Intensity: 🩸 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Glenn Danzig
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. This is a bad film. You knew this going in. You were fully aware and your eyes were wide open. The question is why you decided to watch this? Total boredom? A Danzig fetishist? Pining to see Eli Roth? Or just a plain old horror hound who will lovingly digest any pile of bloody garbage that comes their way?
Turns out all these things can be simultaneously true.
Death Rider in the House of Vampires is the second film directed by horror punk stalwart, Glenn Danzig. Much like his contemporary, Rob Zombie, Danzig’s heart is definitely in the right place. Whether it was the Misifts hyping Plan 9 or Astro Zombies, or his self-titled band, Danzig exploring the darker parts of the Heavy Metal/Horror venn diagram, Glenn has always been a part of the coolest stuff there is.
Glenn has unfortunately also been a part of some truly trashy trash. But maybe that’s the point. I’ve never met Danzig, but I do have a sinking suspicion that this cultural influences derive less from Kurosawa, Kubrick, and Fellini, but instead, are a loving embrace of Al Adamson, Ed Wood, and Hershell Gordon Lewis.
If you head to the video store and pick up one of Danzig’s films and expect to see Seven Sumurai, then that’s on you. Conversely, if you’re looking to see Monster a-Go-Go or Dracula vs. Frankenstein, then you’re probably on the right track.
Death Rider in the House of Vampires (sort of) released in 2021, follows a troubled vampire-cowboy, Devon Sawa (Heart Eyes, Chucky, and Black Friday) heading to the famous bordello, Vampire Sanctuary. Death Rider, as he’s known, is there to avenge the fact that the gaggle of vampires has turned his sister into a vampire.
The lead vampire and patron of Vampire Sanctuary, Count Holliday, is well played by the exceptional actor, Julian Sands (Room with a View). Count Holliday has total and complete control over Vampire Sanctuary and immediately suspects that Death Rider is up to no good.
From there the film becomes a rather staid affair bouncing from character to character. You get the sense that instead of writing an actual story, Danzig just wanted to pull in a bunch of people he knew and assign them funny vampire-cowboy names. Whether it was Carmilla Joe and her sidekick Mina Belle, vampire gunslingers Drac Cassidy (Eli Roth), Bad Bathory (Glenn Danzig), Kid Vlad (Victor DiMattia), and Duke VonWayne (Darren Richardson), the point was to have fun and turn off the collective thinkers of the cast and crew.
Should you see Death Rider in the House of Vampires?
Again, are you a fan of Al Adamson? Do you revel in people wearing rubber monster suits? Do you run away when you hear the dulcet dialogue written by Ingmar Bergman? If so, then this film is most certainly for you.
That said, if you were looking for Lee Ving (singer of FEAR) and Danny Trejo to deliver more than a line or two, then this film will leave you incredibly disappointed. Danzig as Bad Bathroy and Eli Roth as Drac Cassidy actually turn in some pretty decent performances, but their work is largely undone by the amateur qualities of the lighting, cinematography, and story development.
Most importantly, the film is boring. Unlike Danzig’s prior anthology outing, Verotika, Death Rider in the House of Vampires comes in slowly and never gains any steam. Whereas Verotika was weird on top of weird in smaller anthology doses, Death Rider in the House of Vampires is a plodding effort that never really goes anywhere resembling anything interesting.
There’s definitely a story here, an in fact, has somewhat already been told in Dusk Till Dawn. Danzig does have a unique and corny vision, and with a fistful of dollars, Danzig could have easily moved this vampire-cowboy fete out of the realm of Al Adamson and pointed it towards the slightly more polished works of Robert Rodriguez.
Death Rider in the House of Vampires was “released” in 2021, but as of 2025, it’s really not available for streaming. If you have a video store in your local area you might be able to pick up a copy, otherwise you’ll need to buy a signed copy from Danzig off his website, or watch a questionable copy on YouTube.