Vampirella

Vampirella

With a half-naked alien vampire as its protagonist, no '70s comic book was a more transparent piece of adolescent boys' fantasy fulfillment than Vampirella, with the possible exception of Heavy Metal. Here, Vampirella receives the sort of feature-film adaptation only executive producer Roger Corman is capable of delivering: Forgotten Bond girl Talisa Soto, clad in what looks like an outfit from a Frederick's Of Hollywood factory-outlet store, plays the title character, a princess from the planet Drakulon set on vengeance against her father's killer, The Who's Roger Daltrey. Following Daltrey to Earth by way of stock footage that appears to be left over from Battle Beyond The Stars, she finds him posing as a rock star while secretly plotting to throw the world into eternal darkness. Vampirella obviously sets the bar fairly low, but it doesn't quite stumble over it. Seeing aging rocker Daltrey running around in a cape and hamming twitchily ought to have built-in entertainment value, but instead it just seems sad. And, once the novelty value of watching an irredeemably awful movie wears off, Vampirella wears out its welcome quickly, even at a mere 76 minutes.

 
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