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- Vampires in Vietnam -

casting calls for asian girls to portray vampires came to a dead end . one or two came in
for auditions; but, couldn't be reached days before the the actual shooting of those scenes.



Janis ( who composed and sang the theme / and / love songs for the completed film)
suggested that she and a Korean girl friend of hers would be willing to become the blood
hunters that kill - infect Jonathan Stokes with curses of the undead.

film crew / actors - the vampire girls came to an isolated area on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs
that could have absolutely been fields of Vietnam. It was hot and muggy from the night before's rain
storms. stalks of reeds had grown three feet higher - had grown thicker - become claustrophobic
challenges for the mile or so trek everyone had to take to get to the filming site.



No one had anticipated that the earth would be drowned in ankle deep mud and slimey water that
drew mosiquitos to every noise made by invaders of their homeland.

The mud kept sucking everyone's shoes off their feet with each step taken. Janis never complained .
It became too much for the Korean girl. One of the crew gave concern - carried her
piggy-back to the eventual clearing where filming would begin.

Janis was right. The costumes that the girls had put together for these scenes made it very difficult to
distinguish nationality. It wasn't just the costumes that saved the day. Put some fangs and a bucket
full of artifical blood on a cute girls face - who's even going to ask if she's Vietnamese .



I'd spent some time in Vietnam. Some of those days had taken tolls of fear in my mind; but, it was nothing
like watching these two girls hunting for Stokes through bamboo and reeds with blood thirsty mosquitos
also taking their hunger out on the rest of the crew.

There's one scene where the two vampire girls turn away from Jonathan Stokes after they've already made him
a blood thirsty feast. They see Tracker . He knows the evil in their eyes - believes he will die in the jungles with
Stokes if he doesn't run.



- I knew Tracker's feelings -

during rest breaks Janis had come up behind me

leaned against my back needing to know
someone was there to help her

I looked up at her for just one second to smile

- blood and sweat dripped down -
my shirt

she smiled this tired hungry resignation




I'm not sure what the original intent was in these prequel scenes
to the film that took place after the introduction titles ?

The actor who portrays Shadow Tracker in 1968 is exactly what one expect.
A young rookie recruit who knows text book war; but,
finds himself caught up in more then his military training had prepared him before.
For some reason that I am probably wrong about, the main actor couldn't make
this day's shooting.

-It worked out well in a strange kind of way-

Tracker has aged in the thirty years of vampire hunting

Stokes hasn't changed in appearance

- Director Inspiration - ?

or

just one of those strange fates of filmmaking

- improvation - ?


* almost ten years gone

- yet -

I'm still here

me and Shadow Tracker

- waiting for -

It all to begin again

-or -

seeing memories fade away
in
some stranger place
then death


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