Bloodstone: Subspecies II (1993)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Fantastic!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Arriving in the Transylvanian backwoods, a woman searching for her sister finds that she's run afoul of a vicious vampire looking for a sacred relic she stole while on assignment in the country and must team up with a reluctant official in the area to stop the vampire's evil plans.There was a lot to really like here. Among the many notable elements present in this one is the fact that this one really goes overboard in exploiting the Gothic atmosphere present in the situation. Taking place directly after the first one means that the continuation of those events, namely the resurrection of the main villain and his subsequent destruction of the other vampire followed by the chase through the castle ruins to retrieve the missing relic gives this a strong sense of action within the confines of the castle. Taking those ancient-looking ruins and places makes for a highly enjoyable time here as it mixes the older-style look of the castle and the surrounding city while taking place in the modern setting which makes it easier to accept the Gothic concepts of the rest of the film. Seeing the idea of the vampire along the rotting and decomposing mummy he calls his mother, seeing the elaborate antiquities inside the museum where she sleeps or the travelogue footage of the castle help this along rather nicely with the additional work done to enhance the Gothic leanings featured here. This leads nicely into the vampire action within here, which is handled rather well with some solid suspenseful moments. The scenes of her out in the city hunting have a nice eerie feel due to the inevitability of what's going to happens as she stalks her victim into the rock club, while the later scenes of her being tormented by not keeping the blood of her victims down as she fights her humanity leaves this with some rather enjoyable vampire action. Once he gets involved with the action, including the abduction at the park where they sleep away the day in the cemetery ruins or engaging the two in battle deep in his crypt which manages to feature some solid action of the demonic figures getting involved and tormenting the human victim. Using that to generate the fun of the vampire attacking her masters in a slew of violent antics and Gothic trappings generates all sorts of glorious fun within these ambushes and attacks that play up the Gothic atmosphere while also generating the gory fun associated here. Given all the fine makeup and gore also included here, these manage to hold this one up over it's few minor issues. About the only real flaw to this one is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of point to the vampires' plans. He really spends the vast majority of the time throughout here doing anything but going after the one who has his believed rightful possession, regardless of whether it truly is or not and he should be doing that. It seems to be going about his motivations all wrong, and it makes him seem all the more troubling about what bringing him back really was supposed to accomplish. Likewise, the whole resurrection sequence itself is problematic in that, no matter how impressive the effect actually was, there's no point to resurrect it in that manner and it goes against the whole mythology of the genre established with this one. As well, there's also the low-budget look and feel that runs rampant throughout here no matter how Gothic and glorious it really is, and tends to undermine some aspects of this one. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot to dislike with this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and Language.

The vampire Radu return for this Charles Band produced sequel. Radu's head is reattached, the wooden stake removed from his heart, and he is then good as new, ready to unleash his undead malevolence upon the unsuspecting populace. The titular bloodstone serves as the film's MacGuffin, in which all the characters, both human and undead, are chasing after. I'm a huge fan of Charles Band's Full Moon Features and this film was made during the production company's heyday, when they actually had an Romanian castle at their disposal, which they inserted into the story of a number of their films ("Trancers 5: Sudden Deth" being the most forced). Not only did the European location shooting give the film added production value, this film features some better acting than most Full Moon films, which more often than not tend to be rather hammy. I also appreciate that writer/director Ted Nicolaou set out to make a more serious and straight-faced horror film than most Band productions, although there are still some elements of camp here and there. Overall, this is a classier of production than most Full Moon films, and although it's not among their best (that would be "Pit and the Pendulum," "Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge," "Shrunken Heads," or "Trancers" if that one counts as a Full Moon release), it's far better than their worst (i.e. "Evil Bong," "The Creeps," "Prison of the Dead" and many others, although I must admit that I still enjoy even the worst Charles Band production).

Having seen and enjoyed the original, I saw this on late night TV and was excited because I didn't realise there was a sequel to Subspecies. (I have now seen them all)Although I enjoyed this movie (and Anders Hove was great as Radu as usual), I have two major gripes with it that bother me too much to see it as an equal to the original.1) Stefan. Now I'm not debating that Radu was definitely the better character of the two (more conflicted, better actor etc) but I liked Stefan, the noble do gooder Vamp. And I liked the whole idea of the warring Vampire Brothers fighting over their birth right! And if I thought killing him off was a huge mistake, it wasn't nearly as bad as how they did it. It just seemed so.....bleh! Thats about all I can say really, just a total Anti-climax to the originals ending and a complete cop out (I know they could not get Michael Watson back for the sequel, but they could have recast him and let him day a little while into the movie, or even come up with ANYTHING but the death scene they eventually came up with. Bad bad writing.2) Michelle's Sister. She just bothered me throughout, I found myself wanting her to get killed by the end, just to get her off my screen, didn't like the actress or the character.In all though, the plot was pretty decent and even though the actress who played Michelle was changed (and grew her hair in record time) the film still maintained a level of enjoyability that kept me watching till the end. Like before the sets and locations were beautiful and the musical score was good. Anders Hove is a great actor in this role, it seems tailor made for him.A good film, let down by one bad plot line and one bad actress.5/10

As with most movies of this type (i.e. B-grade horror), my hope is to find one that is unintentionally hilarious, every step of the way. One that promotes constant riffing from me and my friends. Picking a good "bad movie" appears to be more difficult than picking a good "good" movie (if that makes any sense). Unfortunately, "Bloodstone: Subspecies II" [B:S2] is neither bad enough to be good, nor good enough to be good.This might sound weird, but B:S2 was written, directed and acted by folks with a modicum of intelligence. I will also begrudgingly admit there's a small degree of artistic talent exhibited as well. The best bad movies are made by people who have no business making movies (for an example of what I'm talking about, rent "Troll 2" or "The Keeper of Time" -- those movies are priceless. Nay, they're National Treasures).Don't get me wrong, this movie is bad. But it's not bad enough. The brand of "bad" portrayed in this movie is the slow, plodding, monotonous variety -- not the "insanely stupid bad" that I crave. It's for the same reasons that it's not "good" either. The pacing is too slow for a B-grade horror (IMO). It starts on a strong note, and then slowly dwindles into nothingness -- until its brief resurrection near the very end. I believe this came about due to Mr. Nicolaou's attempt at "creepy/moody atmospherics". There's very limited dialogue, and what little there is makes no attempt at driving the story. Most of the movie centers around Michelle Morgan (Denice Duff) shambling around Bucharest looking scared and sedated. I also got the strong impression that Mr. Nicolaou wanted to make the most of his "on location" shoot, by shoe-horning every piece of gothic architecture he could find into the movie. Another thing we found weird was the "Bloodstone" itself. Ostensibly it's the centerpiece of the story, even though they never mention, or discuss it, for a good 2/3rds of the movie. Huh? Apparently the Bloodstone can dispense the "blood of the saints" for a vampire to suckle on. Okay, so what? They never really describe why it's so important to Radu. Does it make him into a super vampire? No. Does it give him extra powers? No. What the heck does it do?I've wasted enough time discussing this.Good movie score: 5/10. Bad movie score: 6/10. In short: mediocre... no matter how you look at it.