User Reviews

Usually I'm lenient towards even bad movies since I respect artists like actors and think that everybody is entitled to a mistake.Sometimes,even a bad movie has some acceptable moments and it even manages to throw the spotlight to a new potentially talented young actor/actress.This ,however,without a doubt is the most superficial and idiotic totally unconvincing horror film I have ever watched and the only horror one gets is out of its abysmally low level.It's a disgrace and a total waste of one's money and time.Companies or artists participating in such crimes against the cinema should be put away.

I wonder how on earth these movie companies come out with decisions to produce such garbage.Don't they realise that it will hit them back big time?And the disrespect to the viewer is infuriating!!! The mark of 1 is very flattering ,it should get something like 0,000001.

Although I'm not sure how. I think the copy I got from the store was burned incorrectly since the sound was all screwed up. Not that it mattered, since the dialog was pretty bad and generally the delivery of those lines was worse. The vampires, when they could be heard, had horrible lisps. You'd think that after an eternity as a creature of the night they'd learn how to speak properly through those big teeth of theirs. Not that this movie didn't have its accidentally funny moments. At one point Van Helsing reassures his lady love that nothing can happen to him since he is surrounded by giants and then the shot cuts right to what looks to be the sorriest looking bunch of "giants" ever to grace the screen. They all look either hung over, half asleep, or just plain annoyed that they have to go around slaying the children of the night in a potato sack. It does have nudity however! But not enough to make up for the fact that the vampires all look like two dollar hookers, the sound sucks, and the overall look is just plain cheap. Did I mention that the sound sucks?

There are a few good things about this movie, but the negatives are so overwhelming that I could only give it a 1 on the ole 1 to 10 scale. The cinematography is very pretty and the miniature set models are excellent. At least I think they're models. Everything about this movie is so bogus that they may actually be real locations which the directors (yes, it took two directors to cook this turkey) somehow managed to make look like models.

With two directors you'd think that it might only be half-bad. Instead it's doubly pretentious. The lovely Denise Boutte may well be the hammiest actor on planet Earth. Rhett Giles as Van Helsing looks like a reject from the Pet Shop Boys, and his acting is nearly as overblown and stuffy as Ms. Boutte's. Every line by just about every "actor" is recited in emo overdrive.

There were also at least two writers involved. The version I saw had three listed, unless I was hallucinating, but IMDb says two. The third one may have requested anonymity. Or hacked the webpage and erased his or her name. In any case, the dialog is so cheesy you'd think it was written by the teen Gothtards from Saturday Night Live.

If I see one more pseudo-Goth vampire movie with semi-clad model-pretty airheads melting into the arms of Ralph Lauren pretty men in ersatz under-populated nightclubs I'll puke up a kidney. Anne Rice has apparently spawned a sub-race of cretinous filmmakers.

This is the first film I've seen which challenges Uwe Boll's "House of the Dead" as the WORST horror film ever made.

Imagine a movie with terrible actors, ghastly bad special effects, an anorexic plot, and no budget.

This is worse.

Please don't get me wrong...I love vampire movies...but this is one major waste of money..both to make, and for ANYONE to pay to see.

As I watched the movie, I could see the director coaching the actors, "ok..now look scared...now...look horrified...now succumb...now go limp. It was painful to watch.

Have you ever put "fake fangs" in your mouth to finish your Dracula costume at Halloween? Do you remember how funny you sounded talking with the prosthetic teeth? OMG...the actors lisped their way thru their lines like kids who have just put in their first cheap vampire fangs. Do you think the director/producers/anyone notice this? I am guessing not.

The dialog was shallow and seemed penned by a teenager. (The producer's 8th grade child maybe?) The volume of the voice recording was out of balance with effects and background music. In order to hear and understand the dialog, you are required to elevate the volume so high that the "special effects sounds" become deafening.

The action was limited, and the combat second rate. The actors lacked the combat/martial arts skills you expect to see in a movie of any caliber. The vampires movements were inconsistent and downright silly...sometimes they moved like listless zombies, other times like speed freaks, and still other times they "slinked" with bended knees, swaying arms and drunken swaggers as if trying to pretend to be cats.

