Ankle Bitters
Now, I could go on and on trying to describe to you how bizarrely, otherworldly awful this movie is, and I will, but I think the movie menu itself makes it abundantly clear. First, just look at the thing.
Santa joined a biker gang and got some body mods
Now, if that weren’t silly enough, over this image plays a heavy metal song with lyrics consisting of nothing more then the phrase “Three feet tall, Two inch fangs” repeated over and over again. Now you know that “what the fuck?” feeling you’re having right now? That feeling of wonderment regarding how we’re supposed to take anything seriously after that? Take that feeling and stretch it out over roughly 90 minutes and that’s what watching this movie is like. Every passing moment just one ups the inanity of everything before it and what’s worse is that it honestly expects us to take it seriously. But I won’t force you to take my word for it, oh no, you can see for yourself.
Now, the credits start out with the camera zipping around some cruddy little Alabama town while what sounds to be Alvin of the Chipmunks giggles like a mad man. It appears that the camera is chasing some ginger kid with a pony tail as he sorta jogs about trying to look threatened. Unfortunately the kid slips and falls and we’re given our first look at the aforementioned dwarf vampires. The camera pans up from their feet to their face (an action that takes about a half second) and we see…this
They’re three feet tall remember.
So yeah, they decided to go all “gansta” style on these 3 foot tall vampires. As cinematic choices go its probably the best example of completely killing any credibility you ever had in one fell swoop. And the fangs are not exactly what I would call great effects, but this isn’t helped by the fact that they seem really freaking quick to show them. Seriously, every time these little bastards are on screen it seems like they have to start each sentence by snarling like an extremely annoyed Chihuahua. Not only that but they proceed to attack the ginger kid in the exact same way you’d expect a small yappy dog to attack, by swarming all over him and gnawing ineffectually on his nipples.
As if the fact that you’re actually voluntarily watching a serious movie about midget biker vampires wasn’t enough to cause you to wonder what you’re doing with your life we’re suddenly introduced to our main character: chubby white guy cosplaying as neo.
Now, imagine the juxtaposition here. We have three very cheesy “gansta” midget vampires fighting a non-threatening suburbanite with pretensions toward being “hard core”. The only way it could get any more ridiculous is if the chubby white guy had a gangster midget side kick.
…Of course he has one.
Well, predictably, they have a fight (which the vampire hunter kicks off by saying “Hey short cake, bite this”) and its just as hilariously terrible as you’d a bunch of midgets wrestling to be. Well after that big of pointlessness we get some narration from our main character and to be honest, you really have to hear it for yourself. Its not great quality but here it is.
And yes, he speaks in that annoying pseudo-tough guy grumble for the entire film. As he mumbles about the imminent threat of blood sucking Halflings we see him and his sidekick, named “t-bone” ride off on their motorcycle. And just to be extra ridiculous, the midget rides in a sidecar.
Striking fear into the hearts of man and beast alike.
Well, after another credit sequence set to some god awful music that can pretty much be described as nothing more then drumming over a record skipping, we get our next scene; this one happens to involve two “mobsters” who use “fuck” like the space bar. Seriously, here’s a snippet of the dialogue:
“What kind of fucking place is this for a meeting? My fucking leg is killing me. These are brand new fucking shoes! Where the fuck are they! If these guys are late I‘m going to bust a cap.”
Those exclamation points are just guesses actually, since the actual actors seem completely uninterested in there lines and rarely do anything more then whisper. And yes, that’s right, a white Alabama actor who is playing an Italian mobster just said “bust a cap”. More and more this is seeming like one of those after school specials that try and use slang to appeal to the kids but just come off as extremely out of touch. Although they do get to use the phrase “Fuck you, you saw’d off bastard” to the midgets which I must admit made me giggle out of the sheer randomness. Well, it turns out these mobsters are bringing the midgets a sword containing the blood of the last tall vampire and that the midgets plan to use it to make more tall vampires. The exact reason as to why midgets can only make other midgets vampires is never really explained, though I guess it makes just about as much sense as anything else. As can be expected a fight breaks out when the midgets refuse to pay and the hilarious mauling begins. Actually the worst part of the mauling is watching one of the mobsters, an old man, scream in O-face for about 30 seconds. In case you’re wondering, yes, they actually bite ankles.
The next scene is pretty superfluous, it just shows some old guy browsing what I suspect they’re trying to pass off as a art gallery, but it really just looks like an Olive Garden with all the furniture removed and five dollar paintings on all the walls. Moving right along we come to yet another meaningless fight scene, this time between Van dorksing and a bunch of bar patrons. This fight is notable for several reasons, the biggest of which being that it has absolutely no reason to exist. I’m serious, these guys are just talking to the bartender and bam, bar fight. Maybe they just excrete an aura of douche bag which makes everyone within 50 feet desire to cave their heads in. I know I certainly want to. But beyond it’s utter vestigial-ness the fight is note worthy because 1. They beat a woman up for comedic effect, 2. T-bone starts randomly dancing to background music he shouldn’t be able to hear and 3.we get our first view of the vampire hunter’s awesome contacts.
