Pale Blood

Pale Blood isn't bad but it's not great either. I love the early nineties look and sound. The film is looks gorgeous but the acting and dialogue are not that great. Wings Hauser is fun to watch and George Chakiris is fine as the vampire hunting a killer who is murdering young woman in a vampiric style by draining their blood. The rest of the cast are good but nothing really stands out. The twist at the end was nice. All up a good movie to watch but ultimately forgettable. Forever Knight did it better especially with great characters like LaCroix.

"Pale Blood" tries to be a stylish and inventive vampire flick and does only a fair job. Someone is murdering women in L.A. and it is suspected that the killer might be a vampire. Instead, the killer is a madman, pretty much played to perfection by Wings Hauser. When the real thing shows up to try to figure out what is actually going on with the help of a detective who has certain "gifts", the two are able to put a stop to the murders. I can definitively say that I had a bit of a time making it through the whole film without leaving to find something else to do - it wasn't able to hold my interest for very long. I did finally finish it but not in one sitting. As mentioned, I thought Wings Hauser did a great job, however, George Chakiris wore more eyeliner than a glam band and I found his performance to be tiresome after a while. He showed little emotion or range and it was like his face had been shot full of Botox or something - one of the main reasons I had a hard time sitting through the film. When the lead character in a movie bores you, its kinda tough to really enjoy what you are watching. Even when he was twitching (you'll have to watch the film to figure out why he was doing that) he bored me to death. However, when Wings Hauser showed his true colors, I finally got interested in the movie and watched it through to the end. And I have to say appreciated the detective's taste in film (Nosferatu)! I'm assuming that all of the blue and red lighting used in the film was an attempt to be artsy or stylish but I found it absolutely unnecessary and thought it was rather silly - I feel that it took away from the film rather than enhancing it. It was quite overused. However, I did find the portable zip up coffin to be quite interesting. Although some reviewers would disagree, I actually did like the band (where the eyeliner was well placed :)). So if you can get past an emotionless vampire that shows no expression and wears more eyeliner than I do, go for it. You might want to take a look see at Mr. Hauser once he starts going off the rails, but you'll have to get through a lot of the movie before that happens.

Watch this movie for George Chakiris' perfect, perfect performance. I saw it on late night TV and there were some indications that scenes near the end had been cut out to make it TV-acceptable, or else the plotting became slightly choppy, but then it proceeds nicely to the ending. The traffic scenes used to take us through the daylight hours are a nice touch. There is a satisfying twisty ending. Not a great movie, but for me, Mr Chakiris' performance was a 10, and the reason I rated this movie so highly. Bela Lugosi set the standard. Chakiris is one magnificent standard-bearer and no one has done it better. The female lead Pamela Ludwig seems a little gauche in comparison, and one of his achievements is that his performance somehow highlights this AND works with it to highlight his character's sense of more-than-human age and experience. Ludwig is cute, and she gets better. Hauser is boiling over the top from his first scene, as his character requires, and I guess his fans would like this movie, too.

WARNING ***SPOILERS*** This is a mediocre, but not totally flawed thriller masquerading as a vampire flick: a series of brutal murders are attributed by press and television to a vampire. In fact, is a madman, a would be photographer, trying to capture a real vampire. Alas, he takes two of them, one male and one female and his fate was doomed (he'll finish inside an asylum, talking vainly of his discoveries). Wings Hauser, as the wanna be vampire and true murderer, steals the scene with a very good villain, while the two vampiric leads, are not so convincing (especially Pamela Ludwig who is a Rosie McGowan look alike, but with less *). All in all, there are worst ways to spend 90 minutes, but this is not necessarily good.

