Movie Info
Movie Name: Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood
Studio: Tales from the Crypt Holdings
Genre(s): Horror/Comedy
Release Date(s): August 16, 1996
MPAA Rating: R
Hey, lady…I don’t like your vibes…
The Crypt Keeper brings you another tale of murder and madness. Private investigator Rafe Guttman (Dennis Miller) finds himself investigating the disappearance of the biker brother Caleb (Corey Feldman) of born again Christian Catherine Verdoux (Erika Eleniak). When he traces Caleb’s disappearance to a brothel run out of a funeral home, Guttman realizes that something isn’t right about the women working there and the madam Lilith (Angie Everhart). Guttman discovers that Lilith is running a ring of vampires, and the party is just ready to begin!
Directed by Gilbert Adler, Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood (sometimes just called Bordello of Blood) is a horror comedy. A follow-up to Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight in 1995, the film is a spin-off of the popular HBO horror series. The film received poor reviews and didn’t perform at the box office but gained a cult audience over the years.
Demon Knight wasn’t my favorite movie but it had its moment. Bordello of Blood has even fewer moments. Largely a showcase for Dennis Miller’s humor (he improvised much of his dialogue), the film tries to find the tricky balance of Tales from the Crypt, but doesn’t quite succeed.
It’s been a rough year for the Frog Brothers
The story feels kind of like a regular half-hour Tales from the Crypt episode that is spread too thin. A typical episode would have a PI investigate the brothel, find himself in a trap, and become lunch for the vampires. This adds too much extra stuff to the plot which really bogs it down. You have the born-again Christian (whose subplot of being a former porn star was deleted…leaving a weird exchange with Miller’s character about looking familiar), her missing brother and his gang, the preacher fronting the brothel, and Vincent Prather character controlling Lilith with “the key” (which also serves as a segue back to Demon Knight). The story would have been fun as a simple story, but here it is just long and dull.
You probably also have to be ok with Dennis Miller to like the movie. His snide side-comment humor is how the character gets around and though he has some funny jokes, it can get old. It also is worth mentioning that several people (including Corey Feldman) reported Miller was difficult to work with. Erika Eleniak was one of the hot “it” girls at the time, and Angie Everhart got the role with the help of her boyfriend Sylvester Stallone and isn’t the strongest villain.
A big middle finger for fans of the show?
The movie is meant to be almost a skin movie and is intentionally very exploitive (which feels a bit on the weird side now). The special effects are so-so and a large chunk of the special effects budget was cut to bring in Miller who had salary demands. Like much of the movie, it is underwhelming.
Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood was meant to be the middle film in a Tales from the Crypt Presents trilogy, but the film’s performance didn’t lead to a continuation of the franchise (an unofficial entry called Ritual was released in 2002). This is probably good because it feels like the Tales from the Crypt needs a bit of break when watching this movie. It doesn’t have the spark and energy of the series and feels almost like a rip-off of Tales from the Crypt rather than a Tales from the Crypt movie itself…go ahead and skip this one and just watch the series again.
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