Robo Vampire (1988)

Memorable, crazy movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Convincing a friend to watch ROBO VAMPIRE is an exercise in trust. It's near impossible to explain in any great detail what's so fun about it. It's something that has to be experienced first-hand. I had zero knowledge of what to expect when I first sat down to watch this beauty. It was one of 50 public domain Z-grade movies in a cheap collection I grabbed for $10. Then an Internet search brought me to the cover art of Robocop clutching what I assumed to be the titular vampire in the foreground while the world exploded behind them. I was sold, if cautious. What I proceeded to watch was beyond words. I was often so wracked with laughter that I was forced to pause the movie so I wouldn't miss a minute of it. It's hard to put the plot of ROBO VAMPIRE into words with any sort of confidence but I'll try my best to give you an idea. It's about heroin smuggling in Asia. There's a drug kingpin who's grown tired of a particular "anti-drug agent" (I'll assume he means DEA) named Tom, and he's hired a Taoist to train vampires to handle it. Tom dies in a bust gone wrong and, before his corpse has time to cool, he's turned into a robot cop. A sort of…Robo-Tom. Meanwhile, in another potentially unrelated storyline, another "anti-drug agent" named Sophie is taken hostage by what may or may not be the same drug operation and a special team is sent to bring her home.When the movie was finally over and I had endured the hurricane of pure insanity that was ROBO VAMPIRE, I found some info that gave some context to what I had just watched. There's a very distinct feeling that you're watching two entirely separate movies play out through ROBO VAMPIRE and that's because you essentially are. It was a product of Filmark International Ltd and producer Tomas Tang, who would shot a bunch of random martial arts footage and insert it into half-finished movies to create a cinematic Frankenstein. Once you're aware of that, it's impossible not to notice. It didn't click with me the first time I watched it but now I can't help but notice the whole Robo-Tom plot thread never once crosses over with the Sophie rescue thread. Not a single character crosses the border between stories. ROBO VAMPIRE is about 65% rescue and 35% robot versus vampires. This is all wrong. It needs to be 75% robot/vampires. Maybe more. The rescue operation has its moments. There's a great stunt dive when Sophie does a running jump through a window and we see a stocky, hair man in a bad wig and nightgown nail the landing. There's plenty of bloodless gunfights and martial arts battles with stuntmen throwing themselves around. The dubbing is generic action movie dialogue and characters are interchangeable because no one is anything more than one-dimensional. It serves its purpose but the real gold is to be found in the rare occasions when we rejoin Robo-Tom and the vampires.Where to start?! Well not that anyone will be surprised but Robo-Tom looks nothing like Robocop. He's a no-budget rip-off, covered in silver-painted safety padding with goggles and a helmet. The vampires wear some sort of traditional Chinese dress and are at least given a little makeup to give the impression of decay on their faces. And they hop! These vampires can only movie via hopping, jumping, leaping, or straight up teleporting. Their attacks include corrosive smoke and bottle rockets fired from their sleeves. In addition to the hordes of regular vampires, there's one super vampire of which the Taoist is super proud. You can tell he's more powerful than the rest because the character has a gorilla's face (i.e. a gorilla Halloween mask). The super vampire is also in love with a ghost woman who is mad because she was hoping to live eternally in the afterlife with her beloved only to watch him become a vampire slave. The Taoist agrees to marry the two together as long as they are under his command. Meanwhile, Robo-Tom proves to be effective against vampires but still can't handle a direct bazooka blast. That's totally fine though because, even when he's melted to a puddle of liquid aluminum foil, all he needs is a little soldering a maybe a new battery before he's back on the beat. ROBO VAMPIRE is totally bonkers and, even when there's no robot or vampires on screen, never let's you get bored. The best news of all? There's two "sequels" out there from Tomas Tang that I haven't seen yet.Bucket list updated.

A drug-lord recruits Chinese vampires to protect his business from government narcotics agents. When one of their people is captured, the authorities not only send in a rescue team but also create an indestructible cyborg to take on the enemy.I knew it, I knew it! Although my copy of Robo Vampire names (blames?) someone called Joe Livingstone as director, everything I saw screamed Godfrey Ho. The insane, disjointed story (the result of two or more films badly spliced together); the crappy kung fu; the awful dubbing; the ridiculous special effects: Ho's inimitable touch was all over this nonsense.Featuring quite possibly the worst RoboCop rip-off ever (the cyborg's suit is made from padded silver lamé), a hopping vampire in a rubber gorilla mask with fireworks up its sleeves (?!?!), a yucky scene in which a woman packs heroin inside the stomach of a dead animal, a female ghost who bares her breasts in order to distract her foes, and numerous badly stuffed dummies being thrown about in poorly choreographed fight scenes, this has to be one the most bonkers and least comprehensible efforts in Ho's canon. Consequently, it also proves to be one of his more entertaining efforts.6.5 out of 10, rounded up 7 for IMDb.

I've seen this movie about 10 years ago (and made a comment in IMDb, which has been erased...) I could not believe my eyes when I saw the hopping vampires (though I already knew about them 'cause I first read a reference about this movie in some book about vampires and stuff) Then in some "lucky" day I found the video in a Video Club and I said to a friend of mine: "WE HAVE TO RENT IT!!!" I just rewind the tape over and over again in one final scene where "Robocop" and the leaping vampires looked like they were playing some game in the kinder garden playground! It was too hilarious.Ed Wood compared to this is just children play... This IS the most stupid, worst, non-sense and plot less movie I ever saw in my life! In fact I'm even hesitating on how should I rate this movie... 1 or 10??

The credits seem to be completely wrong and the plot synopsis lists it as a Japanese movie (with Japanese hopping vampires - !?), but this is the perpetually poverty-striken Thomas Tang's unflinchingly cheesy rip-off of RoboCop... Sorta. Not to leave well enough along Tang decided to have their RoboReject (here called RoboWarrior), looking utterly laughable in a silver lamé get-up that must be seen to be disbelieved, fight a bunch of drug-dealers who are using hopping vampires to protect their drug smuggling.Subplots and characters are completely forgotten half way through the movie about only to pop-up near the end, the main tough-guy hired to rescue a drug-agent in the hands of the bad guys constantly gets his butt kicked and has to be saved every time and some sequences just make no sense whatsoever. Apparently the entire budget went to guns, explosives and pyrotechnics (which ain't exactly a bad thing). Oh, and the white chick who plays a ghost who shows her boobs when not being doubled by an Asian in a similar (but not remotely identical) outfit for the fight scenes.I could ramble on about this gem, but words cannot do this film justice! It must be seen to be disbelieved!A treasured part of my bad cinema collection and if you are a cheese lovin' trash cinema fan (not some dork who is into it because it's the cool thing these days but would rather see a Schwartzenegger flick when all is said and done), this is essential viewing with a short-case of suds and some quick-witted friends.