Until I settled in for the night with this nine-disc set, I was unfamiliar with Bill Schnoebelen, his work, and his world. It would seem that he's lead a pretty interesting life as apparently he was involved in ultra secret levels of Free Masonry, The Church of Satan, both black and white magick, and at one point in time he was a vampire – not, as the website for this release claims 'people who pretend to be vampires by drinking blood' but a real vampire with powers and stuff.

You'd think that someone who has experience as a 'real vampire' and who knew the inner workings of the devil and his minions would be a shoe in for 'interesting guy' right? Right. After all, evil is fascinating to most of us and the chance to hear from someone who has been there, done that and lived to tell the tale should make for a very interesting session. Well, the fine folks over at Mark 161718 Productions have clued into the fact that there are people like me in the world who eat this stuff up and have had the good sense to sit Bill Schnoebelen down in front of a camera and let him speak about his experiences and his life. Unfortunately, that's all they had the good sense to do, because that's literally all that Bill does, he just sits there and talks. That's not to say he's not interesting, because he is, but the presentation could not be more mind numbingly dull. You don't necessarily need explosions or laser light shows to make this type of material palatable but a picture or two of the institutions and people that you're talking about to capitalize on the fact that you're relaying your information through a visual medium might have been a good idea. Evidently, director Michael Relfe (who, according to his own website, has been abducted by aliens a few times) didn't have the foresight to do that (aside from the odd, poor resolution picture used here and there) and figured a snazzy green screen and using his wife Stephanie to conduct the interview would be enough. He was wrong.

Okay, so what about the content then? Are Bill's stories enough to make up for the fact that the presentation looks like a bad public access show? Well, yes and no. Make no mistake, Bill Schnoebelen is definitely an interesting guy, but part of the reason he is such an interesting guy isn't because of his stories or his secret knowledge that he's now revealing to us for the first time for a small fee, but because of the fact that he might have a few screws loose (and if he doesn't, he's confused, or he's possibly a con man).

Bill begins the first disc by explaining how he was raised Catholic and then in his youth he became hungry for knowledge, specifically of the spiritual kind. He was looking for that something, trying to find himself and as such, he became involved in white magick, then black magick, ultimately ending up in Free Masonry and then in the service of the Church of Satan. Fair enough. Some people do follow a more supernatural path in life, Bill could be one of those guys. Then he became a vampire. Okay, neat. Without wanting to steal Bill's thunder, he gives us a vague explanation of how that happened without going into the kind of specifics that might land him in hot water. He then explains how vampires and werewolves really do exist, how they're not as uncommon as one might think, and how for an example of this to watch Joe Dante's The Howling because he has it on very good authority from someone who is in the know on these things that they employed an actual lycanthrope to transform on camera for that film.

At that point I turned it off. As someone who has seen The Howling multiple times and counts it amongst the best of the horror movies to come out of the eighties, I was completely shocked when Bill 'crazy pants' Schnoebelen rocked my world by telling me it was real. All right, I'm lying, but I did turn it off. In the interests of providing a realistic review, however, I tried again the next night and found Bill still ranting and raving about the dangers of secret societies, Free Masons, and devil worshippers without really providing a whole lot of evidence to back up his theories. It makes for interesting watching in half hour doses but nine hours of this stuff really does come damn close to melting ones brain.

Not more than a few minutes into the nine hours of babbling, Bill Schnoebelen reveals to us that thankfully he was saved, found Jesus, and now operates With One Accord Ministries where he specializes in helping set people free from the clutches of the devil - a noble idea, to be sure. He also sells books and videos.

A few other interesting things that Bill reveals to us in this set are:

- The pentagram is an evil symbol!

- Just because someone is of high intelligence doesn't mean that they can't be evil!

- Masons are into Egyptian symbolism!

- Satanism is bad!

Now, not having known much about Bill Schnoebelen before having the distinct honor of reviewing this title, I figured it might be a good idea to at least do a simple Google search for the guy to see what comes up. Well, his website is full of more of the same type of material we see here, with a lot of emphasis put on how Satan is using UFO's (Bill has apparently seen over one hundred and has been studying them for over four decades) to do his evil work – this explains how The Relfes came on board to direct and host this interview – and about government conspiracies, biological warfare, and naturalist health aids. Bill really can do it all, it would seem. He's also got a lot of books for sale, like Lucifer Dethroned and my personal favorite, Space Invaders (and no, it's not about everyone's favorite Atari 2600 game).

Now, one of the things that makes a free society so great is the right to practice your own religion. As long as you're not hurting anyone, believe what you want. With that said, it's not out of the intent to offend anyone that I feel the need to say this and I'm not out to ruffle anyone's theological feathers but how on Earth can anyone take this guy seriously? Granted, there are plenty of things out there which science cannot explain and it would certainly seem possible that there is a supernatural side to certain aspects of life, but once you go on public record by stating that you believe the effects work on The Howling to be a real werewolf transformation you've more or less shot your credibility right into outer space, which is probably were Bill Schnoebelen belongs in the first place.

When it's all said and done, Interview With An Ex-Vampire comes across not as an expose of the supernatural and the inner workings of the occult but as a propaganda piece promoting both Bill Schnoebelen's own personal theology and his other products. It's a nine-hour ad hosted by a supposedly ordained minister with denominational affiliation whatsoever and who has supposedly been involved with the Mormons, The Freemasons, and the Church of Satan, sometimes all at the same time. How Bill Schnoebelen came to be an expert in the occult, biological warfare, clandestine societies, government conspiracies, UFOs and alien abduction, and also became a certified natural health professional and natural herbologist is a mystery to everyone but Bill himself. You certainly won't find the answers in this nine-hour mess, nor will you find the answers about vampires either.

If you want more info or are in the least bit curious about Bill, his teachings, and this material, do check out his website and make up your own mind as to his credibility and his credentials. He does seem like a very nice man and he does have a whole lot of knowledge but the way its presented here and the context in which it is promised versus how it is delivered is, to the say the least, kinda kooky.

Video:

The 1.33.1 fullframe image isn't particularly remarkable but it's watchable enough. The green screen background in front of which our two participants are placed is painfully fake looking and it gives everything a very goofy tone that makes it hard to take seriously. There's nothing more to this nine hours of material other than simply the interviews, so there's not a lot to worry about in terms of color reproduction or image detail. There are some mild compression artifacts present in the image from time to time, which is surprising considering that none of the discs run for much longer than an hour in length. The video quality is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done.