The Vampire Conspiracy (2005) User Reviews

A severe case of vocabulary poverty

[MarplotRedux · 2/10 · 2 June 2012]

I'm a fan of low, low, low budget movies. In this one, almost the entire set was of what I assume were plasterboard corridors. Fine. The film's colors kept fading to black, white and red. Fine. The actors and actresses were inexperienced. Since they tried hard, fine. So why did I give it such a low rating? (1) I won't swear to this, but would estimate that at least 25% of the words that the characters spoke were forms of the f-word. This gets monotonous. When I'm finally able to finance Inconsiderate Fatheads From Outer Space, I shall have the alien invaders repeatedly saying "carnal knowledge", "sexual congress", and "fornication". The worst that the Good Guys shall say will be "darn", "shucks" and, in dire extremity, "poo". (2) Another quarter or so of the remaining dialog was incomprehensible, even though I had the sound turned way up. So, although I was able to follow the overall plot, many of its details never registered. All that said, that overall plot was novel, the extras who portrayed the undead were well made up. They snarled, crawled (when necessary) and bit well. I was surprised that when a fairly blunt, though jagged, wooden spike was thrown at them it would go through them so easily, but then their bodies may have decomposed quite a bit. The best thing in the film was the music. Sad to say, even it lacked.

Excellent plot, all it needs is money.

[flatline_HQ · 4/10 · 7 October 2006]

The concept for this film is awesome, and the plot was quite interesting to say the least. I was a little unsatisfied with the lack of visuals and poor fight sequences; I can understand they didn't have a lot to work with as far as the local goes being that it was all shot in studio but the fight sequences were too conservative and looked as though they belonged on stage and not on screen; I see less ghost-punches in wrestling.

That all being said I think it is an incredibly fresh and new look for Vampire films and given a bigger budget and some good lookin' B-list actors this film could be incredible!

Painful

[rubiesanddust · 2/10 · 13 February 2011]

As I'm writing this there are three other reviews posted all praising this as a low budget gem. I'm here to tell you either something is rotten somewhere or they didn't see the same film I saw.

The plot was something about a vampire trapping five people in a maze and playing games with them, not a bad premise but not carried through very well. The films biggest problem was the quality of the acting -- I now know that I could act in a vampire movie, yes even I who can hardly act pleased believably when somebody gives me a chartreuse sweater for Christmas, who sweats blood at the very thought of public speaking. To get to the point (and don't whine at my ramblings, if you watched the movie you know how to waste time already and if you didn't I'm saving you from losing an important block of time better spent clipping your toenails) the acting was C- for a high school drama class. It was so awful I felt sorry for the actors. Really it ... well it stank, a lot.

I gave it two stars instead of one because even with the horrible acting it had a bit of style. The bleak and moody atmosphere was pretty nice but couldn't make up for the lack of coherence in the story itself and nothing could make up for the ghastly acting.

Verbal Diarrhea

[tito_knows · 1/10 · 21 November 2012]

There have been vary few movies I have watched that I have been unable to see through to the end. This is without a doubt the worst of those movies. I'm not even sure this can be classified as a movie. Movies inherently provide some level of entertainment, this provides none. I can look past the poor acting, low video quality, sub-par special effects, and high school quality sets. It is after all a low budget movie. What amazed me was the ability to take what seemed like an intriguing plot line and put minimal effort into expanding on it. There is very little flow to the movie. The explanation for why they are in the situation they are makes little sense. One moment it seems like the characters have known each other for years the next it seems like they just met, and back again. It's only minutes into this movie before you realize your time would be better spent watching grass grow. But as bad as all of that was. That wasn't what caused me to shut the movie off. I doubt that I'm overstating this, every third word was F***. F*** this, F*** that, F*** you. When a character was mad they would increase the swearing: scared - increase swearing, confused - increase swearing, happy - increase swearing, etc... All I can assume is when they would forget their line (assuming there actually was a script) they would just throw an F bomb in there to fill the silence. This movie would have been more aptly titled "F***ing Vampires F*** F***... ...F***" Maybe they could have just stood in a circle with a vampire in the centre and swore at each other for 90 minutes.

You should probably watch it...

Small Budget magic

[andrew1345 · 9/10 · 29 October 2007]

This movie is fantastic.

Go beyond the obvious lack of budget and consider the fantastic storyline, the plot twists, the characterizations and the phenomenal concept.

I enjoyed this movie immensely and would recommend it to anyone who loves the horror or B-movie genre (although, with a decent budget, this is way better than any B-movie) The intensity of the storyline keeps you watching and waiting for what might possibly come next, and usually guessing wrong.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

A fresh and different take on the usual vampire premise

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 25 October 2010]

Five folks are abducted by bitter misanthrope vampire Thelonius Von Rylos (a suave and commanding portrayal by Jean-Marc Fontaine) and placed in a deadly maze that they must get out of in a single evening's time. If anyone survives the ordeal, that person will win the vampire's fortune. If they lose, they become lunch for Rylos' bloodsucking slaves. Writer/director Marc Morgenstern wrings plenty of claustrophobic suspense from the gripping and ingenious story, does an equally sound job of ably creating and maintaining a tense, spooky, and mysterious atmosphere, and stages the vampire attack scenes with real aplomb. The tricky narrative never becomes predictable and keeps you guessing right up to the surprising conclusion (in fact, said narrative is quite reminiscent of "Cube" in so far that it keeps the viewers on their toes from start to finish and offers some dark insights into human nature amid all the absorbing dramatics). Better yet, the characters are drawn with admirable depth and substance and are interconnected to each other in complex and subtle ways. This film further benefits from sturdy acting by the capable cast: Sarah Boes as feisty cop Janet Montgomery, Adrian M. Pryce as tough criminal Sam "Shiv" MacKenzie, Ron Mazor as antagonistic jerk lawyer Mitchell Jobidan, Christiane Garcia as wise college professor Dr. Vera Nichols, Jaret Sacrey as the twitchy, sniveling Peter Church, and John Lopes as compassionate engineer Brian Samuels. Dana Alexander's stylish cinematography uses a muted grayish color scheme to enhance the overall gloomy mood. Joseph Martini's shivery score does the shuddery trick. A nifty and engrossing low-budget indie horror sleeper.