Anyone else come across this?

[Fearless Freep]

Last night I watched the first half or so of "The Wicked", a strange, very low budget, Australian quasi-vampire movie about a weird family whom, based on the video jacket, eats their house guests (I haven't gotten that far yet)

As a reward for seeing this through, I get to watch "Dark City" when I'm done.

[Cullen]

I've heard about it, and I think I might have glanced at its cover, but I haven't actually watched it, myself.  I have an aversion for all things Vampire.  I watched Shadow of the Vampire recently (meaning last year) and I bought a few reference books on the subject (years ago) and that's about it for me.  Mention bloodsuckers and I'm out of the pool.

Ann Rice and her clones did it to me.

(One small note - Satanic Rites of Dracula is somewhere in my near future.  I've almost seen ever Hammer Dracula and I'd like to get it out of the way...)

All of this nattering to the side, how was The Wicked?  Just out of curiousity, assuming I ever regain my taste for Vampire movies again.
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[jmc]

Satanic Rites of Dracula is an interesting entry...definitely not like the others.  

I'm with you, the vampire craze of the early 90s turned me off...I rented so many crappy vampire films that I can pretty much do without seeing any more of them.

[Fearless Freep]

OK, finished "The Wicked" last night....

The moive was basically a small, low budget horror project.  The sound was poorly recorded and between that and the Australian accent/lingo I had a hard time following it sometimes (a lot of "rewind...turn up the volume...listen again")

The story is that three people (two guys and a girl they give a lift to) hit a booby-trap in the road that incapacitates their car and the hoof it to a nearby town where the strange townsfolk pretty much force them to accept help from the inhabitants of a nearby..house-castle.

The inhabitants of the house are  creepy family of four (an older gentleman, and even older woman, and two younger adults who are I think the children of the older man).  The family actually reminds me of the Addam's Family in that they are prettty off with a morbid sense of humour, but these folks are more like the Addam's Family after a few generations of in-breeding; they're a touch daft.  Just behind the weirdness, though, lurks some menace that you know is going to come out.

The travellers are seperated with the house dwellers and one of them discovers there is really not something right with  these folks (sleeping in coffins and other issues) so he rounds up his friends and escapes to the town.

The townfolks are arguing whether they should stand up to the people in the house and destroy them, as they've been waylaying travellers for some time to povide food for the monsters at the house.   Some feel culpable, others feel that they are just doing what they themsleves need to to survive.  When our heros get back to the town they are captured and carried back to the castle and imprisoned, but a man from the town recuses them.   They manage to kill all but the older man and somehow they figure out that he can only be destoyed by stabbing him with the bones of his victims.  So in a very strange climax scene, the head bad guy is about fifteen feet tall on stilts while the girl throws a bunch of bones at him, trying to get one to stick in him.  Eventually she does and the guy explodes.  The travellers drive off, with the shock ending that one of the three has become a vampire himself.

The movie wasn't bad.  Ultra-low budget, bad sound I already mentioned.  Kept moving and wasn't boring.  However they spent too much time not with the monsters.  Just the good guys running around and talking, and acting like they are in danger, but not much is shown of the baddies to really get that feeling.  Also, the bad guys are monsters, but also just doofy enough that you are not really sure if they are much of a threat.   I think they were going for a sorta twilight-zone like "not only are the people killers, they are insane, so you're at double risk", but given how little they are in the movie and how off the wall they are when they're in the movie, they really don't come across as the threat the story makes them out to be

[Tranquil Featherman]

This one has been added to my list of "Things to Watch"
This is right up my alley.