Speed Demons (2012)
Foywonder
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Starring Sticky Fingaz, Marina Sirtis, Terry Kiser, Al Santos, Angela Sarafyan
Directed by Dan Garcia
When I came across Speed Demons on Amazon Instant Video, I was perplexed. How had I not heard of this movie before? I looked it up on IMDB and found nothing. The only info I had to go on was that it starred Sticky Fingaz, was directed by Dan Garcia, and offered this plot synopsis:
The world is in chaos; vampires rule the streets, searching for “The Day Walker”. Two vampire hunters desperately try to keep her alive.
You might recall that Sticky Fingaz starred in the short-lived Spike TV “Blade: The Series”. Given the lack of IMDB entry, the fact that this movie was available on VOD with seemingly no DVD release in the works, and how little else info there was besides it starring Sticky Fingaz and having to do with vampires, specifically, a “Day Walker”, I found myself wondering if this was just a movie compiled from episodes of that “Blade” TV series.
The other thing that had me wondering was the name Dan Garcia. Odds are you have no idea who he is. I only know the name because I’ve reviewed two films of his in the past year or so: Flesh Wounds and Terror Trap. The former was as blatant a rip-off of Predator as you’ll ever see starring Kevin Sorbo battling a cyborg soldier run amok in the jungle. The later was such a rip-off of Vacancy even The Asylum would have called it shameless. Now I was curious to see if Garcia had made his own el cheapo knock-off of Blade starring the guy that played the character on TV.
Speed Demons, it turns out, is neither a compilation film of “Blade: The Series episodes nor a Blade mockbuster, either of which, however, would have been preferable to what I watched. It was el cheapo; I was right about that much.
Why the title is Speed Demons is anybody’s guess. A couple of the vampires ride motorcycles; that’s all anything in this movie really has to do with speed or demons. The lack of death races or vehicular chases make this the most pointless use of the title Speed Demons ever.
Sticky Fingaz is the leader of the motorcycle-riding vampire gang hunting for this teenage girl named Lala, the Day Walker. He’s got Wolverine claws on one hand and growls every line of dialogue as if he’s got an actual wolverine caught in his throat. 90% of what he snarls seemed to be some variation of either “Bring me the Day Walker!” or “Find me the Day Walker!”
It would appear a vampire can only determine who the Day Walker is by taking a bite out her and drinking some of her blood. So many women die in this movie because they fail the Day Walker taste test. Find a woman. Take a bite out of her neck. Nope. Move on. Find another woman. Take a bite out her neck. Vampires looking for a Day Walker are like the old lady in the supermarket squeezing every grapefruit until she finds just the right one that is ripe enough for her.
When they capture the Day Walker, they intend to perform some ritual during the solstice that involves setting her on fire and eating her ashes. Why exactly? I forget. It doesn’t really matter. Just annoying vampire by-laws that I’m sure make perfect sense to them. All we mortals need to know is that their doing so is very bad for us so best we keep it from happening.
Sticky Fingaz isn’t even the main vampire bad guy. There’s sort of a godfather vampire who’s less mobile than Jabba the Hut that spends the entire movie sitting up in a bed with a topless woman while his minions stand around talking to him the way you’d imagine a fantasy warlock’s henchmen would talk to their master in a story written by a seven-year-old.
Of all the cast members of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, it seems Marina Sirtis has had the hardest time parlaying that fame into anything else. Here she is utilizing an unbelievable Southern accent as the mother of the Day Walker desperately trying to protect her daughter from the undead and her daughter’s chastity from any handsome mortal suitors as well. If Counselor Troi were to watch this film, the only emotion she would sense is despair.
Coming to the rescue are a pair of African American vampire hunters, one older and somewhat crotchety, the other younger and far more concerned with finding a woman. Something about their back and forth banter made me think of them as the “Sanford & Son” of vampire hunters.
The only bright spots are a few nice scenes with Terry Kiser as a priest leaving the order because he no longer believes in God. Even that eventually gets sabotaged by writing so crappy in one scene he turns down a crying woman’s request to be blessed because he’s completely lost his faith, and then not two minutes later he leads everyone in a prayer before going off to fight the vampires.
If someone told me Speed Demons was shot without benefit of a finished treatment, let alone a finished script, I would not be at all surprised. It’s only about 76 minutes long, and for a good 45 of those minutes it is such a mess it nearly achieved a Godfrey Ho film level of disjointedness. If you’ve ever seen a Godfrey Ho film, then you know just how jumbled this movie is.
It isn’t until all the interested parties, alive and undead, finally come together at some junkyard solstice celebration concert – except for the godfather vampire still too weak to leave his bed and bare-breasted pillow – that any of it makes much sense, and even then only because everyone is gathered in one place doing the kill or be killed routine.
Thank goodness Amazon Instant Video offers the film for seven-day rentals because it took me about three sittings to get through the whole thing.
1 out of 5
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