CineTV Contest: #69 Vampires Meet the Beach Party Movies

This week on the cinetv contest, we have “inappropriate movies” as this is contest number 69, which I guess means caulderfreeman is channeling Bill and Ted this week. He was also very specific about expectations to keep it to PG-13. With that in mind, I thought I would do a film that has some inappropriate humor of different types and ssome of the music may be a bit borderline as well – American Vampire – also sometimes referred to as An American Vampire Story.

American Vampire poster - IMDB

Why I chose this film (rated PG-13 by the way) is that when I was researching Beach Party movies some time ago I found that there was a movie that spoofed the AIP Beach movies that starred Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and Vampire movies. When I first found out about this movie I found there were several reasons to add it to my collection – first, it is making a lot of fun of the AIP Beach Party movies going as far as including main characters Frankie (Trevor Lissauer), Dee-Dee (Daisy Torme), and Erik von Zipper (Johnny Venocur), aka Moondoggie (referencing an earlier beach movie, Gidget); it stars Adam West (Batman!) as the vampire slayer Big Kahuna; and like the first couple of AIP Beach movies, features Dick Dale (The King of the Surf Guitar) and the Del-Tones.

Screenshot from the DVD/movie of Dick Dale

The film is typical of the AIP films it spoofs in that boy has girlfriend, boy loses girlfriend, vampire put the bite on girlfriend, boyfriend gets vampire, I mean girlfriend back.

However, we’re talking about inappropriate movies, so here we go…and no, not going to give details as that would result in spoilers.

Yes, there is a fair amount of what is considered PG-13 humor of a sexual nature, some involving beach scenes with Frankie and his pal, Bogie (Danny Hitt), involving some inapproprate name-calling, and later with bogie attempting to get on the good side of a girl at the beach, and failing miserably. Funny, goofy, naughty and inappropriate. Other naughty and inappropriate humor involves Moondoggie’s vampire ladies, Sulka (Carmen Electra in her first movie!) and Katrina (Debra Xavier), with various snacks, I mean friends, in one case a bit naughtier than naughty, but still maintaining a PG-13 rating. Barely.

Moving on to other inappropriate bits, we have Moondoggie’s ghoul, Bruno (Sydney Lassick), who likes to snack on small critters, no biggie, until he turns the gardener, Nacho, into a party snack of, yeah, you guessed it, nachos. Gotta wonder if the writers realized that nacho is a common nickname for the Spanish name Ignacio, or were they just having fun with the name Nacho. Nacho, Nacho, Na-cho! Sorry, minor spoiler there.

The American Vampire also featuers a lot of good music, and the Hive account@stickupboys asked me to tag them on the post, as I mentioned there was some good music in the film I planned on writing about when I teased about this post. With Dick Dale appearing in the film, you know there is going to be good music, albeit Dale is only in the early part of the film, performing with his band at the beach. Also, I think his son is on one of the drum kits, at least I recall that being mentioned somewehere once upon a time. In addition to Dick Dale, who was an early staple in the AIP Beach movies, there is a lot of good rock and roll music. I tried to track some of it down, especially as one of the bands is listed in the opening credits. Just how many bands are out there with the name “Out of Order”? Answer – a lot, and I wasn’t able to find the song this band used in the film on spotify, or elsewhere, other than in the movie. Upside, one band I found that I like is a Ska band called The Bluebeats, who contributed two songs to the film. Check them out on Spotify. Good Stuff.

On the inappropriate music end of things, there is a one song called “X-Rated Superstar” by Home Cookin’. Fortunately, the version in the film is NOT the 17 minute remix on Spotify, but an earlier, tamer, PG-rated version.

As I mentioned, this was a film I sought out specifically because it spoofed the AIP Beach Party movies (I have all of the AIP Beach Party movies on DVD except for the last one in the series), including the characters. It is a fun film to watch, and only slightly naughty, stopping at being suggestive about being naughty.

screenshot from the DVD/movie of Adam West as the big Kahuna

Adam West made an interesting Vampire Hunter, and had a really cool prop used in the film. Carmen Electra was a surprise to see in this film, and although she did not have top billing at the time the movie was released, she is on the DVD as a means to sell it. Johnny Venocur as Count Erik von Zipper, did a good job as the lead vampire, and also had the right facial structure to match the original AIP movies von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck). Acting is darn good, it has a fun story, and it is a bit inappropriate at times, with the activities of Bruno, the ghoul, being a bit upsetting for my stomach. Pun intended. Also, it is a great film to watch with friends, popcorn and root beer. But skip the nachos.

For more info on CineTV blog and this contest, check them out at - @cinetv/cinetv-contest-69-favorite-inappropriate-movie

Thanks for stopping by.

NOTE – all images EXCEPT the movie poster, are screenshots from the DVD/movie for American Vampire - digiview edition. IMDB had a severe lack of interesting photos to use for this film review.

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