Anklebiters

I totally discovered this movie on accident one day awhile back. I was at the library, looking for another movie (I forget which one now) and I see the title "ANKLEBITERS" staring at me. I'm like "The fuck?" and I just had to rent this. And as a result, this movie has changed my life because I have now officially seen everything.

What we are dealing with here is midget vampires. Who look like bikers. On top of that, this whole movie has that "locally made" flavor where everyone involved was just minding their own business one day when some dude walks in and says "I'm making a movie, who wants to be in it?" and since they had nothing better to do, they all said "sure".

We start with a guy in a TOOL shirt running. This goes on for about five minutes so the credits can roll. We finally find out what he's running from: midget vampires.

They all attack the Tool-wearing Guy when we get the very dramatic entrance of our heroes Drexel and T-Bone. And by dramatic I mean Drexel yells out "hey" and everyone looks and they're just standing there. Both Drexel and T-Bone shoot the mini-vampires (sorry, had to) but this doesn't stop them (of course) but it does make them run away.

Drexel interrogates Tool Guy by asking where they ran into him at. Tool Guy says it was at a rave. Ah, that's why I avoided going to raves all these years, because I'd be attacked by midget vampires. After Drexel tells Tool Guy to shut up cause he's a major bad-ass, we get more credits. Wow! Two sets of credits for the price of one! Lucky me!!!

After the other set of credits, we meet two dudes walking down some railroad tracks. One of them looks like Stan Lee. Boy, he does accept any type of cameo, huh? Anyway, Stan Lee and his partner Skinny Guy are meeting the three main midget vampires. Stan Lee is gonna give them this sword which houses the blood of the last "big" vampire. This is sort of explained later.

But a recurring theme among the tiny vampires starts here. Stan Lee and Skinny asks for the money (in which Skinny shouts out, no lie, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!") but the vampires says "Umm....no" and starts biting them. And what's interesting is even though Stan Lee and Skinny is on the ground, they are biting them on the ankles. Hey, they came up with a catchy title, dammit they're gonna use it.

Drexel and T-Bone walk into a bar (no joke) and talk to the bartender who gave Tool Guy the flyer to the rave where the vampires were. Drexel thinks Bartender is working for the vampires and want information. What he gets instead is an ass beating by the local bar-goers, being played by local bar-goers.

We then meet John who is just roaming around in some art gallery. He stops at a painting and looks at it for five seconds when some guy comes out of nowhere and says "Nice choice sir. I'll have it wrapped up and sent to your house". Man, is that all it takes to buy stuff around here, just look at it? If that was the case, I would have this god awful Dora the Explorer lamp in my possession, along with several lesbian orgies...er, um..nothing.

Anyway, the evil midget vampire crew meets up with some random guy hanging out somewhere and he gives them some information on some dude. Yet again, Random Guy asks for money but instead he gets bitten. They shoulda called this movie "Slacker Vampires". They're always hungry and never have any money.

After a pointless shot of John at home where he receives a call about vampire activity, he and his trusty sidekick/butler Edgar suit up and pack up every weapon known to man-kind and takes off to Vampire-ville. And another pointless scene of Drexel and T-Bone going to some accountant's office to take care of a random guy who somehow turned into a vampire. To pile on to the pointless shit never referenced again in the movie, some guy steals Drexel and T-Bone's motorcycle. Maybe the bike symbolizes the hunt for these tiny vampires and now they lost it? Along with that loving feeling?

We then come to a scene that gives me a startling revelation. During one of the sets of credits, every other name mentioned was Holcomb. In this scene, it takes place at a mechanic shop, which is named...Holcomb Repairs or something. That explains a lot. No wonder everyone's cars are never the same when they get it back from the shop, all the mechanics are daydreaming about making a crappy vampire flick with midgets. Whenever I finally get a car, it's gonna be a Christian Scientist.

Ok so, this one big dude named Rafe is visited by the tiny vampires and using the sword, they turn him into one. Rafe's sister Karen was in the other room when this happens and she calls the police. They show up like 45 minutes later and the detective realizes he's got a vampire problem on his hands, so he calls Drexel.

