The Eternal (2003) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

There are only three things you need to know about this film:

1. It is culled from a Showtime series called Chromiumblue.com. The Chromium Blue is an exclusive cruise ship.

2. The official website calls it "A magic carpet ride into the world of sassy women, brave men, vampires, cowboys, naked golfers, pirates, and ghosts." (For the record, they forgot to mention air boats and heavy metal music.)

3. It was directed by pretentious, pseudo-arty softcore schlockmeister Zalman King.

From those three facts, you can picture exactly what happens, the tone used to present it, the musical score, and even most of the camera angles and movement. Hey, it's Zalman King, with no Adrian Lyne around to make it classier. Call it Blue Ship Diaries.

You still want to know more?

Well, if you like the idea of vampire pirates, this is your movie. If that doesn't excite you, you'll find that vampire pirates are pretty much like other vampires, except without the fashion sense. Personally, I like the timeless cape and tuxedo look, with no large accessories. That jumbo-ass pirate hat made the pirate vampire look kinda dorky. On the other hand, the parrot makes sense as a handy source of emergency blood if there are no other victims available.

This particular Zalman King effort differs from some of his more pedestrian work like Two Moon Junction, in that it almost completely discards the entire concept of a "storyline", and is therefore virtually incoherent. In fact, it is so repetitive that it seems to have been created by taking all the parts of the series with a particular sub-plot and just stringing them together. The narrative voice keeps explaining the same things again and again, as if the different parts of the narration were culled from different episodes, with the later episodes summarizing the previous plot for those who did not see those earlier episodes. The visuals are also repeated again and again. What's more, the ratio between narration and other forms of exposition must be something like 75/25, or even 90/10. If you watch this with your DVD player on mute, I don't think you will have the slightest idea what is happening.

I watched it with the narration turned on, and I still wasn't sure what was happening.

It's like watching the dreams of a lunatic, as brought to life in a rock video. In fact, it is so indebted to the rock video mystique that it actually shows the names of the songs and the artists in the lower corner. It's just like a real rock video ...

... except it's longer. WAY longer.

Plot summary:

The narrator tells us that the good pirate vampire is so good that he will never feed on the same woman twice, for fear he will turn her or kill her. This apparently disqualifies him from full vampire status and relegates him to the title of "eternal" rather than "vampire". I gather that being an eternal rather than a full bat is like being a light-colonel rather than a full bird. Just as a light-colonel can be called "colonel", an eternal is sometimes called "vampire".

Some evil full-vampire doesn't like the good light-vampire for some reason or another, so he sends a woman after the sweet-hearted and soulful pirate light-vampire. (He strums on an acoustic guitar constantly. How soulful is that shit?) She challenges the light-vampire to some extreme and illegal auto racing. (??) Elegant but effete Europeans bet on these races, which someone photographs and broadcasts to casinos. The racing woman seems to fall in love with the light-vampire. Or is she just pretending, under the orders of the full vampire?

The narrator says something like. "Poor Maria. Always in control, then for once she gives herself away to total crazy, crazy love, and it's with  ... a vampire"

Well, technically, a light-vampire.

Then some more similar, equally incoherent stuff happens, while the camera swirls around and sensuous music plays for 90 minutes. Some of it has nothing to do with vampires, but simply pictures other irrelevant passengers and crew from the cruise ship.