Movie Review: ‘Death Rider in the House of Vampires’

Director: Glenn Danzig

Cast: Devon Sawa, Julian Sands, Kim Director, Ashley Wisdom, Glenn Danzig, Victor DiMattia, Yulia Klass, Danny Trejo

Plot: A mysterious figure known only as Rider travels across the Old West, arriving at a Vampire Sanctuary where he buys his way in looking to kill vampires.

Review: Not long ago we reviewed a fascinating horror movie created by heavy metal punk rocker Glenn Danzig named Verotika. Based on the man’s own comic series, it’s remarkable for how amateur it came across in spite of the director’s long history in a creative. Largely cast with porn stars working through a script where nothing happens and special effects powered by hand pumps that are clearly visible to the viewers, it was a real interesting watch. So when we found a follow-up effort, with a bigger budget and some name actors involved we had to find it. That brings us to Death Rider in the House of Vampires.

The opening of the movie created some confusion, and it’s best we describe it as it happened. We open on some standard Old West landscape – no problem there – and see two figures on horseback. The one in the lead is dressed in black, complete with a black bandana over the face. Behind him is a buxom blonde woman dressed only in silver hot pants. Immediately we have some questions about this arrangement. After a few shots of these characters travelling through the desert, I grew suspicious. Had I gotten the wrong movie? This felt like some kind of Lone Ranger themed porn parody. So we start skipping ahead…a full five minutes and the scene is still continuing. Man in black, topless woman in hot pants and nothing else for five minutes. The only thing that dissuaded me that this wasn’t pornographic was the unexpected arrival of Danny Trejo, star of Machete and Spy Kids. We figured that this was the beginning of the movie proper.

The man in black and the topless woman continued through the desert for a further ten minutes. The first fifteen minutes is literally this and nothing else. No talking, no interactions. Topless woman on horse, man with his face covered. From the get-go, in spite of the increased production values and larger names attached to the project, Danzig seems to have learned very little from the response to Verotika.

Eventually we get a title sequence in the style of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly wherein each actor they introduced along with the name of the character. The topless woman on the horse is credited – in the opening titles – as ‘Girl on the Horse’, complete with a stillshot of her riding topless on a horse. This does nothing to dissuade from the impression that Danzig is only making these movies an an excuse to film topless women, because instead of this emphasise on the character they play no role in the movie movie forward. Our pair do arrive at the titular House of Vampires where the price of admission is a virgin. The masked man hands over the topless girl and gets shown to a room in the saloon.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

Now that we have our titular character in the titular location, the action can start proper. And by start proper, we mean that nothing much happens for a long time. We have a couple of different vampire actors – a vamping redhead with a small blonde sidekick, and a long haired fellow who does 90% of his acting with his hands – we they all spend a lot of time talking about what vampire stuff they plan on doing. Then they’ll send for another character to come to their room and talk to them some more. The main character appears to be trying to hide his identity, only referring to himself as ‘Rider’. Since we don’t know anything about this character, his reputation or what they’re doing in a vampire den, none of this matters.

Everyone continues talking to each other, and very occasionally we have a very slow, dragged out vampire bite scene where you spend up to five minutes watching fake blood being hand-pumped out of fake neck wounds. The only other reprieve from the monotony is the appearance of some known names, such as Eli Roth, who stand out for their performance skills even while struggling to overcome a lack of direction and silly dialogue. It does feel odd that Roth couldn’t give Danzig a few pointers though. No doubt this was an opportunity for Danzig and his friends to hang out and play cowboy together, and the amount of fun they’re all having on set comes across to the viewer.

Unfortunately, Danzig’s lack of understanding in telling a visual story or filming a movie cannot be covered up. Like Verotika, this is a slow, badly paced and features some remarkably amateur camera work. The lens is constantly floating around and zooming in and out, with every shot lingering longer than necessary. There are a few moments of creativity, such as a POV shot a vampire being held of the ground by her neck, but these moments are sparse. There’s some energy to the final saloon shootout, so that’s a fun moment.

The strangest part of this production is the lack of a score. Danzig is credited for the score, but it’s weirdly absent. Crowded bar scenes are quiet affairs, with shots of dancing girls on stage performing with no music playing. We can’t quite follow the thinking here.

It’s a charming mess of a movie, but we’d be lying it we said that we don’t want to see more from Danzig. There is something fun, and everyone’s having a good time.

Review: TWO out of TEN