Tim Thomerson is one of my heroes. I thought I’d seen everything he was in, so it was quite the gift to feast upon director/co-writer Mark Terry’s Samurai Priest Vampire Hunter. Thomerson brings a samurai sword and his legendary cool to another incarnation of Jack Deth, except this time the Trancers are just your garden-variety bloodsuckers, fighting against extinction and the avenging angel that stalks their trail.
Ironically, Thomerson appeared in Near Dark, which also featured an intimate pack of vampires just living off the fat of the land. In the Samurai Priest’s universe, however, vampires aren’t like the throat-suckers you see in the movies. Much like we humans they feast on, they come in all different. The central pack we follow is essentially made up of day-walkers led by Mark Hengst’s Benedict. The quad is basically two couples, Benedict and Sydney (Åsa Wallander), Baxter (Gregory Lee Kenyon), and Yeal (Eva Derrek).
Whilst traveling to California, a mysterious stranger attacks, intent on cutting off their heads and driving his sword into their dark hearts. Luckily for the vampires, they take out the stranger’s wheels, forcing him to travel on foot. But all’s not well in the cliché, as we learn that vampires, again, much like people, are what they eat. Thus, this group is starving for pure blood. Hence, they have resorted to random massacres and infighting because of the lack of quality thirst-quenchers.
“… Thomerson brings a samurai sword and his legendary cool …”
But they’ve little time to linger as, at a roadside saloon, the Samurai Priest is mobile again after a few whiskies and the decapitation of a throat-chewer. When he hooks up with Roxy (Kimberly Sanders), after he slugs her and steals her keys, she agrees to allow him to requisition her ride in order to track down his vampiric foes.
The road to L.A. is paved with action and horror, and Samurai Priest Vampire Hunter gushes from the throat with shocks, laughs, and cheers as Thomerson takes his blade of vengeance to all the living damned that happen across his path. It honestly moved me to applause when Thomerson decapitates a vampire infant, then, as he stares at its head sitting atop the end of his sword, exclaims, “Vampire babies, they’re the worst.”
It just gets crazier from there as the Priest and Roxy nip at the heels of Benedict and Co. while they hurry to meet with Max, The Blood Pusher (played beautifully by Dawn of the Dead’s Ken Foree). He alone can guide them to the identity of the one who stalks them, leaving cards with the Latin words, Ago Malum. I do evil. With time running out and vampires to kill, the Priest and Roxy set a lure to bring Benedict and the others to them, where the final battle awaits.
It isn’t often a movie surprises me the way Samurai Priest Vampire Hunter managed to. Aside from the obvious, it was great to see Tim Thomerson kicking a*s again. The world-building and the additions to vampire lore made me hunger for more. That, coupled with a glorious connection to Once Upon a Time in the West, makes Samurai Priest Vampire Hunter into comic book brilliance brought to the big screen in the most insanely entertaining indie vampire picture I’ve seen in a while. God bless Tim Thomerson.
"…gushes from the throat with shocks, laughs, and cheers""
