Bordello of Blood (1996)

Directed by Gilbert Adler [Other horror films: N/A]

For a long time, despite quite enjoying Demon Knight, I had a pretty bad feeling about Bordello of Blood. It just looked too goofy and generally didn’t interest me. After finally seeing it, I have to say that I was largely right, but the movie isn’t without a few strong points.

Chief among those strong points is Dennis Miller as private detective Rafe Guttman. Guttman is such a fun character, with so many amusing lines pretty much every time he’s on screen (“You’re reminding me why being married to you drove me to the brink of homosexuality” and the ever-classy “Sorry, Zeke – I’m just not in the mood for a blowjob,”) and I just dug his personality from beginning to end.

Miller was a lot of fun here, which is definitely good, because otherwise, I don’t think the film had a hell of a lot going for it. I mean, the whole vampire-ran brothel idea was done somewhat better in From Dusk Till Dawn, and while the special effects here are decent (save for some hideous mishaps during the “Ballroom Blitz” sequence), most of the story and many of the characters, save Miller’s, didn’t do much of anything for me.

I guess that Erika Eleniak was decent (though I will further say that I didn’t love the conclusion to this movie, and in relation, her character’s story), and Chris Sarandon (Fright Night and Child’s Play) grew on me over time (though his religious nonsense was hard to swallow). The other central performances, though, such as Angie Everhart, Corey Feldman (Gremlins, The Lost Boys), and Aubrey Morris failed to leave me with much in the way of a positive impression.

I think, though, the biggest issue in regards to my failed interest was the story, which was quite light-hearted and pretty ridiculous at times. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind that much when Miller was on screen, but I didn’t much care for the tone at any other point, especially the framing of this movie, what with the Crypt Keeper presenting this as a story while playing a card game with a mummy. I mean, you can expect something campy and corny – look at the end of Demon Knight – but this just felt like too much.

Which is ultimately my problem with the film. It’s just too goofy, which sort of hinders the better portions of the film from fully taking control. And again, I find this quite sad, as I really did enjoy Dennis Miller here, and I feel like this could have been executed better, but as it stands, while watchable if only due to Miller, this wasn’t what I’d call a particularly good time, and it’s not a movie I could see myself going back to that often.

5.5/10