Mythology and lore from different cultures and religions are a hallmark of the horror genre. From Wendigos to Wiccans there is a vast array of creatures, beliefs, and traditions that horror films draw inspiration. Some, like La Llorona, have seen their fair share of representation in recent years while others like the Golem have gotten very little attention for decades. What makes horror so interesting is how it shows up in everything and everywhere becoming attached to whatever people and culture surround it. At the most basic level, every person shares the same 5 fears no matter what: fear of abandonment, loss of identity, loss of meaning, loss of purpose, and fear of death/sickness/pain. While we all share these basic human fears, how they manifest and to what extent we can tolerate them varies. Mythology and lore can act as the expression of these fears and often manifest as something otherworldly or inhuman, like Yoaki or, the infamous Latin American Chupacabra. The latter is the central foe in VISUAL VENGEANCE’S blu ray of BLOOD OF THE CHUPACABRAS & REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS. Are these mythical creature features worth scaring up the cash for, or should you save that hard-earned money and avoid these legendary stinkers?

Double Feature Blu-ray includes the shot on video horrors Blood of the Chupacabras (2003) and its sequel Revenge of the Chupacabras (2005).

BLOOD: A group of local townsfolk are led by a treasure hunter into a nearby mine in search of gold but encounter a vampiric Chupacabras monster.

REVENGE: A detective in search of a missing college student is lured by a madman into the lair of the fabled Chupacabras monster.

HOW IS IT?

For the most part, I try to find the best in movies as I firmly believe that nobody intends to make a bad movie, and it’s a disservice to the effort and sweat equity poured into productions to simply cast them out without trying to find the silver lining. Today, my own values have been tested by BLOOD OF THE CHUPACABRAS & REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS. Despite taking place in my home state of Arizona, there is so little to enjoy about these two movies that I was actually mad at them for wasting my time. What makes this even more interesting is that I have notoriously been red-hot on VISUAL VENGEANCE. Their releases scratch a profoundly weird itch for cheap homemade horror movies that are chocked full of charm, but these two commit the worst sin that a film can; they are boring.

The plot for each film can be summed as such: Chupacabras are terrorizing people and there are about 20+ characters involved in trying to find them. In both films, there are far too many characters introduced who all hold a piece of the story with them, but few of them play a significant enough role to be memorable. So much so that it’s easy to forget the characters’ names and what their purpose is because the films are unnecessarily complicated in their melodrama and mystery. To add insult to injury, there is also a myriad of different plots that all converge at the end of each film. Normally I would praise the effort being made at creating a compelling narrative, except none of the side plots are compelling enough to care about. In REVENGE, there is an entire sub-plot involving a news reporter who is also married to the editor and is on the outs in her job. She pursues a lead into the chupacabra case, despite not wanting to continue doing “puff pieces”, and that’s about the extent of that character’s relevance. While acting is never a strong suit in these films, here it is simply a case of not trying. There are scenes where actors say the wrong lines and correct themselves, and moments of passionate speech that are delivered like a eulogy at an empty funeral. I tend to not judge these films on their performances since most of the cast are, at best, amateur actors and mostly first and only timers. However, these performances are downright uninspired and monotonous.

Usually, with films like these, you can rely on a certain amount of exploitative action to keep your interest and give you something to latch onto, but alas, that is not the case here. The first film is woefully bland and the few action scenes that occur all have kill scenes that occur off camera. Unlike other films in the VISUAL VENGEANCE catalog thus far, this one is bloodless. The Chupacabra (or “Chupacabras” because for some reason a singular creature is being referred to entirely in the plural sense) is digitally added in for the first film and only shows at the very start, then we get one guy who turns into a vampire with the most basic white makeup and fake teeth. The second film does fare somewhat better with more action sprinkled throughout, except that the chupacabra looks like the troll doll version of the monster in Full Moon’s ARCADE. Considering these films were produced in the early 00s, it’s somewhat hard to excuse the amateur nature of it especially since it would have been better served to do it practically since the animation here is sloppy and ineffective. Frankly, there is just nothing redeeming about either of these movies and that’s a real shame. While I try to err on the side of positivity, my patience was tested with about 3 hours worth of overly talkative and aggressively boring films about chupacabras.

HOW DOES IT LOOK?

As is par for the course with VISUAL VENGEANCE, the presentation of these films is as good as it’s going to get. Presented in fullscreen aspect ration of 1.33:1, this releases is much newer, and also not filmed on VHS, so they do fare better in terms of picture quality even if it is still very murky. Screenshots from the film are used throughout the review and shown below:

HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Just like the the video, the audio here is serviceable with a Dolby 2.0 stereo track included. Once again, I must commend VISUAL VENGEANCE for putting subtitles on their films, even if they are major stinkers like this one.

ANYTHING SPECIAL?

Considering how much I didn’t enjoy either of these films, my desire to dip into the special features was quite lacking. Technically speaking, the second film (REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS) is a bonus feature and as you can tell from my sentiments above not a great one. My morbid curiosity did compel me to check out a 3-minute featurette from The New York International Film and Video Festival in 2002, which amounted to little more than some music-less and almost dialogue-less clips hacked together to memorialize the film’s premiere. What I did find interesting is that director Jonathan Mumm seems blissfully excited to show this and there is a part of me that wishes we could have seen audience reactions after the fact. While I didn’t go as deep into the special features as I normally would, there are somewhat fewer of them for this release and you can see the full list below:

BONUS MATERIALS

Blood of the Chupacabras: New Commentary with director Jonathan Mumm
Blood of the Chupacabras: Blooper Reel
Blood of the Chupacabras: The New York International Film and Video Festival (2002)
Blood of the Chupacabras: Breaking down the special effects
Blood of the Chupacabras: West Coast Premiere: The Crest Theater (2002)
BONUS Feature Film: Revenge of the Chupacabras (2005)
Revenge of the Chupacabras: New director commentary
Revenge of the Chupacabras: Archival behind the scenes documentary
Revenge of the Chupacabras: Fleshing Out The Monster effects featurette
Revenge of the Chupacabras: Blooper Reel
Revenge of the Chupacabras: Theatrical Premiere and cast/ crew Q&A
Super 8 short film: Professor Bloodgood
Visual Vengeance trailers
Two-sided insert
Folded mini-poster
Stick your own video store sticker sheet
Reversible Sleeve
Limited Edition Slipcase -- FIRST PRESSING ONLY

LAST RITES

Despite my love for VISUAL VENGEANCE, I can’t in good faith recommend BLOOD OF THE CHUPACABRAS & REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS to anyone. I’m still not entirely sure who the film is for, and while in tone it feels aligned with the VV brand, it is far more tame and uninspired than the rest of their releases. Save your money for their next one, unless you have a particular kink for overly talkative southwestern dramas with an occasional chupacabra showing up.

THE GORY DETAILS

Thank you to the fine fiends at MVD ENTERTAINMENT for providing the review copy, and you can purchase BLOOD OF THE CHUPACABRAS & REVENGE OF THE CHUPACABRAS now via MVD DIRECT!

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Nov 4, 2020

Matthew Orozco