In the small town of Marlow shit is rapidly headin’ south.
After Dracula’s (Craig Gloster) space invasion is inadvertently thwarted, he remains committed to the cause and tries that shit again… this time with zombies!
The local police have their hands full with a sex pest, but fortunately they still have the time to get on the case and attempt to quash that star-born fang bang before the entire town ends up as hungry soldiers of the dead!
Things aren’t going to go easy on the home-front for ol’ Drac-Attack either as he has to contend with his rebellious son, Dylan (Robert Kemeny), who wants nothing more than to be a real Earth teen!
If the above wicked words didn’t clue ya in, this is a parody of Ed Wood’s classic Plan 9 From Outer Space… but while the look is ‘50s black and white drive-in chic, Vampire Zombies… From Space! provides plenty of modern accouterments along with the retro aesthetic.
For instance, Troma head-honcho Lloyd Kaufman shows up as a chronic masturbator (and while we are talking cameos, be on the look out for Night of the Living Dead’s Judith O’Dea as well).
There’s also scads of that ever-green delight, swearing… and absolute bucket loads of quality practical gore effects.
It’s that dichotomy that provides a large number of laughs… but while the modern touches may seem out of place to some, there is a serious amount of reverence given to Wood’s preternatural picture as well as other Cold War sci-fi shockers from director Michael Stasko (who also co-wrote the screenplay along with scribes Jakob Skrzypa and Alex Forman).
Adding to that, cinematographer Ken Amlin provides some jaw-dropping chiaroscuro imagery that would make the filmmakers this gang are trying to emulate Martian-green with envy!
The only thing about Vampire Zombies… From Space! that I didn’t dig on was the copious amount of CG utilized to realize the film’s spacecraft. While trying to emulate the plates on strings tech of years past the filmmakers chose to achieve those results digitally and it just made me wish they’d flung some shit around on fishing line (like they did with the beastly bats presented), but your mileage may vary.
Special features on this Blu-ray release from Cleopatra include interviews with cast and crew, a director’s commentary track, a selection of deleted scenes, footage of the film’s screening at the Windsor International Film Festival, a slideshow and a trailer.
Vampire Zombies… From Space! Is easy to recommend for fans of both Wood’s oeuvre and Troma… and it’s blend of heartfelt homage and side-splitting laughs would make a solid triple bill with Larry Blamire’s The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and Paul Bunnell’s The Ghastly Love of Johnny X!
