Live Evil

So a tramp walks into a diner, and kills everybody inside. She’s a vampire, see, but after dining on drunken hillbilly cock (no kidding) she becomes violently ill. It seems that in addition to polluting the planet people themselves have become so diseased and unfit for consumption that a girl just can’t get a good meal so easily anymore. This last bit, by the way, we’re informed of via narration by Max (Ken Foree), who will show up later in the film.

The vampire girl, Sydney (Osa Wallander), is rescued by her retro-looking boyfriend Benedict (Mark Hengst), and the two haul ass away from the crime scene. Meanwhile, out in the nearby desert, The Priest (Tim Thomerson), a minister who dresses like a cowboy and carries a samurai sword, butchers another fang-sprouter. Tossing the carcass into the bed of his El Camino, Priest speeds off, coming up directly behind the vampire couple. When the vampires spot him (this breed of vamp can get around just fine in the sunlight) they veer off the road and into the dusty flats for some chasing and swerving. Priest manages to flip his vehicle, and the vampires get away.

Syd and Ben head straight to the home of their wanker mick friend Baxter (Gregory Lee Kenyon) to hide out, and all three commiserate over the lack of clean blood in the world. As they do so another lady vampire friend of theirs, Yeal (Eva Derek), gets topless, bloody and disgusted when her evening pick-up also turns out to be contaminated.

Back out in the desert Priest, now on foot, is set upon in the dark by some melodramatic bloodsuckers who can’t fight for shit. In the swordfest that follows Priest kills a handful of them, making sure to cut out their hearts and leave his calling card on their bodies.

Once Yeal returns from her date the vampire foursome cram themselves into a car and hit the road. They’re looking for another clan of vampires they’ve heard rumors of, as well as the healthy human livestock upon which they’ve been feeding. But wait, Baxter first has to put on his grunge costume (hooded parka and shag wig), and with a few more snarky comments it’s off to Los Angeles they go. (Even though finding clean blood in Los Angeles is about as likely as Roman Polanski being invited back to the States to teach grammar school.)

Now the Priest walks into a bar, looking for some whiskey and another set of wheels. He approaches the only other patron in the place, Roxy (Brown? No, Kimberly Sanders), but she blows him off and heads to the bathroom. Where she finds a vampire straggler from the desert gang eating the eyes out of the bartender’s head. She’s about to be next, but Priest enters the narrow hallway and somehow manages to decapitate the bloodsucker in the nick of time.

When Roxy proves more sassy than grateful Priest cold-cocks her, stealing her keys and her Marlboro Lights. But as he tries to start her van Roxy emerges from the bar and, at gunpoint, becomes his reluctant chauffeur. As the new partners chatter away like a broken sitcom, with Priest explaining the difference between the “pure blood” that the vampires need and the bad blood most people carry (“Hell, most of us are so polluted we’re inedible.”), the vampires take time out from their run to stage a home invasion and eat some babies. After dining on one of the young ‘uns, Syd gets the wild idea to “put it back”; when mom and dad check up on the little ones they find their daughter gone and their infant son turned into a hungry little Hellraiser.

Priest and Roxy show up unerringly a little while later to find the loving parents torn to shreds and their child turned into a mummy-faced little monster. Whose head Priest quickly lops off: “God damn vampire babies,” he says, “They’re the worst.” The folks have also turned by now as well, and they are dispatched in turn.

Back on the road to L.A. the vampires are pulled over by a pair of policemen. Who also turn out to be vampires – the variety with fangs in the palms of their hands. Bad lines, messiness and blood all follow, with the scene ending when Ben trades their lives for those of the vampire hunters following close behind. The hunters are quickly pulled over, but easily manage to destroy the bloodthirsty bronze (in shots that include a particularly nasty skull-crushing brain-spurting scene – nice!).

Meanwhile the vampires have hit Hollywood, with the first stop being a tour of the Strip. Priest and Roxy have also made town, but limit their sightseeing to a “vampire house.” Along with body parts stuffed into the refrigerator the hunters find the desiccated remains of a vampire, one who had evidently been tortured and starved to death. Answering the dead monster’s phone Priest gets a line on a party, and he heads off with Roxy in tow.

