I have to admit, for the first half hour or so of this film I was wincing at some overly broad characterizations of teens, and an early male victim is so sleazy he could have twirled his mustache and I wouldn't have batted an eye. But once the vampires start showing up the movie suddenly starts to show some real skill, and it seems that director Ricardo Islas, with his lucky thirteenth picture(!) according to the imdb, has a hand with horrific action that would make any Italian Giallo master tip his hat in respect.

A pair of "Art Teachers" become obsessed with the "blood countess" Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad Tepes' infernal soulmate who believed that bathing in the blood of virgins would keep her forever youthful and beautiful. I suppose one could argue that Bathory's method didn't work, because she was caught and put to death. But on the other hand, the countess didn't exactly reach the kind of ripe old age that would have proven if her theories were indeed correct after all, so I guess one would never really know the truth (mwahh-ahh-ahh!!!).

But these two young ladies, in particular Lupe (played by the film's producer, Cyn Dulay, with demonic relish), are determined to prove that her theories were not only correct, they actually turned her into a vampire and now they could live forever as vampires, too. Lupe's lady love Jennifer isn't really buying this, but looks at it as more as the fantasy of a partner with a rich imagination. Jennifer also spots some rich imagination and sacrificial potential in her young student Amy. She sets about to find out whether or not she's a virgin, and be warned of a spoiler ahead (proceed to the next paragraph now) this isn't the kind of horror movie where the virgin makes it out alive at the end of the picture. Lupe and Amy slit the girl's throat and bathe in her blood, and as Lupe waits lustfully for the moment of her vampiric turning, Jennifer realizes that this is no fantasy and begins to regret what she's done (too little too late, but hey, all's fair in blood and vampires, right?)

The effects, considering that this was obviously done on the cheap, are incredibly effective, and a sequence in which a vampire crawls down a wall onto an unsuspecting victim is as cool as anything you'll see in the "Blade" or "Underworld" movies. If John Carpenter decides to produce a fourth entry in his "Vampires" series, he really needs to give Islas a call.

Islas also turns up in the film as the fannishly named professor Nashy, who gets to do a variation on Gene Wilder's "whatever I say, do not let me out of this room" bit from "Young Frankenstein" in one scene, and gets to do his fair share of slaying before the picture is over.

By the end of the movie, I was completely taken by surprise at the ingenuity of the horror sequences and won over. If you're in the mood not to drink ... wine ... (sorry, I couldn't resist, I was thumbing through an old Forrest Ackerman magazine and the puns are drilled into my head!) then this neck-biter (okay, I can see the long cane coming at me so I'll just say wacka-wacka and tell you to pick this up when it gets released -- it's a pain in the neck you won't mind having (mwahh-ahh-ahh!!!!)).

( The screener disc I viewed contained no special features, just the film.)