Bordello of Blood (1996) [REVIEW]

After watching Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight and being surprised at how fun of a movie it was, I figured I’d might as well go ahead and see what happens when Dennis Miller took on leading man responsibilities with Bordello of Blood. Boy oh boy, this really smacks you in the head with just how mid 90’s it is. It was like watching MTV’s Rock N’ Jock or something. OH MAN, REMEMBER THOSE?! I haven’t thought of those things in a long time. Wait, what the fuck was I talking about? Oh yeah! The mid 90’s! I bet people went to see this movie all hopped up on Surge and 3D Doritos after listening to their Collective Soul cassettes. Hahaha, the mid 90’s were weird.

You know this guy’s a rebel because he has piercings and a leather coat! What a cool dude!

An expedition in South America comes across the remains of a woman and one of the members of the expedition puts her heart back in and the woman-demon comes back to life! That’s when the movie reveals this is a story being told by a mummy to The Cryptkeeper (voiced by John Kassir). After a few puns, The Cryptkeeper introduces this story where a wild dude (Corey Feldman) goes to a bordello where all of the women end up being vampires! The wild dude’s sister Katherine (Erika Eleniak) goes in search of him but when the police don’t really care, she enlists private detective Rafe Guttman (Dennis Miller) to find his brother, but when he finds the brothel and sees the vampires, Katherine thinks he’s crazy, especially because she’s a devout Christian who works closely with a Reverend, who’s played by Chris Sarandon. Despite her disbelief, Guttman is able to convince her and the reverend the truth of what’s going on and they decide to storm the brothel to take out the head vampire Lilith (Angie Everhart) through the use of holy water-filled Super Soakers and the song “Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet. They are eventually able to use some of the more theatrical elements of the reverend’s elaborate stage show to wound and ultimately defeat Lilith. With the situation behind them, Guttman goes to put the moves on Katherine, and when he slides his hand up her thigh, it reveals vampire bites and she attacks him! Oh no Dennis Miller!!!!!!!!

Even though she’s a vampire, of course I’d still take her to the MTV Video Music Awards! After all, it is THE most popular awards show of the mid 90’s.

After looking at IMDb a little bit longer, it revealed that the mummy hanging out with The Cryptkeeper was played by William Sadler! That guy from that other movie! That’s not the only connection to Demon Knight, because the container of Jesus blood or whatever from Demon Knight was also featured in this movie. And there’s also a scene where Dennis Miller says “…feels like we’re in an episode of Tales from the Crypt.” Take that, Cabin in the Woods, how is THAT for meta?! Sorry, I’m getting off topic. The whole plot of this movie was pretty stupid, and although I would’ve loved to see this movie on HBO late at night when I was younger, due to the amount of naked ladies, it feels like that’s really the only thing the filmmakers were banking on, the dudes with boners demographic. All of the acting was pretty terrible, except for maybe Chris Sarandon, if only because he was playing a role that was so different from the sexy cool guy characters I normally see him play. Even though it was crazy to see Dennis Miller in the leading man/somewhat hero in a horror movie, I’d say that 25% of his dialogue was delivered in that classic Dennis Miller style that was actually somewhat funny 15 years ago. Even though the lead cast were pretty bad and the story wasn’t all that good, there were still some decent special effects in it, and the movie knew it was pretty dumb so I don’t think it took itself too seriously. Had I paid money to see this or something like that, I would’ve been pretty pissed, but considering it was on Netflix and it just took 90 minutes of my life, there were worse ways those minutes could have been spent. This movie did remind me of how awesome Super Soakers were, and I’m sure it was so cool back then to have a scene like this, even though we also saw From Dusk Till Dawn do the same exact thing that year. Do kids play with water guns anymore? I know they still sell them, but they are fucking battery-powered. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?! Have videogames completely replaced the idea of running around on a hot summer day and shooting water at your friends? There I go, getting off track again. The point is, fuck Dennis Miller.

Wolfman Moon Scale