See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
We’re gonna rain on you, vampires!
The Coney Island film crew behind an award-winning tribute to the cult-classic, “The Warriors,” are putting the finishing touches on their latest project, a genre mash-up of vampires, bikers, and vampire bikers — and featuring actors from the 1979 classic.
“You got two Warriors, you got one Orphan, and you got a motorcycle gang,” said Apache Ramos, who played a member of the raggedy Orphan gang in the Coney Island cult film. “It’s so much fun.”
“Vamp Bikers” is writer and director Eric Rivas’ second project, and its coming off of the success of his first film, “Lost in Coney Island,” a Warriors spoof and tribute that stole the show at last year’s Coney Island Film Festival.
Following the completion of “Lost in Coney Island,” the director connected with several cast members from “The Warriors,” who gave his flick their stamp of approval and lent their presence at the Coney Island Film Festival in support of Rivas and his crew.
As a result, Rivas’s latest film will not only enjoy the support of the more experienced stars, they’ll also be doing some work in front of the camera, with Warriors Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler, and Orphan Apache Ramos playing a fighting priest, a vampire lord, and a cop respectively.
Wright, who played Cleon in “The Warriors,” not only lent the film his well-honed acting chops, but gave the cash-strapped crew some tips on how to make their short budget go a long way.
“I told him, ‘You have to be Felix the Cat, you need a bag of tricks,’” said Wright. “One of my favorite film makers is George Ramero. He did ‘Night of the Living Dead’ on a shoe string, but he has an imagination, he knows what he wants, and he figured out how to do it. Everyone else was using latex for their gore, but Ramero went to the butcher’s shop and got entrails — for free.”
Vamp Bikers, which is currently in the final stages of editing and was filmed in Brooklyn and Manhattan, tells the story of a biker town that becomes infested with a clan of ancient vampires hungry for blood.
Rivas described the film as a struggle between what’s bad and what’s worse.
“It’s a lot of fight scenes, chase scenes, bikers getting attacked, and vampires walking in and taking over,” the director explained. “The bikeres are supposed to be the baddest ever, but the vampires are worse.”
Vamp Bikers is one of the hopefuls for the 13th Annual Coney Island Film Festival [1208 Surf Ave. between Stillwell Avenue and W. 12th Street in Coney Island, (718) 372–5159, coneyisland.com]. Sept. 22, $7.
Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.