Steve Adams (Peter Wechsberg), a young man studying to become a
reverend just like his father (James Randall) has one dark secret - to
survive, he needs blood, and lots of it. When he was little, his father
gave him of his blood, later he killed small animals - but nowadays, every
few days when the urge overcomes him to drink blood, he turns into
Deafula, a big-nosed and caped vampire and kills people. The police is
baffled by these vampire killings, only detective Butterfield (Dudley
Hemstreet) from England (as he never tires to mention)is on the right
trail from day one ... but he's got an irritating personality, and his
partner (Lee Darel) thinks he's an utter idiot. When one day, Steve
takes his father for a carride, he's overcome by bloodlust once again. He
jumps out of the car to attack and kill a couple of lovers, while his
father is killed by a heart attack. With his dying breath, daddy gestures
Steve to go visit Amy (Norma Tuccinardi), a friend of his mother's
(Katherine Wilson) who died at childbirth. Amy tells Steve that he's not
only the son of the reverend but also of Dracula (Gary R. Holstrom), and
she gives him Dracula's ring ant tells him where to find Dracula. Steve
has no troubles finding Dracula's cave, and he demands to see his mother.
Dracula lets Steve see mommy but then tries to kill him - but when he gets
distracted for a moment seeing Steve wearing his ring, Steve and mommy
stake Dracula. Then Steve destroys Dracula's ring, and his mother with it. Some
time has passed, and Steve has become a reverend - when detective
Butterfield shows up at his church to arrest him for all the vampire
murders. Reluctantly, Steve confesses but asks for a few moments alone in
the church - and suddenly the ring's back on his finger and he turns into
Deafula once more, but the holy atmosphere of the church is too much and
Steve is ultimately killed by it. Deafula has earned
instant cult fame for being one of the first and only films to be filmed
entirely in sign language, theoretically of course to appeal to a deaf
audience - but seeing the film as such, one can't shake the feeling that
this was little more than a ploy to sell a piss-poor low budget shocker to
a bigger audience on novelty value. For one, the film is incredibly talky
especially bearing in mind that all the dialogue is done in sign language,
and the dialogue is poorly written and tiringly repetitive, too.
Furthermore, the film pretty much lacks any visual finesse a movie without
sound needs (and suggests) even more than a film with sound. Plus, the
cheapness of this film shines through a bit too obviously at times, e.g.
when Amy's hunchbacked servant (Nick Tuccinardi) is shown to have tin-cans
instead of hands, which ... now I don't know what this should express, it
just is. And now add to this all a rather poor narrative structure, and
yes, you're left with very little. Of course, a trashfilm fan like
myself HAS to watch this one for curiosity value - that just still doesn't
make it any better, now does it?
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