Robo Vampire

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Year of release: 1988

Genre: action

Director: Godfrey Ho

Action director: Bruce Jackson

Producer: Tomas Tang

Writer: William Palmer

Cinematography: Anthony Mang

Music: Alan Wilson

Editor: George Lewis

Stars: Robin Mackay, Nian Watts, Harry Myles, Joe Browne, Nick Norman, George Tripos, David Borg, Diana Byrne, Alan Drury

Not rated; contains R-level violence and nudity

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Robo Vampire  Robo Vampire

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Robo Vampire is a extremely low-budget and bafflingly strange film that features Chinese kyonsi, western-style ghosts, and a guy dressed up in a silver lame suit trying to pull off his best impression of Robocop. Perhaps, not surprisingly, this is yet another entry in the not-so-hallowed hall of shame brought forth by the bitter fruits of the addled mind of Godfrey Ho.

In Ho's defense, he's actually not that bad of a director per se, it's just more that his unconventional methods usually end up in products that are destined to forever remain at the bottom of the bargain bin. Ho is well-known among internet geeks for doing things like recycling footage or cutting-and-pasting scenes from different films together in order to create "new" films that he could sell to unsuspecting overseas distributors.

When Ho actually used all original footage in his movies, such as with the recently reviewed Ninja Terminator and this picture, the results, while still not being anything close to what many would consider to be a well-made film, are entertaining, at least in a campy, scholcky, have six beers before you pop in the DVD kind of way.

In the vast realm of the cinematic, there is something to be said for movies like Robo Vampire. Yes, it's chock-full of bad acting and cheesy special effects and is as far from an arthouse or prestige picture as one could imagine. But, on the other hand, it offers up a lot of laughs (albeit unintentional) and is never boring -- something that cannot be said for many so-called "classic" films.

RATING: 6