The vampires by now are at a party themselves, a “vampire happening” hosted by Max. Guests wear fake plastic fangs, topless women serve ‘blood’ cocktails and hot dogs, and everyone seems to be getting along in grand old Halloween style. Except for the new arrivals that is, who become offended and start raising hell, picking fights and tearing folks up left and right. But somehow this is all taken in stride – it is Los Angeles, after all.

In the morning Yeal is abducted by Roxy and the Priest, who had been lurking throughout the entire party wearing a gargoyle mask and just biding his time. (And letting a lot of innocent people get killed.) Bundling the vampire girl into the van the kidnappers are spotted by Ben and Syd, but when the vampires attempt to give chase they find the engine of their own car torn up and the remains of the vampire house owner sitting in the passenger seat with Priest’s calling card between its teeth.

Now Max finally makes his appearance, ushering the couple back inside for an explanation. Max recognizes the Priest’s card, reading “Ago Malum,” Live Evil, as bearing the emblem of the Athletes of Christ, a bunch of “Super holy motherfuckers” granted the power of being allowed to kill without being damned to Hell. Which means Priest is a serious man – “Basically you couldn’t be any more fucked,” Max tells them. With this bit of advice and a little more background information Max gives the vampires a container of clean blood and kicks them out of his house. (After coughing up his car keys as well, that is.)

Yeal meanwhile is being tortured by the Priest: after dousing her with gasoline he shoots her full of holes and sets her on fire. Later, as he and Roxy unwind at the Valley of Fire Motel, Priest finally tells the story that’s been building in incremental flashbacks since the film began: it seems that when he was a child his dear old dad was killed by a vampire during some sort of sex game, and the young Priest was chained to his body. When dad turned and woke up hungry, the kid had to stake him out.

Daylight finds the vampires driving out to the Valley of Fire, a mythical site where good and evil once battled it out in the form of priests and vampires. And who should join them on the dry dirt road but Priest and Roxy. The scene that follows is much like the earlier car chase, albeit with the recreation of a scene from Mad Max thrown in for shits and giggles. Once the vehicles come to a halt the final showdown is on, taking place on the grounds of a stone mission in the middle of the desert.

And while there may be some conveniently clever moments, and not without some small surprises, some of what follows is stereotypical and/or ridiculous enough to elicit laughter.

Pure B-movie schlock, Live Evil is one of those films that makes it difficult to tell whether it’s meant to be taken seriously or not. Characters engage in ungainly theatrics and utter the most ridiculous lines with the straightest of faces (“Our hunger is mightier than your sword!”), yet scenes that are obviously intended to be funny (like the transvestite barmaid) aren’t really all that amusing.

On top of this some portions of the film are just flat-out confusing: what’s with the early reference to “The Devil – Festus – Phillip James Bailey, 1838” that doesn’t appear to be relevant to any other scene? And what’s the deal with Max’s party? The guests are vampires, but then they’re not vampires, but some of them are, but Max doesn’t deal with vampires, but then he does… The constant feuding of vampire clans that is alluded to on a regular basis is also so underplayed that it’s more of a footnote than a framing device.

There are lots of cheap effects though, what with all of the dangling eyeballs, rubber hands and goofy baby doll vampire brats, enough in fact to make for a violent gore-o-rama. Which would have been considerably more entertaining with better pacing; although there is plenty of action, the scenes in between drag on and on. The characters are all so equally unlikable that it really makes it difficult to root for either the vampires or the ‘hero’; it literally took me five sittings to get through the entire film. (The goth lite soundtrack didn’t help much either.)

I really wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. It’s got tits, it’s got gore…it’s got mediocrity. And I can’t help but think that with all of the resources at hand this simply should have been a better film. But now that vampire pictures are all the rage, again, this is just the latest entry in vampiric cinema con queso. And although this was an attempt to create a thought-provoking vampire epic full of carnage infused with humor, it instead becomes a Swissy exploitation film that ought to be playing on the midnight movie circuit, sandwiched between two other blood feasts to ensure that you’re getting your five dollars’ worth.

Then again, this is just one guy talking. As a vampire film filled with gore and (partial) nudity that includes fan favorites Foree and Thomerson, Live Evil just might have cult potential. Only time will tell…

– Tom Crites