Drexel realizes he needs new wheels so he beats up some guy and steals his. I wish I was kidding about that. He runs into the vampire gang, with their new tough guy vampire, and a showdown takes place. Apparently the people who made this movie seen "Blade" and "The Matrix" a lot because this whole fight scene is basically just a rip off of those fight scenes. John shows up and takes aim at Drexel but because Drexel jumps off a railing, he didn't get shot. Instead of just reloading his gun and shooting again, John just says "Next time". And instead of Drexel just grabbing the midget vampires right then and there, he simply walks past them and says "Next time". Man, these are some lazy vampire hunters. Don't you just feel safe knowing they're on the case?

Karen thinks T-Bone was one of the midget vampires that took her brother and she starts beating the shit out of him. Drexel pulls her off and says "wrong tiny guy", and they take her to their hideout to explain what the fuck has been going on in the movie for the past 45 minutes.

See, a long time ago there was this tall vampire named Pedro or Paco or Pascal or something and he was the last tall one. Before he died, he put his blood into a sword. Then there were nothing but midget vampires but they are all dying out and the group that we been seeing this entire movie are the last kind. So they need to start up another vampire takeover and since there isn't a lot of midgets in the world (cause only tiny vampires can turn tiny people into tiny vampires), they need a big vampire guy to turn other big people into big vampire guys. So that's basically our plot. And which is why they grabbed Karen's brother.

There's a knock on the door and it's John. It's also revealed that John has been hunting for Drexel for a long time, despite the fact that he's only half-vampire. Um...it appears that John found Drexel's hideout easily, why didn't he just come by earlier and kill him? Oh, right, this was made by a bunch of mechanics and drunk people.

John says he needs Drexel's help cause now they got a big vampire and only big vampire blood can kill a big vampire. Sheesh, what's with all the only something sized something can do something to another something sized something? Can cats only kill other cats? How about trees? Can tree blood kill only trees?

Alright, I keep getting sidetracked. So Drexel puts some of his blood into some syringes and we get a montage of everybody packing up their weapons to fight off the vampires. Meanwhile, we get another pointless scene of two stoners somewhere getting attacked by the midget vampires and the big vampire. Oddly enough, they didn't turn into vampires, but I always notice that in vampire movies. Sometimes when a vampire bites a person they either die or turn into one. Guess it depends on the plot.

The Evil Vampire Gang show up at some dance club where they're all raising the roof and turns them all into vampires. This would be a cool scene except it's so god damn dark you can't see shit. So what I think happens is Drexel and John show up and kills the bad dancing vampires, with the help of a bitchy stripper. But the Evil Vampire Gang show up at Drexel and T-Bone's hide out and turn T-Bone into a vampire and kidnap Karen. When Drexel returns, T-Bone attacks and John is forced to kill him. Drexel buries his little friend (sorry again) and the main little vampire Korel calls saying "Let's end this!"

We get ANOTHER packing up weapons montage, still in the dark, and John informs us that a character named The Cowboy is gonna fly in and help them. Despite the rest of the movie taking place at noon, it's still dark. The evil tiny vampires show up at a biker bar and turns them all into vampires.

So now it's John, Drexel, The Cowboy, and Edgar against a biker vampire gang. And the movie immediately turns annoying when we get a five minute scene of the bikers just riding around in circles and whooping. It was like watching the worlds most annoying car show.

Finally the fight begins and all of the bikers are taken down easily. Vampire Rafe stabs Drexel with the vampire blood. John (who by the way just randomly found Karen) says "either it's gonna kill him or make him stronger". Guess what it does? He's the hero of the movie, so come on take a guess?

I dunno about stronger though. He looked about the same. But he eventually defeats Vampire Rafe and shoots one of the vampire midgets. The Cowboy is about to shoot Drexel but John lets him live. Drexel gets on a motorcycle and takes off.

Then the screen says "Nine months later, Atlanta", like some person named Atlanta asked "When does this scene take place?" One of the midget vampires is about to attack a kid (does that count has a "small person"?) when Drexel and John show up and kill him. And....that's about it. The end. We do find out that the vampire biker gang was a real biker gang. That explains a lot.

For a movie that was filmed possibly during a weekend in someone's hometown, using local actors, and possibly borrowing equipment from someone's uncle, this wasn't that bad of a movie. There are a bunch of laughable moments and it's a movie with midget vampires, you can't hate it too much. The only problems I had was the sound. By that I mean it sounded like someone shoved the boom mike down the actor's throat. And as I pointed out already, the lighting at the end of the movie sucked.
So the only thing left to do now is to have vampire animals. I'd pay to see someone fight off a dog while it's trying to bite it's neck. And wearing a little black cape.


-Jason