Don't kill us now. We love each other. You can kill us later after we've consummated our love.
Imagine that you're a Hong Kong producer of low-budget action films, and you'd like to make some quick bucks. So you look around and see what's hot. Hmmm, looks like that American Movie RoboCop is raking it in. To Live and Die in L.A. is doing pretty well showing that there is a market for films about the battle against drug smuggling. Vampire movies with maggoty corpses are a fave, but you do need some fan service. Plus your stock in trade is the Kung-Fu movie. So why not give the people everything they want in one movie?
That simple pot luck is the inspiration behind Robo Vampire, a movie that vies for the title of the worst movie of all time. The plot basics are Asian heroin smugglers have decided to add a bit of vampire muscle to improve their odds of dealing with the brave American DEA agents, one of whom is kidnapped so they can drip water down her shapely body and make her moan orgasmically and so she can be rescued after lots of gunplay. The DEA agents counter the vampires by reanimating one of their own dead into an android crime fighter who tries to do the Peter Weller schtick without a hint of Weller's talent or creativity. It's a blatant rip-off with just enough changed to make a lawsuit dicey. In reality, this movie doesn't have a plot, it has a Manhattan street map.
One scene exemplifies the director and producer's commitment to incomprehensibility. The Asian wizard/Vamp-herd is confronted by a shapely ghost in a negligee who is pissed off that he's turned her dead boyfriend into a gorilla/vampire wearing traditional Chinese robes and cap. You see that keeps the loving from being together in death as she intended. But the Vamp-herd agrees to marry her and her Vampire-in-a-gorilla-suit dead lover to square things and gain her service. Of course the real purpose of the scene is fan service. The scene's real point, er points, of the scene are readily visible through the frustrated ghost's transparent negligee.
Having finished that scene they cut to an ambush of DEA agents by a group of Vampires. And what vampires they are: immune to daylight, they don't seem interested in blood, and they shoot acid and sparklers from their sleeves. The can also teleport and display superb kung-fu moves, but they can't walk, they bunny hop. That's right, kung-fu rated teleporting vampires are incapable of normal motion, they must extend their arms like zombies and hop around. It's beneath ridiculous. Which leads to another scene at a church where the cross is made of uncut heroin and the stunning church secretary machine guns a bunch of druggies before her clip runs dry and she"s taken prisoner so they can molest her.
All of that sets off more absurdity. Nothing, absolutely nothing makes sense in Robo Vampire. Characters are introduced constantly, appearing as if out of thin air. There are times when I wonder if this wasn't several films spliced together, and to describe the ending as a "resolution' would stretch reality. Don't expect sense. Don't expect good voice dubbing either, and you will be surprised when Chinese girls speak with New York Jewish and Australian accents.
The movie begs comparison to Ed Wood's classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. Both offer an incoherent plot and a lot of unintended humor. But the similarities end there. The director of Robo Vampire had a far larger budget, at least enough to afford real hubcaps and anti-tank rockets. The Oriental shooting site allows for some fairly spectacular scenery at points. But the real point is that Edward D. Wood jr reached for something he lacked the talent to achieve. Robo Vampire is an exploitation flick without any attempt at coherence. Director Joe Livingstone aimed at the feet and missed low, so low that he dug his way to China. And came back out again.
Two breasts. Multiple dead bodies, with flesh rending, worm vomiting, Chinese wrestlers, bunny hopping undead, cow-corpse stuffing, and 1950's science labs still used for 1988 robotics.
It's worth five bucks. It will make your brain explode.
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