[Live Evil]
Plot:Follows a cowboy-hat-wearing, samurai-sword-wielding, Priest/Vampire hunter dressed in black (Tim Thomerson) -- who is on a quest for blood. Vampire blood. He's out for revenge on a "clique" of four vampires who are traveling across country in search of "pure blood." The human blood stream has become polluted by drugs, alcohol, Aids, Diabetes, anti-depressants, cigarettes, anything that changes the blood even a small amount makes it undrinkable for Vampires, who, like hi-performance automobiles need "hi test" fuel (Blood) in order to survive. This has started a sort of underground civil war between various groups of vampires and vampires themselves have mutated due to the pollution of their life blood.

Cast:Tim Thomerson, Chuck Williams, Lee Perkins, Tiffany Shepis, Kimberly Sanders, Hawk Younkins, Clint James.

My Thoughts:Better than the average indie vampire movie.

Review:After such disasters to come out of the indie vampire arean, such as "Bled" recently, "Live Evil", from filmmaker Jay Woelfel, isn't spectacular, but it works within it's own arena. The film takes place in an America where bands of vampires are on the hunt for a new food source. The interesting thing about "Live Evil" is how it blends usual vampire movie cliches, with some key new elements. The usual cliches are vampires exist, but humans are totally oblivious to them and their existence.

The new wrinkles though, are that vampires can no longer just feed on the blood of any human. Between our self-destructive habits of drinking, and smoking, and other self-destructive behaviors such as drug use and consumation of larges amounts of fast food...our blood has become so polluted that even the vampires can't digest it. So these vampires seek out pure blood, such as blood from very healthy people, or in some cases, babies. Tim Thomerson plays a sword-wielding priest, who's on the hunt for a particular band of vampires.

A group introduced at the start of the movie in a pretty comical, and bloody diner scene. He has to find and kill them before they can take more innocent lives. In the midst of all of this, vampires are at inner-war with each other, ala the gangs of today. The low budget hurts the movie, make no mistake about it. The blood looks questionable in some scenes, and the decapitation scenes don't caryr the full impact they could, would, or should...because of the small budget. But on a throwback, 80's, old school horror kind of way, the above-mentioned moments do still carry just enough weight to get by as acceptable within the context of the film.

Tim Thomerson in his role as the vampire-hunting priest, is sometimes upstaged by the gorgeous and talented Kimberly Sanders, who plays Roxy, a no-nonsense black chick who's truck Thomerson's character commonderes to pursue his targets. The two's relationship gets off to a rocky start, this despite The Priest rescuing Roxy from a vampire attack in a bar restroom earlier. However he follows that up by clocking her moments later after she refuses to allow him to use her truck.

Eventually, the two put their differences aside when Roxy is informed about what is going on in the world that lies in secret from her own. The vampires in this film are a lot less broodish than in normal vampire movies, which can certainly be appreciated a ton. There aren't any Gap ad, Eurotrash, or metrosexual vampires here. These vampires are more college-student/slacker looking. And also, they talk like normal people and act like normal people, rather than snobs with some sort of heirarchy. But this movie gives us a lot of cool vampire homages as well.

We get the typical neck-biting, bloodletting, fangs, and such. But we also get vampire couples, vampire babies, and a few other surprises as well. It's nice to see a filmmaker get creative with vampires instead of just keeping them in the same boring old rut which we've seen a thousand times before. On a scale of 1 to ten, this film is about a 20 when it comes to blood and gore, and it's also graphically violent. So gorehounds shouldn't have a single complaint about this picture.

The ending wraps things up nicely by not being predictable and adding in an interesting twist which revolves around the films supposed protagonist. "Live Evil" with a bigger budget, could've been a great movie. But despite not being a modestly budgeted vampire flick, it still manages to be a very above average indie cinematic piece.

Positives:Non brooding, non Gap-Ad-Looking, and Non Eurotrash vampires. Tons of blood, gore, and vampire-induced violence, an interesting and clever story, great performances by Thomerson and Sanders, and a smart and unpredictable conclusion.

Negatives:Like I said, the small budget hurt the film in some areas such as the decapitations and such.

Overall:Three out of four stars.





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