Ninjas vs. Vampires (2010)

In Ninjas vs. Vampires a witch has a magical amulet that she used to turn a bunch of guys into Ninjas so that they could fight and kill Vampires.   The head of the Vampires wants to kill them all and take the amulet for himself thus making himself a super vampire.  Aaron and his dream girl/best friend Alex are dragged into it all when they are saved from a group of vampires by the ninjas.  Alex is mind wiped and can’t remember the incident even when it is explained to her but Aaron somehow remembers the whole thing and tracks down the ninjas that saved them.  Eventually he joins forces with the ninjas and is made into a ninja himself.  The battle with the vampires continues and escalates until a big nifty climax at the end.

There’s so much to talk about I don’t know where to start.  First off, it seemed to me like this movie was made by really good LARPers (Live action role-players) who just got together one day and decided to make a movie.  What would the coolest movie ever be about in their opinion?  Ninjas vs. Vampires!  So, they go out and they get together a big group of people most of whom have really cool costumes and they get to work.  The premise and script aren’t too bad, but they are really just there to work around the main idea of Ninjas fighting Vampires.  The acting flip flops from middling to bad but never gets so bad that you want to stop watching and it goes along with the overall flavor of the movie.  There’s a lot of humor in the movie and it often works pretty well.  Some of my favorite moments were little laughs like where a vampire gets shot in the head and goes, “Dude!  My Hair!” or where Aaron has a dream sequence gone wrong involving his mother a bunch of girls and the size of that certain male body part.  There are also TONS of pop culture references scattered throughout the movie.  It makes fun of Twilight as all other vampire movies are now required to do and it pays homage to a lot of other excellent movies.  In fact, I think half of this movies dialogue is lines from other movies ranging from Ghost Busters to Serenity.  The worst thing about the movie was some of the crappy CGI effects they used now and then.  Even the blood splatter and fire effects that can look good in some movies were pretty bad in this one.  There were one or two times where they used practical effects and it worked much better for me.  Maybe I’m just an effects snob.  One of the best things about the movie was the character development.  They actually took the time to make interesting and unique characters and did a fair job of bringing them to life.  I especially liked the pizza shop owner who was a Ninja and the cutesy girl vampire who had a vicious streak.

So, while this movie had it’s bad points it was worth the watch.  If you’re in the right mood I think you could really enjoy this movie.  You have to be a bit forgiving, but overall, I think it’s worth checking out.  Hopefully these guys keep making more movies and iron out some of the problems.  I think they could make some excellent flicks in the future if they do.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer