Vampire Vixens from Venus
1995
Directed, Produced, and Written by Ted A. Bohus
Vampire Vixens from Venus (not to be confused with Vampire Vixens is the story about seductive alien women who come to Earth to steal brain juices from excited men. After running across it in a random movie rental nine years ago in college, I had been searching for it for years, and thanks to some luck I ran across a copy. Most memorable after all that time was the CGI was literally the worst I had ever seen in a film and may have been one of the first movies with a CGI character. The alien women have their alternate alien modes, which gives us a few instances of alien monsters killing men as well. Topping all of that is the movie’s bumbling cop hero character, who just happens to be British for no real good reason! It all adds up to a bizarre ride for what is essentially a skin flick, but is memorable enough due to the factors that make it so weird.
The film has some crude humor, but for the most part is just silly and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, which is a boon for these sci-fi sex movies. Some of the jokes are groan-inducing, while random silly things such as a guy in the town always dressed like Elvis are just fun (especially since the Elvis guy looks like an 80-pound weakling.) The creature effects here appear to have the same general style as other Ted A. Bohus films such as Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor or Nightbeast, but I haven’t seen any of them so I can’t compare further.
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Doors open…to space? Wha-? Oh, it’s just the production company logo. The computer starfield screen saver continues as the title plays and the credits roll, we discover we’re getting a guest appearance by Charlie Callas! Uh, yeah. Also, someone in the credits is named Allan Harris, which is a name mentioned in Clerks (chess team Allan Harris was in a dark bedroom with a guy named Brad, and the two moved to Idaho to raise sheep.) After the credits, we are still in space as one of the saddest-looking CGI spaceships on film flies by. Cutting edge at one time, but that was five to ten years prior to this 1995 effort, coming just two years before the first Star Wars prequel. Efforts like this look quaint to modern eyes, but probably saved the production company money it did not have in making spaceship miniatures. This spaceship is headed toward Earth, or a close approximation of Earth. We see some energy exit the spaceship, and we cut to planet Earth where three aliens materialize, Star Trek style.
The aliens complain about the odor of planet Earth, then use their hologram devices to take human babe form. Well, one of them does, while a second turns into a large black woman and the third does nothing. The first one transformed, Arylai who has turned into J.J. North, messes around with the holoprojector on the second, turning her into redhead Theresa Lynn. Read what you will into the turning of a black woman into a white woman. The Theresa Lynn unit is named Shirley, and her IQ would be below freezing in two temperature scales. The third alien can’t get the holoprojection device to work correctly, so is told to hide as they try to get a ride via hitchhiking. Shirley’s attempts prove unsuccessful until Arylai yanks down her top, getting a car screeching to a halt. The guy is excited to have some hot babes, but soon gets his brain zapped by a device, and the rest of him shrivels into a slimy husk through horrible video effects and some neater transition shots. Tossed out of the car, the Vampire Vixens from Venus prepare to drive off, joined by the third member Omay who has finally transformed into her human form, that of Leslie Glass.
Meanwhile at the police station, two police officers discuss the serial klutz Detective Oakenshield, and how he is getting a new partner. These cops get a few other scenes, one is overly tall and named Greg (the aforementioned Alan Harris, who was in most of the Star Wars films most notably playing Bounty Hunter Bossk,) while his shorter than average partner is Paul (Bop Tweedie – yes, that is the name he goes by!). During this sequence they encounter several comic set pieces, and we cut to Detective Oakenshield, who seems to make a complete disaster of unlocking his office. Enough of that, we jump to a strange scene where two random guys are talking on the porch of a house. The nerdier of the two men talks about how he is in love with a girl named Molly who he had a conversation with. The two are joined by random guy number three, who quickly lays into details about the girl he sexed up last night, the aforementioned Molly. This conversation eventually dissolves into a silly string fight. Seriously. I am shocked and appalled. Plus they wasted a good chance on some nudity by not having a flashback to the guy having sex with Molly.
