I went into Vampires fully suspecting that it was going to bump Armageddon for my pick for Top Movie of 1998, hands down. While I did like this movie a lot, I still left disappointed. The asteroid keeps the throne another day.

You've got your James Woods as the bad-ass vampire slayer with his team of bad-ass vampire slayers. They've got the men, they've got the gear, they've got the routine. What they don't got is the VAMPIRES!

Everybody knows that I have nothing bad to say about From Dusk Till Dawn. It's one of my Top Ten Movies of All Time. In that movie you had a few strangers with no previous vampire hunting experience at all, and before you know it they've killed themselves a whole stadium full of the undead. In Vampires, we only get about one or two ghouls at a time, and all of the fancy toys that Woods and his boys have to stop them seem to get in the way more than help them out.

You would think that these "professionals" would have the good sense to have all of their weapons made with wooden tips so as to kill vampires instantly, but no. They use metal rods and spears to haul the "goons" out into the sunlight where they burst into flames. They need to go and see Blade and see how it's done. Silver bullets, essence of garlic.

Speaking of which, has anybody else noticed that it is getting much harder to kill a vampire these days? I mean, look at your old school Bela Lugosi Dracula. You breathe on this guy after an Italian meal and he's a goner. You used to be able to take out a nightwalker with sunlight, wooden stakes, holy water, crosses, garlic, practically anything that you had laying around the kitchen. In Vampires you only get sunlight and wooden stakes. I suppose it makes for a little bit more of a challenge, but it takes a lot of the fun out of it.

All that being said, the sparse combat scenes didn't really bother me that much. What really turned me off to this movie was the way that they treated poor Katrina, the unlucky hooker that got mixed up in all of this vampire slaying wackiness.

You'll see what I mean when you see the movie. Or if you so desire, by reading the spoilers.

I love a good vampire movie, and this is a pretty good vampire movie. At any rate, it will at least keep us all busy for the time being while we wait for the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels to come out.

There was one thing about this movie that really bothered me, and that was the way that Jack Crow and the boys treated poor vampire-bait Katrina.

Geez louise, this movie was like a misogynist's wet dream. Every woman that appears in the entire film is either an evil member of the walking undead or a prostitute! The closest thing that we get to a strong female character in Vampires is Katrina, who they spend the entire movie BEATING THE CRAP OUT OF!

Okay, so she's been bitten by a vampire and she's going to go evil very soon, but in the meantime they need to enlist her help. Since she's a streetwise lady of the night, she is skeptical to trust a bunch of macho idiots who claim to be vampire slayers. Fair enough. I'm with you. So how do they convince her to help them out? By explaining what is going on and how her help will save all of mankind from becoming slaves to the Lord of Darkness? Of course not! By beating the living snot out of her and treating her like a Nazi war criminal!

Come on, Mr. Crow! More flies with honey than with vinegar!

Don't get me wrong, a vampire is a vampire no matter what, and should be killed to the fullest extent of the law, but a girl who has been bitten but hasn't changed yet is still a girl.

You don't hit girls. 'Nuff said.

I've seen Ash dismember his girlfriend Linda in the Evil Dead movies countless times, and never once did I feel like there was anything wrong with it. He knows that you're not supposed to hit girls, but once all the color has flushed out of their eyeballs and they are trying to swallow your soul, no holds are barred.

Woods didn't come off as a hero who was bound by revenge to kill all vampires, he came off as a big tough jerk who would just as soon tear your arm off to get to your watch than ask you what time it is.

When he was beating the crap out of the priest in the bathroom to get him to talk, the audience in the theater was cheering. That just made it seem all the more disturbing I suppose. Why the priest was withholding information in the first place remains a mystery to me, but smashing his head with a telephone and slashing his hands with a switchblade just seemed inappropriate to me.

Long story short: Love your fellow man, kill your fellow vampire.