Here's one of the more stylish and intriguing vampire fright features from the early 90's, a period when these pictures were seriously glutting the direct-to-video market. The chronically maniacal (and always delightful) Wings Hauser, who earned his B-movie cult stripes with his awesomely electrifying portrayal of the sublimely hateful'n'heinous psycho pimp supreme Ramrod in the great'n'gritty knock-out "Vice Squad," does his patented first-rate fruity'n'frenzied freakazoid act as Van Vandameer, a totally crackers psychotic video artist who's brutally butchering attractive young honeys in Los Angeles (the victims are thoroughly drained of their blood, which qualifies as par for the course as far weird s**t in L.A. is concerned). George Chakiris (the suave Latino gang leader in "West Side Story"), looking very pallid, handsome, elegant and uncannily youthful, gives a surprisingly fine, intense and sympathetic performance as Michael Fury, a dour, composed, reticent, decidedly undeadly and semi-heroic aristocratic European bloodsucker who hires diligent, energetic, outgoing private detective Lori (a spirited, beguiling Pamela Ludwig, a lovely lass who previously co-starred with Hauser in the passable post-nuke sci-fi/action item "Dead Man Walking") to help him track down Van Vandameer, who's the kind of contemptible good-for-nothing mortal miscreant who gives respectable real-life vampires a notoriously bad name. Hong Kong director V.V. Dachin Hsu brings a galvanizing surfeit of smoky, hazy, nightmarishly garish and bravura style to the reasonably artful, intelligent and original script, adding a few nifty, witty wrinkles to standard vampire lore (e.g., Chakiris sleeps in a portable leather suitcase come coffin -- complete with zipper! -- and doesn't like to drink Coke), neatly drawing distinct and engrossing characters, staging the frequent bloody violence with considerable flair (the climactic confrontation between Hauser and Chakiris especially swings), and injecting the funky, gleaming nighttime downtown Los Angeles locations with a finely atmospheric sense of pure skin-crawling dread. Moreover, incomparable trash movie goddess Sybil Danning can be briefly glimpsed walking down a street and the hip'n'ripping punk band Agent Orange perform a few thrashy numbers in a club. Crafty and involving, professionally done all around and a praiseworthy effort overall, this unjustly overlooked horror sleeper comes highly recommended, particularly to admirers of Wings Hauser's always deliciously loony, dynamic and exuberant bug-eyed histrionics.

I have loved this movie from the moment I saw it in the early 90's. It's absolutely impossible to find in order to buy it now-a-days, but I still remember it that fondly that I want to buy it. Yes, it was a little slow, but I enjoyed the music played by Agent Orange, especially 'Bite The Hand That Feeds' which is sung live on a stage in a club during the movie. I particularly remember the ending, as it was quite the twist and very romantic. The vampire found his mate in the most unexpected way. The movie was, at times, quite seductive in it's own way… If you're a vampire buff-and especially if you're sick of seeing the vampire die in the end because he's either 'feeling so guilty he walks into the sun', 'he gets bumped off by the hero or the girl he's after', or some other anti-vamp ending-watch this.

I'm not a huge vampire fan, so I might be a little biased, but Pale Blood didn't do much for me. There's a lot of atmospheric late 80's/early 80's shots of L.A. nightlife which do add a lot to the film, but the story itself is uninteresting and it doesn't help that Chakiris is a charisma vacuum as the male lead. Wings Hauser plays his usual sleazoid predator like he did in so many other 80's exploitation movies. The story itself is a bit hard to follow and I'm still not sure I know what it was about.

This is a very original take on the vampire genre during a time when a barrage of modern bloodsucking blockbusters filled our theaters and living rooms with originality and real bite.. 'The Lost Boys, 'Fright Night', and 'Near Dark' (just to name a few) kept us mesmerized at all the different styles and flavors filmmakers had to offer. Here's an overlooked and unappreciated little classic in the wake of the success of those great movies. Michael Fury (George Chakiris) is a classy and restrained vampire who travels to L.A. to investigate the many bodies turning up with fang marks and drained blood, and he's concerned about the impact it may have on the way people view the vampire community. Wings Hauser is a perverted filmmaker who's responsible for capturing the girls and staging their murders in order to catch a real vampire for his twisted collection of homemade films, and possibly become famous in the meantime. Pamela Ludwig is an occult enthusiast who instantly feels a strong connection for Michael, and story begins to unfold into an excellent final confrontation for the last thirty minutes or so of this unique concept that does a pretty good job of avoiding most of the worn-out clichés. Good direction, lots of surprises are abound, and you just gotta love Wings Hauser's intensely psychotic screen persona. The only thing that mars the mix is a slow first hour and an awful 80's goth rock band that unnecessarily interjects the action with a cheese-ball soundtrack. But all in all, 'Pale Blood' is an above average genre picture in drastic need of an official DVD release.

Well made low budget vampire movie. Nice twist . Wings Hauser was excellent as always. He is the reason to watch this movie.

Do not let the presence of Wings Hauser lure you into wasting 93 minutes on this stylish, erotic, and unbearably boring vampire film. George Chakiris is acceptable playing the role of a real vampire, on the trail of a fake vampire (an unhinged Wings Hauser). What is not acceptable is the throbbing punk soundtrack, meaningless redundant flashing images of murder victims, endless gratuitous traffic reports, etc. etc. The end result is a vampire movie that comes across more like a music video than a feature film. Sometimes the best surprise is no surprise, and "Pale Blood" fails miserably with its supposed surprise finale. The entire viewing experience is decidedly dull, and a real challenge to sit through. Not recommended. - MERK