New Breed (2001)

Meet a vampire with all the sex appeal of Mormon funeral potatoes.

This motion picture is only 1 hour and 27 seconds long, barely a feature, and I can already hear the complaints pouring into Customer Service: “But why this obscure piece of crap, Scott? And why now? It came out in 2001, surely the statute of limitations has expired.” Perhaps so, but I don’t believe that Justice should operate on an egg timer. Let us heed the wisdom of the Western Canon and look to Les Miserable and its hero, Javert (he’s the hero, right? I kinda skimmed it), who is righteous and relentless in his pursuit of a scofflaw baguette thief. And rest assured, I plan to bring that same sense of reasonable proportionality to this essay.

Okay, I’m lying. This movie just pissed me off, in a way few movies ever have. In fact, it made me so mad I had to refer to Better Living Through Bad Movie's patented Ma Joad-O-Meter™️ to measure just how mad it made me...

...and the answer is that I am currently at Ma Joad Threat Level Four: Ambulatory Mean-Mad.

New Breed (2001)
Directed by Stephen Groo
Written by Stephen Groo

We fade in on a persistent pink discharge. Not the kind of thin, venereal drizzle you might find at the free clinic; no, there’s gallons of this stuff, and it’s so brutally pink, and the shot drags on for so long, that you have leisure to wonder what the hell you’re looking at. Maybe some mad scientist discovered a way to convert Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum from a solid to a liquid for immoral purposes, or maybe we're watching a live feed of Katie Couric’s colonoscopy as she slowly, grimly shotguns a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Whatever it is, there’s a lot of it, because the camera pans across the pinkness—and I timed this—for 34 seconds. Eventually, we dissolve to a dance major from Provo Community College, resplendent in a black t-shirt dress and Spirit Halloween vampire teeth as she does an arthritic bump-and-grind that goes on for 49 seconds. A new record! What does it all mean? Well, that’s open to interpretation, but to me it means “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”.

Let’s meet our instantly disappointing hero, Derek (writer-director-star Stephen Groo) and his girlfriend Kath as they meet up with fellow college students to fret about the big test, like it’s a typical episode of Saved by the Bell, except half the cast apparently caught Methuselah Syndrome from that guy in Blade Runner.

Meanwhile, in a cutaway that aspires to Ominous but barely manages Hilarious, Derek is surveilled by several of the Drama Kids who weren’t good enough to be in the show and have to wear black t-shirts and black jeans and just change the sets. Their heavy eyeliner and black lipstick suggest they’re lame, low budget vampires (true, as it turns out) and their desperate desire to recruit Derek into their group suggests their taste in men is absolute ass (painfully true). Nothing personal, but casting matters, and while Groo clearly sees Derek as David Bowie from The Hunger, to me he’s like if Eddie Deezen committed a sin so grave his immortal soul was imprisoned in an old Howdy Doody doll. Unfortunately, he doesn’t let that stop him, and grows up into a gangly ginger who’s somewhere on the auteurism spectrum. 

Outside the classroom, Derek’s friends are still fretting about that big test, and Blond Friend Erica shyly confesses, “I’ve been so busy with my kickboxing class that I haven’t had time to study for the test.”

Now—I don’t mean to brag, this is simply to establish my bona fides—I used to study kickboxing with Refugio Flores, the former World Featherweight Champion, and it was an hour, three days a week; yet I somehow managed to go to college at the same time. But that was a long time ago, and maybe nowadays kickboxing involves a lot of lab work and assigned reading.

Inside the classroom, Derek is brutally bullied by Dollar Store Biff Tannen, who sneers, “Sooo, you think you’re gonna do better than me on that test?” and snaps Derek’s pencil. (Which gave me such a weird sense of deja vu, because I also had an urge to snap Derek’s pencil, but earlier, when he was writing the script.) Later, lead vampire Japheth buttonholes our hero and asks to speak to him in private. Derek sees no reason not to walk off with this black-garbed, black-lipped stranger whose audition for “Stewpot” in South Pacific was grossly inadequate, and whose acting hasn’t seemed to improve much in the meantime. Japeth invites Derek to a meeting of the “Gothic Society”, insisting it’s the perfect campus social club for theater majors who want to act, and to be in movies, but who apparently don’t want to do both at the same time.

