Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey (1994) User Reviews

Looks like it cost less than it did for me to rent it at Blockbuster

[AlabamaWorley1971 · 4/10 · 23 June 2001]

Confusing, badly plotted mishmash of vampire clichés, shot with a home video camera for about $1.99. Very gory in parts. Lot of bad acting. I only watched it because I felt like I ought to get my money's worth for renting it. Skip it, really.

Not a happy viewing experience

[julianb · 3/10 · 12 March 1999]

The only aspects of this film which raise it from the unwatchable are the occasional scenes with unusual lighting, the half decent performances by most characters except the lead, and a few quite realistic bloody hearts. Switch to fast-forward, and forget the dialogue.

Confused and pretentious

[angelynx · 3/10 · 18 May 1999]

I'll be as generous as possible by saying that I can at least tell what this movie is trying to do: show the disorientation and weirdness of a living man's slow descent into undeath. However, in my opinion, it doesn't even come close to working as designed. The artsy visual effects, constant flashbacks, bizarre peripheral characters and other efforts at a "dream logic" feel only result in an exasperating incoherence. Totally unappealing characters, gratuitous gore (why would vampires be so wasteful of blood?) and too many different locations (should have stayed in Philadelphia with only flashbacks to Alaska - California and Louisiana sequences are completely unnecessary) add to a general feeling of wasted energy. (--and that...outfit...on Legion nearly made me lose my pizza.) Badly wants to be "Carnival of Souls" or even "Jacob's Ladder" but accomplishes only "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies".

Awful waste of time!

[ragingfire1 · 7 August 2003]

I don't know who the reviewers are on the DVD box or what movie they saw but I have seen high school videos better than this. There was not one good things to say about this movie. The sound was bad, with loud obnoxious music drowning out the dialogue...but maybe that was a good thing. The acting was worse than I have seen in elementary school productions. How the heck did anyone spend the time and money to distribute this?!

Critigue of something that could have been good

[PeterZ · 3/10 · 5 October 1998]

Jugular Wine, despite the incoherent plot, actually could have been a good movie. "One man's quest into the madness and interplay of reality/fantasy that is the world of the vampire"

unfortunately, the movie moves along like a drunken sailor, making very little sense and with very heavy "documentary" overtones that make it seem even more ludicrous than if it had just been a schlock film with no pretensions. This is film that redefined "painful to watch"

I can't recommend it except to students of the vampire genre and film in general, and only then as a lesson on how not to do a vampire movie.

I really wish the makers of this film well..I am not saying I could make a better film. But I hope I could!

It's an incoherent mess

[coyote13 · 3/10 · 18 May 1999]

As has been said here, there's possibly a good movie under all this, but it's not what you get on the screen. Potentially interesting ideas are submerged by too many 'art film' delusions and cheap camera effects, not to mention editing that gives one the impression that at least one reel of out-takes was mistakenly substituted for footage that was essential to the plot. All in all, pass. It could have been intriguing and thoughtful, but it's just not.

Cool, Creepy and Creative

[addi-9 · 10/10 · 28 November 2004]

I liked Jugular Wine for its wonderful creativity and its interesting use of camera effects. For a low-budget film, I thought the director did a great job of making it look bigger than it was. I liked the scene locations which added much to the film's intrigue. The dark plot keeps you hooked as you wonder where all of this will lead. The really cool thing is the surprising cameos of all the infamously famous and pseudo-famous people who grace the screen. This is sure to become a cult classic along the lines of Ed Wood films, although with better acting. The little girl melts your heart and steals the movie when she's on screen. I recommend it for those die-hard vampire and dark film fans. It's entertaining, creepy and downright interesting.