Being a movie nerd, especially one that pens a blog, is not always the greatest lifestyle choice.

Sure, you may get to unearth the odd undiscovered gem here and there, but in the main it is a case of desperately fighting against a tidal wave of cinematic guff.

But, hey, they are only movies right? And, let's face it, if sitting through some on-screen dirge is the worst that can happen, life can't be that bad.

All this brings me on to Vampire, a screener DVD Movie Nerd was posted ahead of its planned July release.

Originally titled Demon Under Glass, this is a 2002 movie that for some reason or other has finally found its way to a small screen release on these shores.

With an attached press release proudly screaming the fact that the movie won Outstanding Vampire Feature at the International Vampire Film Festival it all sounds interesting enough, but when you consider the fact that nobody I know has ever heard of such a festival that isn't really saying much.

This is one of those films that when you sit down and write a summary of it the whole thing sounds far more exciting than it actually is.

The basic premise is that there is a serial killer on the loose in some unnamed American city, who is draining the blood of his victims.

Naturally the killer has been dubbed 'Vlad' and sure enough turns out to be a smooth-talking (English!) vampire, who is trapped in a ludicrous police-sting operation that opens the film.

Rather than be whisked off to the police station, or simply killed, 'Vlad' is instead shipped off to a top-secret military operation that wants to probe, study and experiment on the vampire for research reasons.

What follows is a cat-and-mouse affair as both sides attempt to outwit each other, with all sorts of chaos taking place in the finale.

So, is it any good?

Well, in a word – no.

The first thing that strikes you about Vampire is just how cheap it looks – some on-screen text tells you about the murders, with none being shown on screen.

We then get a ridiculous prostitution sting that somehow traps Vlad, with the rest of the film then taking place in this 'top-secret' location (which actually turns out to be the sixth floor of a busy hospital).

The whole thing is very much like some dodgy television episode stretched to movie length, with some atrocious acting to match.

There is precious little in the way of action or effects, although that does not have to be a bad thing.

Yes you could claim the film is trying something different, but the pace is so slow that the viewer is very quick to lose interest, even someone with a taste for trash like myself.

There are plenty of unintentionally-hilarious moments, such as when Vlad 'tears' a door of its hinges in the opening sequence, which, if you didn't laugh at the first time (I did) is shown lovingly in flashback at least another three times in the movie.

To put it bluntly this is a film to avoid, unless you happen to be some sort of vampire completist.

The one truly scary thing to come out of this? God only knows just how poor the other films at this festival must have been.