Derek comes to the meeting, which consists of a bunch of black-lipped nerds decked out in choir robes from the Music Department, who try to create a sinister atmosphere by humming the word “Hum!” Seriously. At first I thought they were chanting “Hump!”—like maybe it was Wednesday? But no, they went the full onomatopoeia route and frankly, when it comes to haunting music from a horror movie, it’s less “Tubular Bells” and more Hum Along with Herman. 

They give Derek the vampire recruitment pitch, by which I mean they trap him in an uncomfortable-looking Dutch angle as co-eds invade his personal space while carrying lit birthday candles and hissing like radiators. Derek shows a lot of sales resistance, until Japeth points out that vampires—the only apex predators who exclusively hunt human prey—hardly ever get their Ticonderoga No. 2s snapped by Biffs.

The next day, everyone is wearing the same clothes as yesterday and worried about where Derek has been. Kath has called him, she’s stopped by his house, but he’s simply vanished! Maybe he’s on DRUGS!

Then, in a performance that says, “This is my only credit on IMDB,” one of the girls exclaims, “Well! Speak of the devil!” (Subtlety is apparently expensive, because they could afford none in this film). We cut to Derek as he swaggers into school dressed exactly like the “Trenchcoat Mafia” from the Columbine shooting, which occurred just two years before this film was made. That may seem crass, but you can understand why Derek, who’s also adopted the black-lipped look, wants to wear the whole costume, not just the black tee and jeans, so everyone knows he’s in the show and not just one of those losers who only get to shift scenery or organize the prop table.

Everyone demands an explanation, but Derek hears the bell and scurries off because he doesn’t want to be late for class. I guess you can inject the vampire into the geek, but you can’t suck the geek out of the vampire. 

That night Kath accompanies Derek to Lover’s Lane, where he immediately hops out of the car and poses moodily at the edge of a cliff. Now in my day, and I admit, it’s been awhile, this was not how necking worked. Instead, he takes it literally and tries to bite hers, but Kath pulls a crucifix (she just happened to have a huge and ornate one from a Hammer film in her back pocket for some reason. Again, not something I would normally pack for a jaunt to Make Out Point). Derek explains that traditional vampire lore—garlic, crosses, the fatal power of sunlight—is all just silly folklore, except for one rule:  “Until I’m stabbed in the heart I live forever.”

Also, he sparkles in sunlight now, but that’s just cosmetic.

Kath wants to get their lame friends involved, but Derek and I think this is a bad idea. No one listens to us, of course, but their friends prove hard to convince, with Miss Kickboxer scoffing, “I can’t believe you’re a vampire, Derek, come on.”

Derek leaps to his feet, flashes his Party City dentures and snarls, “Well believe it!”

The Power of Contradiction compels them, and the naysayers all stay their nays. Derek snarls a follow up, “You in?” Everyone agrees to go murder the Gothic Society for some reason, leading to a hilarious “stake-sharpening” montage, which tries to depict the characters as tough and cool, but only makes it clear that not one of these theater nerds ever got a passing grade in Shop class.

Derek promises, “It’s gonna be a bloodbath,” although it starts rather gently—more like a blood sponge bath—with some targeted assassinations by our heroes. Two of the girls exploit the vampire’s natural empathy by screaming, “Help, my friend’s choking!” A Lady Vamp runs over to assist, and promptly gets sucker-punched, kicked in the gut, and staked to death. All this happens, by the way, in broad daylight, in the middle of the college quad. But I guess if the body is just going to turn to dust and blow away, there’ll be no proof they murdered a woman in cold blood. Except normal vampire rules don’t apply, remember. This film has opted to create its own, fresh mythos, free of debts to long-dead writers, free of moldy old genre tropes, and most important of all, free from the tyranny of special effects. So they hook their victim under the arms and drag her offscreen.

