The cover erroniously claims "The SHOCKING TRUTH about Horror's First Host" and there is nothing shocking of any kind in this DVD. It is very disjointed, and not in the "artsy" way, but in a way that makes the viewer think a true amateur made this brief film, and rather hastily at that.
There are no rare photos (and Johnny Coffin could have well supplied hundreds---but maybe he wasn't asked) and no rare video footage, with the exception of a few seconds here and there from Vampira's TV show, but even that was shown in the mid 1990's on L.A.s channel 7 and can be seen on YouTube today. There were MANY more people they could have interviewed (myself included) who really KNEW the lady and could have given insight to the REAL person behind the Vampira persona. Instead, like so many other pieces on Vampira, they obsess over the 'Plan 9' thing, till you can hardly stand it any longer. This is not a "deep" documentary and you will learn nothing you couldn't find online, or in any Maila Nurmi interview. They never mention her Vampira Vegas act with Liberace, NOTHING of her films from the late 50's and early 60's, nothing about her "black listed years", nothing in depth about her personal life or what she did once her career was obviously over and so much more--not included.
The extras contribute nothing to the whole project. In fact, they have little to do with Vampira at all.
But if you actually COLLECT Vampira memorabilia, I guess you should buy it just for the sake of having it. But buy it used....
Movie Review: And you thought Plan 9 was bad...
Summary: 1 Stars
It really is a shame that we earthlings don't have "stupid minds" as those uptight aliens from Plan 9 suggest. Perhaps if we did have lower mentalities we could better enjoy Vampira: The Movie. Leave it to Alpha Video, the company responsible for putting out some of the most pitiful of public domain prints on video to destroy what little dignity Maila "Vampira" Nurmi has left. Within an hour's time Vampira's mysterious, other worldly charm is chipped away until we are left with nothing but an old lady surrounded by a gang of freak show rejects. The film starts out on the right path, but quickly goes astray with a bizarre and useless reenactment of an actress in a cheap blonde wig posing as Maila Nurmi during her days as a pin-up model. We are later treated to some footage of this actress putting on a black wig to illustrate the transformation into Vampira. These silly, contrived bits can be overlooked, but the real problems are still to come. While Vampira is given plenty of screen time to tell her abridged life story, she is shot from only one angle with no special makeup, wardrobe, set or lighting. The setting is very pedestrian and the producer's should have splurged and spent the extra $100 for a backdrop. Vampira's story is interesting and it's a great asset to hear the words from her mouth, but over much of her talk is some ear bleeding synthetic stock music which is distracting at the least. The rest of the picture is made up of unknown horror "stars" who haunt the convention circuits. Most have never even met the woman. This is made embarrassingly clear when they generically chatter about black dresses and fingernails which could be applied to any Vampire character. There are so many ignorant interviewees that one feels that Vampira really has no fan base outside of a carnival sideshow. As if they were not bad enough one at a time, we are then treated to a four star spectacular that flashes them on the screen one right after another with stock music playing in the background. One would think if they planned to fill the movie with unknowns, they would have chose Vampira's actual friends rather than this gaggle of ghouls. The only interesting aspect of this movie is hearing Elvira's side of the Vampira lawsuit (though Vampira herself never mentions it) and seeing clips from Vampira's famed 1950s television show. The movie could have been much better if it were trimmed down to about thirty minutes and completely scrapped the weirdos. The editing is perhaps the worst ever in documentary filmmaking. It seems to have been edited by a child learning how to use the free software included with their new DVD burner. The still photos featured in the movie have been taken from web sites and eBay auctions, which explains the pixilation problems. The editing of these photos is ridiculous in itself. The editor obviously used random zoom filters which zoom into the center of the photos... usually right into someone's chest. Other times, the photos will fade into another before the subject's face is seen! Clearly this is the work of amateurs and Alpha should have left such an intriguing subject to more capable hands. Vampira is an artist, poet, actress, model, dancer even a singer, but this poor excuse for a documentary paints a very vague picture and leaves the uneducated viewer to believe she should only be remembered as a kook who clings to a 50 year old black wig. I give it one star - simply because Amazon does not have zero or negative ratings.Movie Review: The music was worse than terrible
Summary: 1 Stars
The great thing about this movie is the interview with Maila Nurmi (Vampira). As the reviewer Ethan put it, she was "fascinating, humorous, lovely and incredibly entertaining." She was 82 years old when she did the interview. The movie would have been better with more of that, and less (or none) of the other interviews.
Another really nice thing is the old footage of Maila. In one sequence she posed not as Vampira but as herself wearing a light blue bathing outfit. The other footage was from her TV show, as the Vampira character. I had thought there was no such footage available. I really wish this DVD included the old footage uncut and complete. In this movie, the old footage is sliced up and shown as excerpts.
Another thing I liked were the glimpses of print media coverage of Maila and the Vampira character from that period. Again, I wish the entire material had been presented on the DVD, which would certainly have been technically possible, even if only as an appendix or special feature. I did pause the DVD to read the stories, but I could see only short excerpts of the text.
I also liked the brief interview with Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), in which she talked about how her character was created, and about the law suit with Maila. (Maila did not tell her version on this DVD.)
There you have a comprehensive list of all that is good about this movie. Everything else was terrible. Ethan and others have already done a better job than I could do explaining why this movie is terrible. I agree with everything Ethan wrote, and I particularly endorse his Lobster analogy. However, he left one thing out: the music, which was terrible in every respect.
In this movie, the music during the opening credits was hard rock music that has no connection with Vampira or her era. We were assaulted again by similar terrible, anachronistic music during two montages later in the movie. You can turn the sound completely off during those parts. What is beyond forgivable is the electronic music (apparently composed for the film) that played during the interviews. Remember that the best thing about the movie is the extended interview with Maila? Practically throughout the interview you have to listen to really bad electronic music, obviously created well after the Vampira era. This annoying music is so unimaginative and formulaic that it may in fact have been "composed" by a computer program. Imagine watching a fascinating interview in a theater that's filled with a really bad smell, except something prevents you from holding your nose.
When I started watching this movie, I anticipated hearing fun, kitschy music from the period, perhaps including bongo drums, a vibraphone, a theremin, and maybe a mono-syllabic soprano. With better choices in music, this movie would have risen above awful-terrible to passable. I had thought it would be nice to keep this movie to experience again the good stuff listed above, but I know I'll never again be willing to sit through the awful music that defaces the Maila interview.
I just now watched this movie, and maybe you can tell I'm kind of angry. That's because I believe I was I was abused and tortured by the music, and because I believe the film maker defaced his precious material. This is a lesson for me in how our beliefs are responsible for negative emotions.