Review: Greg Travis’ Dark Seduction

I hate movies shot in the style of film noir. They were shoved down my throat when I was in college and, honestly, I’ve always felt like they were something people pretended to like to seem trendy and knowledgeable about the history of cinema. However, this has all changed now that I’ve watched Greg Travis’ Dark Seduction. Now I get it. Now I see the allure. All I needed was to see a title in my genre and I can appreciate film noir. Thanks, Greg! Dark Seduction is special and historic in its own right because of birth, death and reincarnation. Originally shot way back in 1984, Dark Seduction never finished post-production edits and sat on a shelf in the catacombs of Hollywood until last year, when Greg re-discovered it and finally completed the film. It’s an 80’s crime drama with hot lady vampires pushing the story and you need to check it out.

Dark Seduction follows a detective who must solve a mysterious and deadly case and locate two exotic and beautiful vampires all while fighting the urge to become a member of the undead himself. Greg Travis wrote and directed the film based on the story by Steve Bishart. Greg (Showgirls, Toolbox Murders) also stars in Dark Seduction alongside Tyler Horn, Victoria Hughey, Catharine Simmons, Shari Famous and Stacey Travis (Easy A, Phantasm II) with Joe Alaskey (Casper, “Rugrats”), Julie Brown (“The Middle,” “Strip Mall”), Hisako Mur, Gaith Talhouni, Ken Gibble, Don White, Robert Schimmel and Ricardo J. King.

Dark Seduction is a time capsule of cinema as much as it’s a smorgasbord of elements. It contains so many entertaining elements while also providing viewers with the realization that some things never change, even 30+ years later! It’s cool to see that crime dramas still progress the same way today in 2016 as they did back in 1984. It’s funny to see that the victims and prey in horror movies are still clueless no matter what generation they belong to. Dark Seduction is very 80’s. Without knowing any background about the movie, I’d be able to pinpoint it as an 80’s flick because of the clothes and hairstyles, the lingo, the cars and the methods of acting. Though I think the time line of the movie was supposed to be a decade earlier? It was definitely interesting to see an 80’s flick done as film noir. And it just worked. The font of the opening credits, the black and white picture, the scoring… It all came together in a really interesting way. Who knew?

Vampires are always erotic and that aspect was brought to the table here, highlighting a gritty copper drama. I was hoping that the vampire attacks would be a little more grizzly, but I don’t think the intention was ever there to make Dark Seduction a gory movie. Making the two killers vampires and sexing them up a whole bunch added to their allure and made them better predators, easily luring people into a false sense of comfort before killing them. They’re hard to track and even the city’s best detective has trouble finding clues, only stumbling upon pieces of the puzzle due to his own vampiric addiction. Dark Seduction is a fully actualized flick, combining multiple genres into one cohesive story. That doesn’t mean it’s free of criticisms. As an 80’s B-movie, it has some laughable acting, even more laughable vampire fangs, a few rough angles, terrible fight choreography and sound effects that you’d find in bad Japanese martial arts movies.

Still, this is a worthy addition to any trash movie night screening. It’ll be interesting to see who picks up this movie for distribution and how they market it. I certainly believe it deserves to be seen because it has a lot of hidden qualities that make it an enjoyable watch. I found it to be funnier, better produced and more nostalgic than I originally expected and it helped me to find appreciation for film noir. I went into my viewing not expecting much and came out a fan. If it had that affect on me, I think you’re going to love it too. final score: 7.5 out of 10.