Japeth and Derek face off, while the Stagehands go after the Supporting Cast, who prove that the one bit of surviving vampire lore this film observes—stake through the heart kills the monster—is pretty flexible, because they also die if you stab them in the neck, the floating rib, or the clavicle. Basically, in this universe, vampires have the durability of hamsters.

With the Gothic Society dead, Miss Kickboxer asks, “What do we do now?”

Derek takes Kath’s hand, snarls, “We continue…to live!”, and leads her off into the night. Well…okay, then. Movie’s over, I guess. Except we’re only at minute 15.

Cut to a black-lipped Derek and Kath, lording it over the now empty Gothic Society lair. Apparently Derek seduced his girlfriend into accepting the curse of immortality, or they both went to Ulta and got some bad advice. Then the Supporting Cast arrives, dressed in black like the Stagehands they killed, and kneel in front of Derek and Kath like they’re all taking a family photo for their Christmas card. So it seems the fearless vampire killers of the first act have been corrupted by Derek’s power, and become the very monsters they earlier rallied to destroy. Which sounds like an interesting premise for a movie, except it all happened off screen.

Someone hits the plot with a defibrillator and it restarts. Now there’s a new gang of vampire-hunting vampires in town, and they start staking Derek’s friends, who take offense and stake back. The violence quickly escalates to kickboxing, which just goes to prove that a passing grade on Big Test is nice, but it’s no substitute for a decent spinning hook kick when you’ve got self-hating vampires treating your torso like a pegboard. Then—shockingly, tragically—Kath is killed, leaving Derek bereft, alone, and howling with grief, according to the 23 seconds devoted to this heartbreaking plot twist.

Okay, now I’m really confused, but the film doesn’t notice and just blunders on without me. It’s “December, Six Months Later”. But six months after what? The rumble in the Gothic Club? Or was it after the fall of Derek’s friends? Because presumably that took awhile, and didn’t just happen when they were celebrating their victory with a beer and pizza party at Shakey’s, and everyone spontaneously turned evil because the softball team at the next table got their Mojo Potatoes first.

A girl walks down the street somewhere. In broad daylight. Okay, Mr. Groo, I get it. Yours is a bold, fresh, budget-conscious slant on vampire lore, and you will not be held to the outmoded ideas of those fusty old mossbacks at the Academy. Nevertheless, a little atmosphere in one’s horror movie can go a long way, but apparently our auteur didn’t spring for a camcorder with the Low Light setting. Anyway, she’s grabbed by a thug and dragged into a clean, spacious, well-lit alley, where he threatens her with safety scissors while lewdly fondling her kneecap and murmuring, “Let’s see what you got, baby-woman”.

Wait. No, sorry. I just rechecked my notes, and he actually says, “Let’s see what you got, woman-baby.” (I assume the distinction is meaningful to him.)

She’s saved by Derek. He tries to drink her assailant’s blood, but the girl’s incessant sniveling gets on his nerves, so he goes home. The two girls left over from the first 15 minute movie now pin Derek to the wall and give him a good, expositional talking to. Seems they lost their boyfriends in the vampire turf wars just like he lost Kath (i.e., off screen), but they’re using their powers only for good and acting as each other’s AA sponsors whenever they feel the Thirst. So along with the rest of vampire canon, this film tosses out what I consider the tragic heart of the genre: that a human being, dead but denied the peace of the grave, must kill its own kind to sustain an existence that is at best a grotesque mockery of life. Instead, when Groo’s Undead feel the savage urge to feed upon the living, they just suppress it like a fart, then head over to Denny’s and carbo load on a Grand Slam or a Moons Over My Hammy.

Derek moves on with his unlife and hits on a young woman named Amy, who tells him, “I’m not into Gothic people”. He takes immediate and aggressive offense (“Hey, you don’t even know me”), and she replies, “So you don’t do drugs or anything like that?” This harkens back to Kath’s first act concerns about Derek, and I’d like to quote my co-host on The Slumgullion podcast, Jeff Holland, who observes, “That’s the second time in a row this film equates Gothic culture with drug culture. And that’s how we know Stephen Groo went to Brigham Young.”

