Razor Blade Smile

Razor Blade Smile (1998): At last, a truly good low budget independent vampire movie and produced in the UK to boot! Narrated by the lead (Eileen Daly) the movie starts in black and white showing how one Lilith Silver became a vampire in the 1700’s. One of her initial lines to the audience is “You don’t know firetruck all about vampires.” (Authors note; Take out some letters and figure out what she really said.) The movie then shows why that statement is true. Filmed stylishly and with good use of color, this rather erotic thriller stays true to its logical premise throughout the movie, rare these days. It examines some of the issues that most movies don’t touch such as what would vampires really do in today’s world or what would be their biggest enemy besides a Van Helsing? It also deviates somewhat from the standard Hollywood rules about how vampires operate.

Lilith, most logically, is a contract assassin, a job that provides her with a good non-traceable income as well as a constant blood supply. She is contracted to off a number of powerful people, members of a super secret society and runs into conspiracies, inept police detectives, vampire groupies, and other assorted characters. The finale includes a samurai sword fight and a return to the site where she first became a vampire. The twist at the ending, though somewhat of a surprise, does fit into the logic of the movie. I don’t think I’m giving anything away but according to the narration, a vampire’s biggest enemy is boredom, all that time on your hands, and that also fits into the logic of this movie’s universe. Eileen Daly has been seen in some low budget dermis-flicks but she finally gets to show off some acting skills in addition to her dermis quality in this movie. This is an excellent rent for genre fans if you can find it (and be sure to watch to the end of the credits). The movie is rated R for: large blood flows, red bathwater, breastulations, multiple decapitations, stake in the stomach, chest carvings, free masons on acid, multiple cat suits, multiple fangs, isle of lesbos activity, and for the bad teeth of many of the English actors (and I’m not talking fangs here either.)