Amidst all this string-shooting by these three guys, the three Vampire Vixens from Venus pull up in the convertible they borrowed last night and the three men run up like they are the Ice Cream Man. Omay asks “Hello, gentlemen, would you care to indulge in some carnal experimentation?” After a command from Arylai to “lower verbal intercourse intelligence quotient level!” Omay then asks “Wanna f—k?” Obviously the men do, but we’re jumping back to the police station for a bit. Detective Oakenshield’s new partner arrives, a man named detective John Meov who wants everyone to call him Jack. Did you get the joke yet? Anyway, Oakenshield is busy trying to find out who stole 10 gallons of purple paint, and then goes into a long story about being thrown out of Scotland Yard after accidentally walking in on Princess Di and Prince Charles engaged in questionable sex practices.
So back to the sex party, or at least the three women in the house the three guys are staying at. After some painfully bad blonde jokes (that also double as Torellian jokes!) and the discovery that Martians don’t have ankles, the VVfV decide they want to sex up the guys, 3 on one. Picking the nerdiest one first, they keep him on the couch and send the other two away (for sloppy seconds and thirds, I guess) and soon nerdy Chip is about to become a man. Or he would, if he didn’t keep interrupting. After a brief section where the radio is turned on to opera (and the song is clearly a man pretending to be a woman) the girls pretty much force him to get excited, and he’s zapped by their brain device. During this time, Oakenshield and Meov are alerted that people have found the first guy who was turned into a pod. The Vampire Vixens from Venus continue and zap random guy number two, but soon number three interrupts them, and he is knocked out. Arylai explains to Shirley (and to the audience) that they need brain chemicals from excited Earth men, otherwise it isn’t as pure and they don’t get as much money. Instead, they just kill guy number three as he’s worthless.
The coroner examines the pod, figures out it was a man, and says “this is weird, even for college kids!” Oakenshield brings in the sister of the missing hitchhiker-picker-upper (who is inexplicably dressed in a cheerleading outfit) and she identifies the lump on the table as her brother. Back at the house, the VVfV complain “Earth breasts are useless, you can’t even see out of them!” and the girls go to a bar. Remember that line as it will become important later. At the bar, some jerk insults a waitress who spits in his drink. We mention this because the guy is the bandleader of the terrible band that starts playing soon after, credited in the closing credits as The Brennan Band (singing their hit song I Think I’m in Love.) Because the film has to do stuff with Oakenshield to crack up the monotony of alien women sexing and brain-blasting men, we now see Oakenshield go home for the night, only to bump into a woman. This woman is named Shampay, and he puts the moves on her, smooth British style.
The girls are hard at work picking up guys to zap, and Arylai gets a guy to take her to an abandoned warehouse, only he only took her there to rob her. He gets the surprise of his life when she morphs into her alien self, and is soon chasing him through the warehouse blasting at him with a laser gun. She shoot plenty of innocent boxes and some warehouse worker, finally cornering the robber and blasting him as well, turning him into a skeleton. One of those high school skeletons that have the skull-flaps. This is not the first time we’ve encountered such a birth defect in B-movie cast members. Oakenshield and Shampay are walking home while he tells her stories, and soon they have an attempted robber as well. This town is a crime-infested hellhole! This robber is scared off by Shampay letting him see her ugly alien face (unknown to Oakenshield), but we’ve already figured out she’s evil just by the fact she likes Oakenshield. Oakenshield is also punched by an old lady and by a little girl. The VVfV go home, leaving behind an alley filled with shriveled pods of former men. Oakenshield mentions finding the first pod, but is then beeped and called to the alley where the police have found the horde of pods. Before he goes, he gets a date for tomorrow night.
At the scene of the crime, Oakenshield talks to bartender Charlie Callas. After some lame comic relief the bartender mentions the three girls. Later, Oakenshield and Meov talk while Oakenshield fantasizes about Shampay giving us some nudity. The VVfV snag a jogger guy the next morning, while Oakenshield continues to work on the pods back at the police station and Greg and Paul follow with a comic relief scene. In the VVfV house, the jogger notices the brain device and soon Shirley is outed as an alien, causing the jogger to run (or jog) out of the house, into the street, stealing a jeep and slamming the driver’s head into the door, then speeding off. Why ask for a ride when you can steal it? Plus he leaves the driver there to get killed by the aliens, as far as he knows. What a hero. The VVfV accelerate their schedule as they are in danger of being outed, and we get about a minute straight of shots of the jogger driving. Pointless padding at its finest. Police officers Greg and Paul check out the house the VVfV are staying at because the parents of the nerdy guy are unable to contact their son who was staying there. They willfully go inside and will soon be podded. Say goodbye to Bossk and Bop.
