“Vampires of the Velvet Lounge” – A Film that Feels More like a Raw Rehearsal than a Finished Feature
‘Vampires of the Velvet Lounge’ often leaves you wondering if you’re watching a nearly complete film or just a rough rehearsal. As a grubby supernatural thriller with Adam Sherman at the helm (‘She’s Just a Shadow’), it struggles with the tough creative decisions that keep viewers left scratching their heads with unanswered questions. Here’s our Vampires of the Velvet Lounge review, breaking down why this genre flick fails to scratch even the lowest of its appeal.
Plot Overview – The Promises that Fall Flat
Things kick off with three screens of dry PowerPoint-style intro text about Elizabeth (Mena Suvari), based on the infamous – and a wee bit legendary – Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. The real Bathory was rumoured to have bathed in the blood of young women in order to stay looking young and beautiful. But Suvari’s Elizabeth gives that whole ‘maintaining a youthful appearance’ thing little to no thought about, and a bunch of details we’re introduced to never really amount to anything.
The Core of the Story
Unfortunately, the plot doesn’t dig into Elizabeth’s famous – for her alleged blood-bathing past – status, and instead focuses on her and her undead protégé Joan (India Eisley) as they try to snag three middle-aged men:
- Luke (Tyrese Gibson): A divorced guy who’s feeling pretty down on his luck
- Randall (Stephen Dorff): Luke’s nagging lawyer who’s always on his case
- And a third guy who just kind of shows up
They have a couple of minor squabbles, but nothing remotely interesting or surprising happens, which makes it hard to muster up the motivation to care about these pretty one-dimensional characters.
Character Development: Where the Film Fails to Deliver
Cora: The Vampire Hunter with a really Bad Voice
Dichen Lachman plays Cora, an ex-soldier who’s set out to become a vampire hunter – an attempt that’s completely ruined by hilarious voiceover narration that sounds uncannily like someone attempting to imitate ASMR with sandpaper. Unfortunately, this Vampires of the Velvet Lounge review suggests Lachman fares a lot better without the voiceover and does pretty well conveying character through body language, but this poor narration really holds her back.
Some major complaints we have about Cora’s characterisation are:
- The voiceover is just too over-the-top and sounds like someone trying to imitate ASMR, but ended up with a bag of nails
- Most of her backstory is told to us through completely flat, unengaging monologues
- Her motivations are totally unclear throughout the whole runtime
Elizabeth and Joan: An Uninvested Dynamic
The relationship between Elizabeth and her younger protégé, Joan, also represents a squandered opportunity. This Vampire of the Velvet Lounge review thinks their connection is pretty shallow and that we don’t get to see much of anything resembling actual development of their characters. A lot of the time, you’re left wondering things like:
- What exactly is the nature of their mentor-protégé bond?
- Why is Elizabeth going after this specific group of guys?
- How do their vampire powers and limitations work within the story?
Alexis: Wasted Product
Rosa Salazar is on board as Alexis, the young and ambitious prospect of Cora, who thinks the whole romance thing can go down just fine online. While Alexis has a lot of spunk and a decent understanding of how to get things done, her motivations are as murky as a swamp. So why in the world would she go after a vampire she met on some dating app that nobody knows the name of? The chemistry between Salazar and her “toothy foil” is just as flat as a failed soufflé – and that confrontation between them? Totally lifeless.
Creative Decisions That Just Plain Baffle You
World-Building That Leaves You Baffled
The film keeps repeating that online dating and AI tools are exclusive to the wealthy and the creepers. But this actually gets very little play in the plot and leaves you scratching your head, wondering what the filmmakers were trying to say with all this.
Style Choices That Kill the Mood
The “strip club chic” aesthetic in this movie is a total misfire because:
- The lighting is all wrong and ends up obscuring the mood rather than setting it
- The visual compositions are dull and don’t make use of any interesting camera angles
- The film’s attempts to be edgy feel forced and shallow
Free Moments in a Jumbled Mess
Admittedly, there are a few moments in here that are memorable for all the wrong reasons – like that one line about not lighting someone on fire. A pretty wild bloodbath scene is one other standout – it’s got a manic energy that’s sort of entertaining. And then there’s the scene where the accomplice tries to chop someone’s head off with a ridiculously oversized pruning shears – that kind of thing can be fun in a bad- taste kind of way, but only if the film around it wasn’t such a jumbled mess.
The Behind-the-Scenes Stuff: Music and Production
Bear McCreary does do a good job of composing some catchy themes for the soundtrack. Still, even if you have cast some real wild cards – Suvari, Lachman, Eisley, Gibson, Dorff, Salazar, and Boone Junior all take a turn – at the end of the day, it’s the script that’s the problem. It’s a mess and reads like some kind of fanfiction that got a little too out of hand.
This review of Vampires of the Velvet Lounge has to say that the production values are pretty underwhelming. The whole visual language of the film fails to serve the supernatural premise, so instead of being entertained, even the most laid-back horror fans are left scratching their heads.
The Verdict: Who Might Actually Stick This Out?
Honestly, this review of Vampires of the Velvet Lounge is hard-pressed to come up with a group of folks that would be forgiving enough to sit through this mess. Whether you’re:
- A thrill-seeker looking for something that’s just plain “so bad it’s good”
- A horror buff just looking to see what all the fuss is about – or maybe just see the cast
- A Bear McCreary completist just looking to see another notch on his belt
… “Vampires of the Velvet Lounge” probably just won’t cut it. At the end of the day, the film just isn’t fun or interesting enough to make it worth the time.
Watch Only If:
❌ You genuinely enjoy deconstructing filmmaking disasters
❌ You’re doing research on Adam Sherman and want to see where he might have gone wrong
❌ You’ve got nothing better to do with your streaming time, and don’t have the biggest expectations
For all the rest of us, trying to figure out how this thing got made is probably going to be more entertaining than watching it itself.
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