Razor Blade Smile

A low budget British vampire flick in which Lilith, a hitwoman in a leather catsuit (Daly), has been plying her trade, poor dear, for some 150 years to assuage the tedium of immortality. But when old flame Platinum (Howarth) sets her on a series of assassinations of members of a shadowy, sinister supernatural cult called the 'Illuminati', things almost get exciting. And when the police, led by uninspiring Inspector Price (Coote), close in and Platinum is kidnapped, she must turn avenger. West aims squarely at the late-night fetish/horror crowd, playing it surprisingly straight and soft-peddling the camp - notwithstanding the pre-neck-sucking routines with Daly - in favour of gunplay. Visually, it's a mish-mash, shifting from boringly lit interiors to flash computer-generated psychedelic effects, via speeded up London night shots and b/w and splash-red historical flashbacks. But despite the mad switches in tone, the implausibility, the frequently poor sound and the actors' often shamateurish 'in-quotes' delivery, there's a no-nonsense, unapologetic mood that makes the film hard to dislike.