“Bless Me Father, For I Have Bitten”
Every once in a while, a film arrives that feels like it was conceived after a three-day bender, a stack of Fangoriamagazines, and a deep love of both grindhouse absurdity and vampire lore. Jay Woelfel’s Live Evil is that film—a delirious, low-budget cocktail of blood, bullets, and blasphemy that’s somehow both a send-up and celebration of everything we love about schlock horror.
It’s messy. It’s over-the-top. It’s gloriously self-aware.
And somehow, it’s kind of brilliant.
This is a movie where vampires complain about cholesterol, where holy vengeance is delivered with a samurai sword, and where Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead legend and walking embodiment of cool) plays a guy named Max who sells black-market blood. If that doesn’t make you curious, you may already be dead.
The Plot: A Buffet of Bad Blood
Live Evil starts from a premise so absurd it circles back around to genius. The modern world, it seems, has ruined vampires’ diet. Thanks to humanity’s love affair with narcotics, fast food, and pharmaceuticals, the blood supply has become—quite literally—poisoned. Vampires can no longer feed freely without risking a severe case of drug-induced diarrhea or, worse, syphilitic immortality.
Our main undead misfits, led by the brooding Benedict (Mark Hengst, chewing scenery like it’s a midnight snack), are part of a vampire clique scouring the world for “clean blood.” Unfortunately, finding an unpolluted human in 2009 is harder than locating a Blockbuster with working air conditioning.
Desperate, they turn to Max (Ken Foree), a “blood pusher” who raids hospital blood banks and deals in O-negative like it’s heroin. But before they can live their best vampiric lives, a new problem slices into town—a samurai sword–wielding vampire-hunting priest (Tim Thomerson), who’s so dedicated to God’s work that he moonlights as His personal hitman.
His calling card? A playing card scrawled with “Live Evil.” His weapon? The wrath of heaven and some serious daddy issues.
The Vamps: Bloodsuckers with a Bad Diet
These vampires aren’t your Twilight sparkleboys or Anne Rice philosophers. They’re a ragtag collection of misfits who look like they crawled out of a Marilyn Manson concert in 1998 and haven’t showered since. Tiffany Shepis plays Spider, the group’s resident goth goddess who alternates between seduction and slaughter with equal flair. She’s the kind of vampire who’d probably bite you just to see how you taste with whiskey.
Then there’s Baxter (Gregory Lee Kenyon), the existential one—because every vampire clique needs that one guy who smokes clove cigarettes and quotes Nietzsche between murders. Osa Wallander’s Sydney adds a dose of femme fatale energy, proving that even vampires can’t resist drama.
Together, they’re like a supernatural version of Reservoir Dogs if Tarantino had a thing for neck-biting and eyeliner.
But beneath the absurdity, there’s actually a strange melancholy to their plight. The polluted blood crisis gives the movie a weirdly relevant metaphor: even monsters can’t survive a world this toxic. When the vampires complain about “tainted blood,” you can’t help but think—yeah, they might have a point. Humanity’s been self-contaminating for decades.
Enter the Priest: Holy Smokes and Unholy Carnage
Then there’s the Priest, played with gravelly gravitas by Tim Thomerson (Trancers), who looks like he was carved out of whiskey barrels and disappointment. This isn’t your average man of the cloth. He’s a samurai sword–wielding avenger with a voice like a death rattle and a moral compass permanently stuck on “righteous fury.”
His mission is simple: cleanse the world of vampires. His methods? Dramatic lighting, cryptic Bible verses, and enough swordplay to make Tarantino’s Kill Bill look like Sunday school.
Every time he kills a vampire, he leaves behind a playing card marked “Live Evil.” It’s an anagram, sure, but it’s also a statement of purpose—live wickedly, die righteously. In a movie full of vampires who’ve lost their taste for blood, this guy still manages to drip with conviction.
Thomerson’s performance walks the line between deadpan parody and genuine badassery. He delivers sermons mid-slay like a preacher who’s had just about enough of everyone’s sinning. Imagine Clint Eastwood crossed with Van Helsing, then sprinkle in a little televangelist madness, and you’ve got him.
Ken Foree: The Blood Dealer with a Smile
Ken Foree, as always, is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. The man could read a grocery list and make it sound cool. Here, as Max—the black-market blood hustler—he gives the movie a much-needed shot of charisma.
Foree plays Max like a used-car salesman who’s seen too many vampires to care anymore. He’s part hustler, part philosopher, and 100% unbothered by the apocalypse. You can practically smell the cynicism on him—and it smells like garlic and irony.
In one particularly glorious scene, Max lectures a vampire on the importance of staying clean. It’s half health PSA, half stand-up routine, and it proves that in a world full of undead idiots, the living man selling their snacks might just be the smartest one of the bunch.
The Style: Grindhouse Meets Eco-Horror
Live Evil wears its low-budget heart proudly on its sleeve. It’s the kind of movie that looks like it was filmed entirely at midnight under a gas station floodlight—and it’s all the better for it. Jay Woelfel’s direction embraces the B-movie aesthetic: neon colors, practical gore, and dialogue so stiff it could double as a tent pole.
But what sets it apart is its bizarrely earnest worldbuilding. The idea of vampires struggling with “toxic humanity” could’ve been played for laughs (and often is), but there’s an undercurrent of dark satire here. It’s eco-horror by accident, a story where even predators can’t survive the mess their prey has made of the planet.
The cinematography by Kelly Richard and Scott Spears bathes everything in lurid hues of red and green, like a Christmas special directed by Lucifer himself. Every drop of blood glows, every shadow hides something ridiculous, and every fight scene feels like a fever dream directed by a caffeinated priest.
The Humor: Blessed Be the Camp
The beauty of Live Evil is that it never takes itself too seriously. The dialogue is knowingly absurd (“You can’t drink sin-free blood in a sinful world!”), the action is gloriously overacted, and the entire production feels like a love letter to VHS-era vampire flicks.
Even the title is an inside joke—“Live Evil” is evil backward, get it? But instead of groaning, you find yourself smiling. Because in a world of soulless horror reboots, there’s something refreshing about a movie that knows it’s ridiculous and leans into it with fanged enthusiasm.
Tiffany Shepis’s one-liners alone could fuel a cult following: “God made me this way, baby. Blame the manufacturer.”
Somewhere between the sword fights, the blood orgies, and the moral sermons, Live Evil transforms from trash to treasure—a campy, chaotic hymn to the glory of grindhouse cinema.
Final Thoughts: A B-Movie Blessing
Is Live Evil good? No, not by normal standards. But it’s gloriously entertaining, passionately weird, and bursting with creative energy. It’s a film that understands its audience—those of us who love our horror sleazy, bloody, and slightly theological.
It’s a sermon for sinners, a confession booth for gorehounds, and a miracle for anyone who thought vampires had nothing new left to say.
Grade: A- (for “Anointed Absurdity”)
Live Evil may not save your soul, but it’ll definitely resurrect your faith in the joy of low-budget horror. With a samurai priest, drug-addled vampires, and Ken Foree dealing blood like it’s fine wine, this movie proves one thing above all else:
Even in a corrupt world, bad blood can make for good fun.