Amy and Derek make a lunch date for the next day. Later, Derek is accosted by a vampire who speaks Italian for no reason except to demonstrate that vampires come equipped with Star Trek-style Universal Translators (out with the old vampire canon! In with the new!) and who, based on his wig, appears to have just arrived from a week at Gene Simmons Fantasy Camp. 

“Lady Liandra wants to meet you,” he says, adding, “Not all vampires are bad” (no, just bad actors). Lady Liandra sweetens the deal by sending her disembodied hands to squeeze Derek’s man-boobs.

He goes to a sparsely-attended vampire rave, where he comes face to face with Lady Liandra herself. Clearly a Business Administration major with only a minor in Dance, she nonetheless throws herself into Derek’s seduction. But he rejects Liandra and the next day keeps his date with Amy, where he puts her at ease by tenderly confessing…Well, let’s just let Derek and Amy put it in their own words:

DEREK: I’m drawn to you.

AMY: (FLAT, LIKE JOE FRIDAY) I’m flattered. But you don’t know me.

DEREK: You remind me of my… (And here Derek takes a pause so long it fairly screams “Ask me about my dead girlfriend!”)

“Did you lose a girlfriend,” Amy obligingly inquires, the way you might ask, “Is this your sock? I found it in the dryer.”

“Yes,” Derek says. “She was killed.”

“I’m sorry,” her words say, while her voice says, “I’m bored.” Still, she plows on: “How did it happen?”

“She was staked.” (Hold for laughter.)

Unlike the other students at Big Test University, Amy must be a journalism major, because she actually asks a follow-up question (“Excuse me?”). Derek offers to explain if she’ll get in a car with him and drive to an undisclosed, secondary location. “All right,” she sighs, clearly as bored by this as we are. “I trust you.”

That came as something of a surprise. She hasn’t known him long and doesn’t know much about him, except that he dresses all in black, wears Goth makeup, and his last girlfriend died in a baroque, bizarre, and extremely violent fashion. But he’s not on drugs, so everything’s fine. 

Derek’s car pulls into Lover’s Lane again, because this is where he takes all his dates when he tells them he’s a vampire. At first Amy thinks he’s an idiot (go with that thought, Amy), but after Derek describes the agony of his curse, and how it killed his previous girlfriend, she immediately chirps, “Make me one.” Which suggests this movie was made by idiots for idiots, because representation is important.

Derek obliges, and we finally get to see this angry vegan vampire bite someone. Amy instantly turns to the dark side, popping Party City incisors, listlessly rubbing her Mom Bod in a manner I assume Mormons find erotic, and developing the traditional case of newborn vampire’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome. (At least he kept that part of Anne Rice’s vision intact: My favorite scene of The Vampire Lestat remains the passage where he’s turned by another vampire, followed by a detailed description of Lestat pooping out each agonizing inch of his colon.)

By the way, we’re now at the 30 minute mark. Remember, this movie is only an hour long, so on the up side, we’re halfway through. On the down side, we’re only halfway through!

Liandra’s minions jump them and kidnap Amy. Derek goes crawling back to his friends and says he needs their help with vampires. The girls are confused. (“But we killed the other vampires. They’re dead. That's how the movie ended.”) But Derek says no, now there’s a whole other movie, and it’s all about his new girlfriend, Amy! And his friends go off about what an absolute hypocritical piece of shit Derek is, and how many movies is this, anyway? They didn’t even get paid for the first one!

Nevertheless, plot wins out over logic and Derek gets the team back together and they return to the Gothic Society clubhouse to Meet the New Boss (lame as the old boss). Liandra has tagged in for Japeth, with a crew of subcontractor-vampires indistinguishable from (and probably identical to) the first batch. Derek leapfrogs the Italian-spouter, brutally teabagging him before staking the poor guy, and the fight is on! But since everyone is wearing the exact same costume—black t-shirts, black pants—it’s really hard to tell who’s doing what to whom. Presumably the ones with the stakes are the anti-vampire vampires, and on that basis it seems our side wins (although I wasn’t rooting for them).

