MTI Home Video | Buy at Amazon | Review by Dan Taylor
I spent a good part of this past spring and summer acquiring, reading and talking/reading/writing about men's adventure novels. Inspired by a trip to a used book sale and a jaunt to the awesome ActionFest in North Carolina, I found myself ditching my usual non-fiction books and graphic novels in favor of well-thumbed paperback installments from THEY CALL ME THE MERCENARY, THE CHAMELEON, SWAG, KILLMASTER, THE EXECUTIONER and, naturally, THE DESTROYER. (You can read more about the Summer of ACTION! at our blog.)
I'm sure one is lurking out there – and, if so, Action Guru John Grace will point me towards it – but I never stumbled upon any action-themed men's paperbacks that make forays into horror. (The awesome DEAD MAN series is excluded because it's of a more recent vintage – I'm talking 70s/80s action paperback heyday here.) Plenty of Soviets and cut-rate Bond villains get their comeuppance at the hands, pistols and rifles of our heroes, but no vampires or werewolves.
Luckily, a copy of MTI's junky fun DEATH HUNTER: WEREWOLVES VS. VAMPIRES landed on my "To Watch" pile and satisfied both my action jones and the trashy horror monkey on my back in one fell 90-minute swoop.
Is it wrong that I'd love to see/read a whole series of these?
After a pre-credit CGI-werewolf attack on some lovers, we meet a quibbling couple on an anniversary camping trip who decide to detour on a "shortcut" and find themselves low on gas with no help in sight. When they stumble upon an all-night bar in the middle of nowhere they think they'll find help. But, having seen roughly 334 variations on this tale, we know different.
Like a reverse FROM DUSK TILL DAWN the couple find themselves battling an attack from a bar-full of the undead with the wife eventually whisked away by the head bloodsucker while the husband – a sort of bland, blank everyman in the Greg Kinnear/David Hyde Pierce/William H Macy mold – escapes. Only to be attacked by a werewolf!
Saved by a mysterious stranger with an antidote, John Croix (pronounced "Cross", 'natch) battles the infection and eventually discovers that he possesses the powers of a werewolf and the ability to battle what we all know as the enemies of werewolves – vampires. An awesome training montage ensues before our hero sets off to reclaim his annoying wife from the clutches of the vampire cabal.
Don't get me wrong. DEATH HUNTER: WEREWOLVES VS. VAMPIRES appears to have a budget on par with a dinner theater production of HAIR, some most of the effects are ridiculous, the conclusion can kindly be described as "anti-climactic" and your mileage may will vary from mine. But I found this to be an entertaining check-your-brain-at-the-door action/horror "epic" and a flick that bucks the anti-MTI trend I see on most sites, including mine!