If this had been a movie with which I was in any way affiliated, I would never include it in my resume. Further, I think I would change my name if anyone ever discovered a connection! Rating: Less than 1/10 (if that is possible)

The general premise is decent enough - Van Helsing from the Dracula novels made a deal with God for immortality until all the major vampire lords are destroyed.

And presumably, he kills off most of them. The rest sort of go into hibernation, living off of animals and such, not humans. Until the present day. When one of them decides it's sick of hiding and start preying on human's again.

The trouble is, most the movie is actually pretty dull. Most of it deals with either Van Helsing or the Vampires getting ready for the final showdown. And when it finally happens, it's not exactly the final scene of Enter the Dragon.

It's somewhat cheesy in places, but I've seen worse. Much worse. There is some nudity and gore but very little on both accounts.

The supporting actors are pretty bad, but I thought the guy who played Van Helsing did a pretty good job. He looks a bit too much like Methos from Highlander, though. And I enjoyed the vampire's 2nd in command. While she overacted a bit, she was very attractive and has good screen presence.

The sound on the DVD I rented was screwed up. The dialog was much, much softer than the sound effects, music. And apparently no subtitles.

I probably wouldn't say you should buy it, or even rent it, but if it's ever on cable, it's probably not worth changing the channel to avoid. I would give it a 4 out of 10.

People, that loud whirring and rattling you can hear is the sound of Bram Stoker turning in his grave.

*God* this film is bad. Shoddy camera work, shoddy script, godawful sound which meant that a lot of the time the actors were inaudible (thank god) and the music SOHIGHINTHEMIX it made your ears bleed, and a baddie so lacking in charisma not even tight PVC/rubber trousers could save the day. And the acting - OMG, the acting. The last time I saw acting as shockingly poor and embarrassing as this was Yvette and Derek still trying to pretend they were friends on "Most Haunted Live" this week. Yes, really - as bad as that. I swear to you, the acting in this film is so wooden it's on a par with a Gerry Anderson production - and the way the script was delivered would make even a half-way gifted actor weep. I'd say that words cannot truly describe how awful this film is - though I've had a damn good try - and what's so sad is that the video shop had loads of copies of it. That this mess got made and distributed is even more frightening than the thought of Ricky Tomlinson hang-gliding naked.

Dr. Van Helsing, vampire hunter, is granted immortality by a religious sect that will only let him die after he kills the last vampire. That's the plot of the film right there. I didn't put it in a nutshell for you, dear reader. THAT'S the whole plot. Now what did I think of the film? Well, between the horrid editing, the putrid acting, the 'anti-action', the sound problems, and the WIDE open ending, this is strictly amateur hour. Vampire flicks have made for some simply dreadful films in the past and this, my friends, is one of them. It's a travesty of the current state of B-movie straight to video horror that I don't even consider this one of the worst vampire flick out there.

My Grade: D-

Where I saw it: Starz on Demand (available till September 15th, 2005)

(I don't think this contains spoilers, but if it does,it wan't intentional, and I'm sorry.)

I just rented this movie. Thinking that, ya know..Vampire movie..Bram Stoker..BRING IT! After "Bram Stokers' Dracula" in 1992, I figured "Bram Stokers' Way Of The Vampire" should measure up to the same high standards right? RIGHT?? Uh..no! We started watching it, had to jack the sound WAYYYY up to even HEAR it, and then my roommate tells me that we've rented it before!! HUH? This is a VAMPIRE movie! Something I LIVE for! And I don't remember it? Can I just say..you know it's bad when...! Unfortunately, like most movies you don't initially like, it DIDN'T get better the second time around! The sound was terrible. The acting was either non existent or over blown. (with maybe one or two exceptions) The vampiric dialog? All I could think was who wrote this UTTER rot?! The rest of the dialog was ranging from maybe OK, to weak, to downright SAD!

I checked out the actors on the database, (this one, as I've found no other better as of yet) like I do for almost all movies I watch, and found that this movie was either a jumping point for brand new actors, a fill in for trying-but-not-quite-making-it actors, or a last ditch effort for dieing actors from a third rate soap opera! The nudity was OK I guess. There was T&A to be seen. And it was nice, as far as nudity goes. But like EVERY movie not a hard core porn, for some reason it's OK for a woman to go Full Monty, but a man? *gasp* SHOCKING! And simply NOT DONE! And it's not even that I WANT to see some guys dangly bits! That's not the point! (seen one you've seen em all) MY beef is that they won't SHOW them. That it's OK to bare a girl but not a boy.