But there’s still Liandra to deal with, and with her sitting on Derek’s chest, dangling loogies in his face, he has no choice but to stake the both of them. It’s stupid, but hey, at least it’s a BOGO.

His friends flee at sound of police sirens, which herald the entrance of Detective Stewart and his junior detective, Detective, Jr. Stewart looks at Derek and Liandra pinned together like two butterfly specimens in a crowded lepidoptera display case, and says, “These two look important.” Then he orders his partner to “Get the mortician in here.” You mean the Coroner, Detective? The medical examiner? No? Okay, let’s meet the mortician…

…who’s conducting an autopsy in a colorful nurse’s smock from the Garanimals Collection. You know, the way undertakers do. She has a big-ass tape recorder, the first Eastern European accent we encounter in a movie about vampires, and certain womanly needs that appear to blossom when she examines Derek’s body. 

“Vhy,” she moans, “Iz it alvays ze good-looking vons who get killed?”

I wonder how many drafts screenwriter Stephen Groo put that line through before it satisfied director Stephen Groo. I’m thinking just the one. I’m betting he sat back, tossed down his Pilot Razor Point, and enjoyed the bone-deep satisfaction of a prospector who knows he’s struck gold. Anyway, Dr. Horny sighs, “Und I get all ze fat und oogly vons.”

So! We’ve got a mortician pretending to be a medical examiner, spending her time body-shaming bodies.

Dr. Mortician pulls the stake out of Derek’s heart, which causes him to live again, and to mystically acquire the Italian guy’s Gene Simmons wig. Derek bites her and she goes through the usual ordeal—heartbreak of Halloween fangs, cramps, and IBS—but Derek gives her a goblet brimming with the one fluid her unholy body now craves: Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail. It seems to help.¹

Now we get our first vampire sex scene, between Derek, the Mortician, and Derek’s wig. It’s three long minutes of overdressed, slow motion, contactless intercourse. Or maybe this is just how vampires do it, eschewing kissing for grimacing, cheek-rubbing, and the occasional chaste caress of your partner’s elbow.

Or maybe this is what passes for Mormon porn.

Derek disappears just as Detective Stewart arrives for the autopsy results. Dr. Mortician gets seductive with him (apparently all the elbow-rubbing didn’t scratch her itch), but it’s only a ruse, so she could tear out his throat and offer him early retirement. 

Detective, Jr. shows up to investigate his partner’s death, but Dr. Mortician has some errands to run and we get dragged along (my mom used to do this all the time; exsanguinate a guy, then make me go bra shopping with her). First task: get some black baby tees and a pair of black leather pants so tight we’re registering the trademark “Doctor Cameltoe” for her inevitable Discovery Channel show.

Detective, Jr. is suspicious of the doctor’s prominent labia majora, and begins to stake her out. Meanwhile, the Drama Department has chosen Jesus Christ Superstar for the Senior Musical. Erica stops kickboxing long enough to snag the plum role of Judas, and immediately betrays Derek to the cops.

But Derek has an ally now, and when the law closes in, Dr. Mortician autopsies a cop’s ear with her teeth (by the way, she and Derek have gone full Lugosi and are now both wearing black satin capes. It looks as awesome with mom jeans and a t-shirt as you’d expect.).

Erica pulls a sword and she and Derek have a slow, lumbering, Kirk Against the Gorn Captain kind of fight. Meanwhile, Detective, Jr. stakes Dr. Mortician, and Erica exploits the distraction to cut Derek’s wig off. (I’m sure the shot was meant to imply decapitation rather than depilation, but all I saw was a flying wig. Like some drag queens were getting snatchy in the parking lot outside the old Yukon Mining Company on Sunset Boulevard.) Then she commits suicide, cautioning the cop not to remove the stake, or the movie might start all over again for a third time.

The end. I think. Or maybe Groo’s camcorder just ran out of videotape.

How much did I hate this movie? I’ll give you a hint: this is officially the shortest movie I’ve ever reviewed. And the longest review I’ve ever written.

1. Jeff is 99% sure that the goblet Derek hands her is a collectible Lord of the Rings glass from Burger King.