Decadent Evil (2005) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Charles Band
STARRING: Phil Fondacaro, April Gilbert, Debra Mayer
RATED: UR/Region: A/1:78/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Full Moon Features
If there’s one thing Charles Band has proven over the decades, it’s that he can take a perfectly workable B-movie concept and run it straight into the bargain bin without even tapping the brakes. Decadent Evil is a prime example of that particular talent.
On paper, the premise sounds like it might deliver some low-budget vampire fun: ancient bloodsuckers, shady clubs, supernatural nonsense—the usual ingredients for a sleazy midnight movie. In reality, the film plays like something that was written during a lunch break, shot over a weekend, and edited sometime later when someone remembered they still had the footage sitting on a hard drive.
The plot, such as it is, revolves around a vampire hunter, a group of decadent undead weirdos, and a series of scenes that feel less like storytelling and more like loosely connected excuses to point a camera at people wandering around dimly lit rooms. Characters appear, disappear, and occasionally spout dialogue that sounds like it was generated by a haunted karaoke machine. There’s very little tension, almost no real horror, and the pacing somehow manages to be both sluggish and chaotic at the same time.
Performance-wise, the cast mostly looks like they’re trying to remember what movie they’re in. Some actors give it their best shot, but the material isn’t doing them any favors. When your vampire movie makes the undead seem less lifeless than the screenplay, you’ve got a problem.
As for the Blu-ray release… well, let’s just say it exists. The transfer is perfectly watchable, but it’s hardly a showcase disc. Nothing really pops visually, the image never feels especially sharp or vibrant, and the overall presentation has that “we put it on Blu-ray because we technically could” energy. It’s not terrible—it’s just completely unremarkable.
In the end, Decadent Evil is the kind of movie that sounds like it should be fun trash but ends up feeling more like mildly annoying trash. Even by low-budget vampire standards, it’s pretty anemic stuff. Fans of Charles Band’s particular brand of cheap genre filmmaking might find some ironic amusement here, but everyone else may feel like they just sat through a feature-length rehearsal for a movie that never actually got made.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Full Moon Trailers
Original Trailer
Behind the Scenes
Blooper Reel