Perhaps I've wandered off the path. Slightly. A bit? OK maybe a LOT! *snickers* I had a point I'm sure! Now where did I put it...*checks pockets* Ah yes..On the whole? This movie was very disappointing. A rather black mark on vampire movies as a whole, and NO credit to Bram Stoker what-so-ever. If it had been slightly worse, it wouldn't have been worth the film it was printed on. I know I've seen worse, but Way Of The Vampire was high up there in the "WHY did I rent this" stakes. In short? And pun intended... It sucked!

Was cruising through Wal-Mart with the wife when we spotted this movie for $6.88 in a discount bin. The wife will watch anything with vampires in it so I checked out the box. The cover was pretty damn good at first glance. A guy in a leather trench-coat holding a triple shot crossbow and some kind of futuristic gun with a bat flying overhead looking like it was morphing. I flipped the box over and noticed it was made by The Asylum...uh oh...first sign of trouble. I had unknowingly bought a few movies by them a while back and 3/4 of them I was NOT impressed by them. (The Scarecrow series and War Of The Worlds being the exceptions) I went ahead and read the synopsis and I was impressed. It actually sounded good...Van Helsing..Dracula...Time Travel..hmmmmmm.

We got home and popped it in. Man, I couldn't have been more wrong. I really got to learn to trust my instincts. Not even 10 minutes into it I just wanted to cry. You couldn't hear a word being said at all, the acting was sub-par at best, the lighting was just atrocious, and worst of all...when I could hear the actors (yeah right) they sounded like they were talking around a wad of cotton. The teeth appliances they had to use were just wrong. If you look closely you can see it bulge out the lips and cheeks of the wearers.

The overall movie looks like it was shot and edited by Ed Wood. In almost every scene I could spot mistakes, goofs, continuity mistakes, you name it. I just watched it again to get a laugh from it.

With all that being said I will say this... The plot isn't bad at all even though it was slightly predictable. If done right and a lot more attention paid to the details it would make a damn good movie. This just isn't the movie.

While no "Way of the Teamsters" (the better prequel in this trillogy) this film offers a cinematic expose into the dark and gloomy world the undead.

I wont spoil the many plot twists, many of which were hard to follow, especially since I saw the movie dubbed in Turkish while recovering from lasic eye surgery. However, you won't be disappointed with cliché contemporary romantasisms of secret populations of super powered beings living side by side of modern civillization locked in a perpetual war of which the mundane humans are mostly unaware except for some secret fraternal organization dedicated to eradication of the supernatural.

I recommend this movie for any serious VHS collection.

Way of the Vampire begins around the turn of the 20th Century in England. Abraham Van Helsing (Rhett Giles), who is immortal here, has assembled a "gang" of vampire slayers (no, they're not a Scooby gang like Buffy's). In the first few minutes, the gang is slaughtered, but Van Helsing decapitates Dracula. Dracula's "gang" is left in temporary chaos. The "Prince" who will replace him, Sebastien (Andreas Beckett), was mistaken by Van Helsing for an eligible member of his gang. Unfortunately, he left Sebastien with his wife, who Sebastien turned into a vampire while Van Helsing was out earning the bacon.

The opening credits roll, and we are propelled into "The Present". Van Helsing has moved to Los Angeles (to try to jumpstart a film career?) and naturally so has Sebastien and his current gang. We can all guess the kind of chaos that will ensue.

First off, whoever did the sound mix for this film--for the DVD in general, for that matter--should to be looking for another job, pronto. Even if the raw sound was bad and no ADR was done (which seems like it might have been the case), it can be easily cleaned up by a competent sound engineer. Turn the music down, get rid of the horrendous echo in the scenes filmed in a large concrete room, compensate for the actors who are whispering and mumbling, and so on. The surround sound mix was horrible. The stereo mix was horrible, and even the commentary track sounds like it was recorded in a large, empty bathroom.

That took at least one solid point off of the film. If I have to screw with my equalizer and crank up my system loud enough to threaten blowing my speakers (or having the cops called on me) so I can just make out at least 75% of the dialogue, something is wrong.

