Decadent Evil (2005) is less than one hour long, & even some of that short length is recycled footage from Vampire Journals (1997).
This would ordinarily feel like a rip-off especially as the DVD box lies & says its 70 minutes for the feature. But in this case, the film was so boring that its 53 minute run-time felt like two hours, so the rip-off was a blessing in disguise.
The script for Decadent Evil is more imaginative than average for Z horror direct to video quickies, but none of that imagination quite made it from the script to the screen.
It has only one actor of merit, the rest far worse than could be found in any junior high school acting class, plus bad editing & ridiculous FX if they even qualify as FX.
The actor of merit is Phil Fondacaro, the star of Troll (1996), who hasn't had a respectable role since 1988's Willow (1988), so if you want to see his performances, it's crap like Decadent Evil or nothing.
 He plays Ivan Burroughs, a classic vampire hunter with cool hat & attitude.
He's also a little person, & the script treats the character with all deserved respect, so on paper it must've looked like a great role.
I wish Phil had been able to play this same character opposite some supporting actors who could act. He almost saves the film, but ultimately only saves those scenes he is actually in.
Ivan's father has been turned into a little foot-tall homonculus (which apparently has nothing whatsoever to do with Ivan's own limited height). A homonculus is defined in the film as a primitive part reptile slimy human, though the reptile part doesn't show.
He is imprisoned by one of the vampire women, in a wire cage that isn't even locked so the set-up about one of the girls forgetting to close the door so Marvin momentarily escaped was as pointless as most of what happens.
 Marvin is one of the more imaginative ideas in the script, but as brought to the film, he is just a puppet not even as well articulated as a Betsy Wetsy Doll.
Marvin is "animated" with a stick up his ass that can make the eyes blink but that's all; the puppet can't even move its arms or look from side to side. It's just a dumbass doll being shaken on the end of a stick, nothing more.
It provides the film with the alleged "climax" when the doll gets to have butt-sex with Morella, who is by then also turned into a puppet without articulation.
The "climax" (pun intended) is an okay joke, but a whole gawdamn 53 minute film (plus six minutes of recycled footage) all for one childish sex gag with puppets lacking moving parts -- it isn't much to take home to momma.
 The main theme regards a small gaggle of gorgeous girl vampires who run a strip club. They're not all that gorgeous unfortunately.
Morella the would-be world dominatrix of all vampires, with all the charisma of a sack of cotton doilies, is played by Debra Meyer. She gets most of the camera's attention.
I've seen a touched-up photo of Meyer (or a photo when she was much younger) where she looked perfect for a sex & blood exploitation film, but whether it's the fault of bad cinematography or just the camera's ability to show the truth, she's actually kind of an all round skank who got the job by nepotism, being the director's main squeeze.
If the good of the film had been a consideration, then Meyer's role & screen time would've been swapped with either of the other two vampire maidens (Jill Michelle & Raelyn Hennessee, the latter just about good enough for the role).
The girls use their occupation to seduce men they think no one will miss & suck them dry, though we don't see them doing much of that.
 They even seduce women in their club, because in this magical film realm, guys bring their girlfriends to strip clubs & their girlfriends are very easily seduced by prostitutes offering three-ways (but don't get your hopes up for seeing any of the three-ways).
One of the girls moonlights on the world wide web, seducing nurds in chatrooms. A third vampire is a "good" girl despite that she sucks men to death (we never get to see her do it though).
She falls in love with a rather dorky mortal named Dex (Daniel Lennox) & they even apparently get to live happily ever after as trustworthy vampire lover & sub-ordinary mortal dude.
If the sequel had been about how he copes with his girlfriend's inability to go anywhere by day & her need to kill people, it could be a lot better than Decadent Evil, but only with a better director; so everyone should just rent Innocent Blood (1992) instead.
If it's enough to see some badly staged sexual innuendo but nothing actually sexy, with two kinda pretty amateur actresses & one rather skanky actress, with some red-dyed maple syrup on their fangs, maybe this is just the wackoff treasure for you.
Most people will lament that Fondacaro has once again had to settle for a film unworthy of his talents, & scoff in disgust at the low level of puppetry in this budgetless waste of time.
Continue to next vampire film:
Dark Town (2004)
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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