Hot topic man, hot topic
Also, while he’s not actually part of the fight I feel as though I must bring up the bartender, for he is perhaps the most emotionally dead man ever to walk the face of the earth. I want you to look at this face
From the moment the protagonist walks in to the moment he leaves this man’s face never changes. During the bar fight when dozens of people are being knocked out and stuff is getting broken all over the place its still that face. When he’s shooting at the protagonist, that face, when he’s being threatened, that face, when his wrist is cut open and his blood is drained into tequila, that face.. When he goes home to his wife, that face, when he makes love to her, that face, while hunched over, thrusting and thrusting THAT FUCKING FACE. Imagine being humped by those dead dead eyes and despair, despair as they drive you mad!
Ahem, moving right along, we get several pointless scenes, one involving the “saw’d off bastards” killing some fat guy and another showing the old art buyer from before heading off to fight the midget vampires. Oh and the protagonists and his stumpy sidekick kill an accountant and then someone steals their ridiculous motorcycle. Yeah, I know that sounds stupid but there’s a very good explanation for that: it’s because it is stupid. Eventually what one could consider to be the plot meanders back in as we have a scene with some hicks in a garage. The dioluge remains on par with the rest of the film with lines such as:
Little hick: Imma go to the waffle shack and get me a burger.
Big hick: Them burgers taste like piss.
The first question this brings to mind is “why would you go to the Waffle shack to get a burger?” followed closely by “Why would you go to the waffle shack?”. The answer to the second one is “Because the only other alternative is the pancake outhouse”
Well, in come the midgets and they promptly kill little hick and transform big hick into a vampire with the sword, but that’s not what is interesting. What is interesting is that big hick’s sister is supposed to peak out of the office and see it happening. Now, you’d think such a thing would be easy, just open the door and look surprised; well she does that, unfortunately she opens the wrong door and spends several seconds quite obviously staring into a closet.
Hurp Derp
Luckily the protagonist and his hobbit are on the case and race off after the vampires. That is to say that they race off after the vampires right after they punch a guy in the nuts and car jack him. Our heroes. Oh, and remember how I said the movie just keeps one upping it’s stupidity? Well, remember the sidecar from before? Yeah, that just got beat.
You’re towing a god damn couch, just get a freaking car!
Honestly, how are we supposed to take this seriously? What the hell is that thing? Its like the illegitimate love child of a motorcycle and a minivan and its full of vampire midgets! This is starting to sound like a madlib someone did while high. Worse yet its not like all the midgets are actually on the bike, there’s one following behind IN A CAR. Why aren’t they all just in the car?! They’re compact, they’ll fit! Well, we get a great big retard rumble between Big hick and our protagonist while T-bone sits in back pointing his crossbow at random things. Also, his crossbow isn’t loaded and or even cocked. Awesome. Really, this fight is just rather sad, the protagonist tries to “roar” and just looks like he’s having a stroke and they even resort to the whole “rewind the tape to make it look like he’s jumping” thing. And then the scene ends, just as abrupt and pointless as it began.
More…stuff happens, I hesitate to call it plot because then I’d have to classify flaming feces as plot, and big hick’s sister gets involved with the protagonist because why not. I can think of several reason why not actually but whatever. The protagonist gives us some exposition, mostly lame jokes mixed with threats of domestic abuse, about how he’s a half breed, how dwarf blood kills dwarf vampires, how vampire stereotypes are bullshit etc. Big Hick’s sister’s reaction to all this is “Oh my god” in a completely disinterested monotone without even a hint of facial expression. Is this movie staffed (and written) entirely by stroke victims or something? The vampire hunting old guy wanders in, they team up, gay jokes are made and honestly this is all starting to blend together into one big mush of terrible one liners and even worse attempts at seriousness. Oh and T-bone gets on the protagonists shoulders and spins a basket ball.
I got nothing
Why? Why was this included? It serves no point, adds nothing and is just plain stupid. Its like the actors know how terrible the film is so they’re just fucking around. Personally, I don’t blame them.
Next comes a scene in a nightclub full of the most unenthusiastic 28 year olds I’ve ever seen. The vampires attack, turn random people into vampires, and the protagonist and old dude kill them. Also some stripper does backflips and cracks jokes about her hair, because that’s exactly what this film needed. While the old man and protagonist are out murdering t-bone gets turned into a vampire (and subsequently killed) and big hick’s sister gets kidnapped. Now, weirdly, after they bury t-bone they light his cross grave marker on fire. So…we’re burning a cross…in the south…um…yeah. After that bit of racial tension the dwarves call up and declare that they want to end the fight and tell the protagonist to show up somewhere at noon. And they have a big epic battle that’s not even worth commenting on and then the movie is over.
This movie is just, just terrible. Its not even one of those movies where you can tell they were trying but they just didn’t have the technology or talent to pull it off, they just didn’t seem to give a damn. The entire thing is like one huge parody but its done with such seriousness that it gets a little disturbing. Did anyone watch this before the dvds were printed? Was this even the product of a sentient mind? It seems more like what would happen if you randomly selected plot clichés and then added swearing and random stupidity. Its not even the type of stupidity that’s really that funny, its just boring and painful. It really seems there are no redeeming qualities to this film, which is something I thought impossible. So congratulations Ankle Biters, you defied my expectations by being so horrible that you practically collapsed into a shit singularity.
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