But that's not the only problem with Way of the Vampire. Most of the performances are questionable, and directors Sarah Nean Bruce and Eduardo Durao must have never met a melodrama they didn't like, because they tend to instruct their cast to over-emote without a shred of humor or self-awareness. There is a lot of very strained agonizing in the film, such as vampires saying, "Oh, but what about Van Helsing" like a junior high drama student doing Hamlet on an audition tape.

And there's more--or is that less? Bruce and Durao do not know how to film or edit action sequences. They tend cut them way too fast, with far too many close-ups and non sequitur insert shots. There's no sense of suspense in the fight scenes, because the audience just can't tell what's going on.

Additionally, some viewers might be perturbed that this is "yet another Dracula film" with very few surprises. Yes, Dracula is dispatched in the first few minutes, but focusing on Van Helsing or vampire slayers in the Bram Stoker universe isn't exactly novel, and neither is putting vampires in the modern world, especially Los Angeles. Most vampire film fans could write a rough parallel to this script in their sleep. On the other hand, I don't personally subtract points for predictability or derivativeness, but just in case you do, you should know about it.

So why the hell did I give this film a 7? Well, I gave it a low 7, and a 7 in my book is a "C". That means this is almost a "D", and almost doesn't pass--at a university level, you don't usually earn credits for a D. But there are enough positive points that Way of the Vampire certainly isn't an F, and it's not quite bad enough to lose its credits.

Bruce and Durao may be too fond of melodrama and not know how to do action scenes or check the work of sound engineers, but they're pretty good at directing cinematographers. There are plenty of attractive shots throughout the film. There is an interesting use of the recent trend towards monochromaticism. Here, monochromatic blue scenes represent flashbacks to the turn of the century. Most of the present day stuff is shot in an attractive array of colors. And towards the end, the film slyly shifts towards monochromatic "golds"--browns, oranges, etc.

The score, by Ralph Rieckermann, is pretty good. It's not his fault that the sound mix sucks. For that matter, it's not most of the cast or crew's fault that the sound mix sucks. I have a feeling I would have enjoyed the film quite a bit more if I wouldn't have had to struggle to hear the dialogue.

There are a lot of beautiful women in the film. There is a fair amount of nudity. And there is even more sensuality. Especially in a vampire film, that stuff doesn't come across as just gratuitous. Bruce and Durao don't do sensuality as good as Ron Oliver did in Thralls (aka Blood Angels, 2004), but they're not far behind. It adds quite a bit to the atmosphere, and the atmosphere overall is pretty good here.

The story kinda worked for me. Sure it wasn't unprecedented, but as a potboiler vampire flick, this rose to a nice boil. More could have been done with it--I would have liked to delve into Van Helsing as a doctor more, the new slayer gang would have been fun to get to know, and so on. But the story wasn't bad. Maybe Bruce and Durao should make their next film a bit longer. Also, not all of the performances were horrible. I actually kinda liked Giles, and that's important, since the film is centered on him.

Finally, there was some halfway decent blood and gore here. The scene with Van Helsing getting rid of the new blonde vamp was primo. If this would have been a film filled of stuff like that, it could have been a nine, even with crappy sound.

I admire the reviewers of this abominable film who actually watched it all the way through.

Thirty minutes was too much for me. It is, without any shadow of a doubt, the most puerile and baseless horror movie of all time. It makes 'Killer Tomatoes' look like Oscar material. The acting is unbelievably bad, the editing pathetic and the storyline must have been written by a seven-year-old. One can only wonder at how movies like this get made. A total waste of money, effort and intellectual rigour by everyone involved.

In short, this film has no redeeming features whatsoever.

the acting is horrible. it looks and sounds as if it was filmed on a home video camera the background audio overpowers the voices throughout the whole movie. the sound effects have been repeated over and over, it seems everyone has the same scream the actor who played hell-sing cant even pronounce Nosferatu, he says "nosterfartu" how can the people that edited miss something so obvious, maybe they were too caught up in trying to make people disappear by stopping the camera, getting the actor to move out of screen then starting it again. the visual effects could be done better on a high school editing suite. action scenes are just a disorienting confusion of flashes of the weapons closeup of the actors, the story line.... pathetic

There's not much I can add to all the other reviewers' comments, which were--if anything--too kind. This is the movie Ed Wood would have made if he had a competent cameraman, because the cinematography is actually very good, which is the only--let me emphasize, absolutely the ONLY--good thing about the movie. Otherwise, this is one of the few films I've ever seen where you can't point to at least one aspect of it and say, "Well, at least that wasn't too bad"--because EVERYTHING about this film is bad. Not just bad, but atrociously, horrendously, brain-destroyingly bad. Acting, writing, "action" scenes, etc., have to strain mightily to reach the level of the Christmas play in which you played a candy cane back in third grade--and they don't succeed. Much has already been written about the shoddy-beyond-belief sound, and there's nothing I can add to that except to say that the producers' unwillingness to hire a competent sound man, which resulted in much of the dialog being unintelligible, is one of the few things they did right.

