Vampire Killer Barbys (1996)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Expected more

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

While driving on tour late night through a lonely road in the countryside of Spain, the van of the punk band "Killer Barbys" has an accident and breaks down. A creepy old man invites the group to spend the night in the castle of Countess Von Fledermaus (Mariangela Giordano) and presents himself as her secretary Arkan (Aldo Sambrell). Arkan explains that the mechanic is located 62 km far from the location and he tells that the Countess loves youths. Flavia (Silvia Superstar), Rafa (Carlos Subterfuge) and Mario (Charlie S. Chaplin) accept the invitation but Billy (Billy King) and Sharon (Angie Barea) stay shagging in the van. When the musicians meet the Countess, they find that she is the ancient artist Olga Luchan and they question how she could keep so young. But sooner they discover that the Countess needs blood of young people to keep her beauty. "Killer Barbys" is a typical Jess Franco's film with exploitation, low- budget, clichés, bad acting, naked women and lots of gore. I am not familiar with the Spanish punk band Killer Barbies but I laughed in some artless scenes and I liked the soundtrack. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "O Massacre das Barbys" ("The Barbys Massacre")

This is not a completely horrible movie but it still is one that is about nothing really and all of its events lead to nowhere, making this one pointless and extremely forgettable movie to watch.I really think that Jesus Franco is one of the worst directors of all time. But fair is fair, this movie is not half as bad as most of the other stuff he has done over the decades. Oneliners like 'worst movie ever!', 'completely unwatchable' or 'uttertrash' really don't apply to this movie.But obviously this movie is not a great one either. It's not just a problem that the movie it's story is about nothing but it's more so a problem that the the storytelling is lacking focus. There is not really one clear main character and everything seems to happen at random. So the one moment we are having a killing, the other a sex scene and then there is a midget popping up as well every now and then. Why? Just because they could! It's not like any of it is really serving a purpose for its story. Focus Jesus Franco, focus!Like you could expect from a trashy Jesus Franco movie, there is plenty of nudity in it, as well as sex sequences. Problem I always have with these moments in basically every Jesus Franco movie is that they serve absolutely no purpose and all and it always makes me think that they are only put in the movie to please Jesus Franco himself and to live his own fantasies. Even now, while he is in his 80's, he's still doing this sort of stuff.The gimmick of this movie is that it stars a Spanish punk rock band in it, called "Killer Barbies" who are basically playing themselves but they were forced to change the title for this movie for the obvious reason. Don't really know the reasons for the band members to appear in this particular movie, since it doesn't seem like the most logical thing to boost your career with, especially not when Jesus Franco is at the helm of it all. But apparently they all had a good time, since they actually made a sequel to this movie, 6 years later, called "Killer Barbys vs. Dracula".But besides this gimmick, it's a real run of the mill movie from Jesus Franco, that got made in 1996 but actually feels like the sort of stuff he used to make in the '70's and '80's already. Even seems to me they are still using the same sound effects as well, as well as all of the same gore effects and tricks. And they still believe they can shoot night sequences during the day time and think they can get away with it. This is seriously often one of the most distracting things about any low-budget horror production.Perhaps not as bad as its current reputation and also far from the worst thing Jesus Franco has ever done but it clearly isn't a very good movie either.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A rock band (The Killer Barbies, the title of the film was changed as not to upset Barbie) gets stranded when driving to their next show. They find a castle to stay at until their van gets fixed, but the blood-craving Countess has other plans for them. This is a terrible movie. I have never heard music by Killer Barbies, and I was annoyed to find that it was an all male band with two female singer/strippers. I was expecting a bad-ass girl band, not a Lords of Acid lite playing mall punk. Fortunately the music is sort of catchy, but it gets tiring after hearing it for an hour and a half. I'm not sure how successful Killer Barbies is in their home country or what their motives were in making this movie. An interview clip before the movie shows the lead singer saying they wanted to make the goriest movie ever (which it doesn't come close to being), but she doesn't say anything about why the band wanted to make sex scene after sex scene after sex scene. Sometimes the movie goes Scooby Doo and it is sort of amusing, but overall, this is a big waste of time. The scariest thing about "Killer Barbys," besides the godawful dubbing, is that a sequel was made! My Rating: 2/10

What we have here is a story that looks promising on paper (an isolated castle, a 100-year-old woman who wants to regain her youth and beauty but needs to drink fresh blood to do so, five lost punk-rockers who are destined to be her next victims), turned into a stupid horror movie "thanks" to Jess Franco's customary ineptitude. From the overworked fog machines to sheet-covered mannequins portraying naked women (I'm trying to be vague here, to avoid a spoiler), "Killer Barbys" is typical Franco hackwork. The only thing he does well is the creation of a powerful link between sex and violence (the most erotic sequence is followed by a brutal stabbing), but he's probably done that already in most of the 200 or so movies he has directed. The dubbing is terrible; much of the dialogue is very bad; the only member of the cast who seems to know what she's doing is Mariangela Giordano. Her "dacaying" makeup in the early parts is pretty good, and when she gets "young" and naked later on, she looks damn good for her age (59 at the time!), even when she is covered in blood. (**)