Oakenshield is ready for his big date with Shampay, and another patron at the restaurant is the weenie Elvis from the night club. I guess you can’t kill Elvis, he must have avoided those Vampire Vixens like when he took out that mummy with JFK. Oakenshield gives a long speech to Shampay where he continually flips a fork off the table in anger, causing constant crashes and the waiter giving him a new fork every few seconds. It seems lame but is one of the better running gags. Oakenshield is beeped away to work again, but as he and Shampay are leaving, the Jogger in the stolen jeep drives up and tries to warn Oakenshield about the girls who tried to kill him. Shampay says they should take the Jogger to her place so he can calm down, so they do. We know this means death, but before she kills everyone the Jogger notices her bracelet and realizes she’s one of the aliens. He grabs it, and her holoimage turns off, revealing her to be a fatter, uglier version of the previous aliens. Thanks to loose clothing, we see that this is the female, and indeed she does have boobs that you can see out of, as eyeballs blink out of the nipples. That is a sequence to give one nightmares, and part that I blocked out in my remembrance of this film. She kills the Jogger, and the now unconscious Oakenshield is about to get brain zapped as well, but the machine is full and he is saved. The police chief also arrives at the apartment, Oakenshield must have called him when I wasn’t paying attention earlier. Oakenshield wakes up, and the two discuss what has happened, realize that Greg and Paul went to the house where the VVfV are to die, and that Meov was just sent there to check up on them! They head over.
At the house, the three Vampire Vixens are all over Meov, preparing to zap his brain. Shampay comes in, but the attempt to zap Meov fails, for he just growls and pulls up the top of his head, revealing some circuits that one of the girls exclaims is a Drain Protection Grid! It’s like a head condom, only it looks like a low budget version of those Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where Data has his head open. He turns out to be from the Intergalactic Patrol, and thus begins the worst yet most memorable CGI experience of my life (well, until Attack of the Sabretooth) as Meov morphs into a blue CGI alien lizard thing. Whatever it is, it is goofy looking, which makes it wonderful! I love it. Far more realistic than Jar Jar, Dobby, Gollum, or Yoda 2.0, this blue dude proceeds to blast the crap out of all four of the Vampire Vixens from Venus, turning them into the Disintigrated Dead Girls from Venus. Except for Shampay, who he eats (and it looks like actress Michelle Bauer wasn’t even in the same house as the other three girls, but I digress.) Oakenshield then bursts into the house, sees the monster, and shoots him several times, wounding him. Oakenshield quips “Women. Can’t live with them, can’t be sure they aren’t alien menaces!” Then he goes over to look at the wounded Meov-monster, touches its watch-transmorpher, and says “Blimey!” as the credits roll.
The explosive secret of Vampire Vixens from Venus!
Our closing song is Runaway by RAGE, but you may remember it as Right Round by Dead or Alive as they stole the sound from them. At the end of the credits, they tell us “Coming soon: Vampire Vixens II: Oakenshield on Venus.” I’d pay to see that. This film may have many flaws, but it wasn’t boring. It was cheese on crackers, with some bad effects and some not so bad effects. Still, it probably cost pretty cheap to make, and was decently entertaining for a low-budget sex flick. It just needed more sleaze. But don’t most movies? I also give them a bonus for just suddenly killing off all the evil girls in a few seconds by the alien deus ex machina cop. Most films would have them killed by some ridiculous intricate plot device. Such simplicity is refreshing. But we never find out what happened to the ten gallons of purple paint!
Download Runaway by RAGE here (Right-Click, Save As)
Download the theme here (Right-Click, Save As)
Rated 6/10 (Dare Bear, cool waitress, Good CGI x2, Wimpy Elvis, Charlie Callas?!?)
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