All in all, a virtually worthless movie. Although there's a fair amount of female nudity, it's really not worth sitting through this stinker to check it out (jeez, I can't believe I just discouraged guys from ogling naked chicks; if that doesn't give you an idea of how much this flick sucks, then nothing will). If tenth-rate swill churned out by incompetent, talentless slugs is your cup of tea, even you won't like this movie. Avoid it at all costs.

Pretty cheesy movie, looks like a very low budget 80's horror flick. The sound was awful we couldn't hear most of what was being said in the movie because the sound effects and music was louder then the peoples voices and to top that off you couldn't even have subtitles to understand what was being said because it doesn't have that option. We were surprised to know that this was a 2005 movie the way it looked they obviously didn't use any of the technology they have around today because all the blood and gore looked very fake. The acting was horrible which would explain why we had never heard of any of the actors in the movie.So movie watchers be ware this movie is Not worth the money to rent, i would wait for them to play it on TV and hope the sound quality is fixed but I think it might even be too awful to be played on TV!

I really miss watching horror movies, just a good and gory film that you can just have fun with. I saw the cover for Way of the Vampire, I mean this was just the coolest cover, it looked like a great cover with vampire hunters. So I rented it and took it home, sat down and watched it first thing, I don't know why I get my hopes up with these straight to DVD's. As always these movies are just bad, the script(which obviously had no research), the actors(who you can tell are the desperate waiters in LA, waiting for their "big break"), the effects(which could've been done by a 10 year old I know who's much better with computers), the editing(I think the editor, this must have been his first time because he went a little crazy), just everything about this movie is bad, but I'll try to explain the story.

Van Helsing is given immortality to hunt down the vampire "princes" after the love of his life is turned into a vampire and he has killed her. So over a hundred years later he has lived to try to catch one vampire, Sebastien. He's got a new girlfriend at the hospital, but cannot find the prince, so when Sebastien is awaken by his vampire girlfriend to create an army of darkness, oh, what will our Van Helsing do? I guess get stung by a wasp who does apparently die by one sting, lol.

Way of the Vampire is just one of those bad straight to DVD's that really sucks, believe me, I can't believe I fell for it, I know that I sometimes say that the ratings are wrong here on IMDb, but this is the rating I really wished I paid attention to the rating because I might have saved some time and money on this trash. Just trust me when I say that this is one of the worst excuses for film that you'll ever see in your life, it's worse than amateur, I just don't know how else to go on but to just warn you to stay away from this piece of trash.

1/10

This is a great movie. 1.9 is underrating it. I give this movie 10 out of 10. This movie is very scary. It is a Dracula sequel. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also great special effects. This is a great movie. I do not no why people do not like it. Dracula (March 1931) is better. Dracula (1992) Dracula's Daughter (1936) is also better. Son of Dracula (1943) is also better. House of Frankenstein which a sequel to Dracula and Frankenstein is also better. But still this a great movie. See it. If you like horror movie you will like it. Van Helsing is better. But still this is one the scariest movie of all time.

Bram Stoker's WAY OF THE VAMPIRE With Rhett Giles, Denise Boutte. Theasylum.cc Lots of atmosphere in this little pic that could, Think its only 3 years before The Next Wave. Rhett Giles took this role and perfected in 'Draculas Curse'. Denise Boutte steals EVERY scene she is in as Vampiress and truly came into her own in 'DEATH VALLEY : Revenge Of Bloody Bill'.

Vampire and hero have a connected past and both are immortal, Until modern times reunite them.

Soundtrack is by SCORPIONS Ralph Rieckermann, And it sets the tone for a film that tries really hard to give the viewer a feeling of Gothic vibe at choice times.