Vamp was…entertaining. I found the redeemable quality of the movie to be its classic campy 80’s style. Mise-en-scene plays a huge role here; neon signs, exaggerated, saturated lighting, and of course, goofy over-the-top graphic violence. But, in a sexuality class, there is of course another element. A particularly gay element. The plot is basically two freshman college guys, presumably heterosexual, that are sent out by a fraternity to bag a stripper as a sort of initiation rite. They end up in a strip club run by vampires and have to survive. What’s interesting is the relationship between the two main protagonists. They seem to have a sort of unspoken love. The main character, Keith, meets a cute young human girl in the vampire strip club named Allison. She immediately takes to Keith, but he never really seems to be interested. At this point, AJ has gone off with a stripper who has mutilated and turned him, but Keith doesn’t know this, he just thinks his buddy’s getting laid in the back. However he still seems more adamant to find AJ rather than get to know this girl that is practically throwing herself at him. There is even an utterance of “love” in a scene where Keith confronts the now vampire AJ, and then of course, the “heterosexual” penetration of AJ by Keith as he stabs him in the heart with a stake. There is a continued theme of the heteronormative relationship (Keith/Allison) getting in the way of the homosexual relationship (Keith/AJ) that was there from the start, and it’s interesting to watch how this plays out. After AJ rescues the pair and essentially give them his blessing, he sort of follows them underground, as he is now a vampire and can’t be in the sunlight. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to be a part of Keith’s life and revel in the normalcy, even offering to take “night classes.” Oh, and let’s not forget the rainbow that streaks across the sky in the last shot.
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