Flick Picks 25: Decadent Evil

Hello Streakers! Boog here, only slightly late with the third review of the four review series, a Full Moon straight to video feature from 2005, Decadent Evil.Well, let's see, as far as SPOLIERS go, we get Phil Fondacaro again, as apparently Charles Band has this guy on retainer. Here he's a vampire hunter. Not kidding, has a freaking fedora and everything. We also get two other Full Moon cliches in full force: Puppets, and nudity.You see, as I continue watching these films, it becomes obvious to me that Charles Band is not a man that cares for his audience. He doesn't want to make films that are actually entertaining. He wants to make films so he can film nude scenes. And make toys. Hence the puppets, tailor made for toy translation, and merchandising rights. As he has yet to make a film with a puppet that he hasn't made into a toy, my theory stands proven. Charles Band is a parody of bad film-making. He's what most of think bad filmmakers are when watch the truly bad stuff. And as I go into this film, you'll find I have a lot of proof to back this up.

Yeah, cheating a little bit with the pics this time. But I'm using this shot for a reason. First of all, there are three minutes of opening, with the credits being tacked on to stock footage from another Full Moon Picture, 1997's Vampire Journals, which itself is a spin off from ANOTHER Full Moon vampire franchise, started in 1991, called Subspecies. so, for those keeping track, this is a film being loosely tied to another vampire film from 8 years before it, that was itself based on events from 3 previous films from 6 years before THAT.Confused yet? As seems to be the case, Subspecies actually seems to be well liked as a good example of vampire characterization in film, but this film... Where do I begin? After the three minute opening, we waste a whole 13 minutes on a couple in a strip joint, only to have come to a house and die, introducing the villain of the piece, the vampiress Morella. We also get introduced to Morella's vampire children, strippers named Sugar and Spyce. Not that's not a misspelling, that's the actual name. And guess what? Sugar's in love with a human. God, I could use the cliches in this film to choke an elephant. So, 16 minutes have passed, and we still have no idea what's happening. We spend another ten minutes establishing that Sugar and Spyce live with Morella, the DJ at the strip club that Sugar loves is named Dex, and Spyce likes finding idiots online to eat, even luring them to the Fu- REALLY? The FULL MOON HOTEL? Are you truly that intellectually bankrupt, movie? Well, whatever. About 32 minutes in, Dex is visited by Phil Fondacaro, who quickly(and I mean, quickly) gives him the run down on Sugar and Spyce being vamps and working for Morella, which he seems to take pretty damn well, all things considered. At the film's 40 minute mark, everyone important to the plot has gathered at Morella's house, and the stakes are finally revealed: First, every vampire bloodline is different, which is actually the only plus the script has for me. If this film was any good, that part would the sequel(there is one), worth watching for me, as I, for one, like it when vampire films take this route. You see, it make sense from a logical standpoint. Why, when there are so many different kinds of human beings out there, should a race of parasites, that procreates through human beings, be exactly the same? It's like saying that all dogs should act like Chihuahuas or something. It makes a creature we already know, and are afraid of, do things we've never seen it do before, with out alienating the audience.
That said, there are still some stupid bits in here, but oh well. Second, there is an end goal for vampire existence. This I don't agree with so much, as again, I prefer the vampires as variable, changing beings, with their reason being their own, and not some cookie cutter premise to make sequels. But I digress. The end goal is 10,000. 10,000 souls, to be exact, souls extracted from 'primal blood', also know as the blood from the first arterial spray brought on through a fang bite. You see, with the couple from the padded out opening, and a porn star brought in to add more tits,  Morella's at 9,998. Not that I care much though, as she, like everyone else here, just isn't that interesting. We get some more dialogue, pointless at this point, and Fondacaro kills Spyce.
Morella, dragging Dex into the final showdown room, finds Spyce dead, and promptly beats Fondacaro's character easily. Fondacaro, who had mentioned briefly before about trying to get revenge for his father, figures out that Marvin, this film's puppet, actually is his father, whom Morella keeps in a cage after turning him into a creature because he hurt her at some point in the past. Fondacaro after talking with his father for a bit, takes some of his blood into himself, which is important. Morella, then kills him. But, as it turns out, that was the plan, because, by drinking the blood of a puppet creature, you turn into one. Except Fondacaro doesn't, but oh well, it defeats the bad guy, so yeah. Then we start the 6 minutes of end credits, only to figure out that this film has a runtime of 67 minutes. Minus the padded opening, the bit with the pornstar that was also padding, and the end credits, we are left with about 40 minutes of actual film, of which maybe 5 is used for plot development, the rest is for stilted dialogue and rather hamfisted character development, none of which does anything, as the runtime is so short we don't get to connect to any of the characters in any real way.

Basically, the script, while it had a couple of good points, was nothing special, the characters bland, the performances just enough to call it acting, when it wasn't hammy villain preening. The music here is even pretty bad, just mostly being some basic electronica, if it was usable as elevator music. All in all, Decadent Evil is neither, and should be avoided at all costs.