Marie is a vampire in the big city who picks her victims from the criminal underworld. One night she hooks a big fish, crime boss Sal Macelli, but the feed goes wrong - she has to flee before she finishes him off. Now he is one of her kind, she must find and dispatch him before he can feed and become immeasurably powerful
This is an extremely enjoyable vampire movie. It's a handsome production, with excellent Pittsburgh location photography. It has plenty of scary and sexy moments, like all good vampire films should. But most of all, Michael Wolk's script cleverly mixes together horror and gangster movie elements with terrific results. Sal starts out as your standard crime boss, does a very funny slavering transformation into a vampire, then realises the implications for his syndicate if he turns them into superhuman killers. He's still in the same line of work; nightlife, killing and power-struggles, only now he and his men will be unstoppable at it ! This is a terrific idea; the only film which even vaguely resembles it is Juan Padrón's brilliant but little-seen 1985 Cuban movie Vampiros En La Habana. Talented perennial supporting player Loggia has tremendous fun as the evil kingpin, staggering around in horror as he wakes up in the morgue, sucking the blood out of frozen steaks and generally terrifying the life out of everyone. Parillaud (Nikita) is great as Marie the vampire; lithe, athletic, frequently nude and with an amusingly ear-bashing thick French accent, and LaPaglia judges the all-over-the-place part of Joe well as he juggles layers of undercover cop / turncoat / vampire lover / confused hero. The support cast are full of funny performers too, particularly Rickles as the mob lawyer (his two death scenes are hilarious), Kagan as his much put-upon wife, Guzman as a detective, Proval as a hoodlum, scream queen Quigley as a nurse and Landis' trademark cameos by directors (here Dario Argento, Michael Ritchie, Tom Savini and a funny Sam Raimi as a meat-locker clerk). Landis directs with great wit and style; he makes the movie feel like an authentic spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian American gangster film which a vampire has mistakenly wandered into and milks the comic/horror potential for all its worth. Featuring great monster makeup by Steve Johnson, scary eyeball effects by Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton and lots of great old horror movie clips on TV, this is a fine frighteningly funny fanged flick for horror fans looking for something stylish and different.
This is an extremely enjoyable vampire movie. It's a handsome production, with excellent Pittsburgh location photography. It has plenty of scary and sexy moments, like all good vampire films should. But most of all, Michael Wolk's script cleverly mixes together horror and gangster movie elements with terrific results. Sal starts out as your standard crime boss, does a very funny slavering transformation into a vampire, then realises the implications for his syndicate if he turns them into superhuman killers. He's still in the same line of work; nightlife, killing and power-struggles, only now he and his men will be unstoppable at it ! This is a terrific idea; the only film which even vaguely resembles it is Juan Padrón's brilliant but little-seen 1985 Cuban movie Vampiros En La Habana. Talented perennial supporting player Loggia has tremendous fun as the evil kingpin, staggering around in horror as he wakes up in the morgue, sucking the blood out of frozen steaks and generally terrifying the life out of everyone. Parillaud (Nikita) is great as Marie the vampire; lithe, athletic, frequently nude and with an amusingly ear-bashing thick French accent, and LaPaglia judges the all-over-the-place part of Joe well as he juggles layers of undercover cop / turncoat / vampire lover / confused hero. The support cast are full of funny performers too, particularly Rickles as the mob lawyer (his two death scenes are hilarious), Kagan as his much put-upon wife, Guzman as a detective, Proval as a hoodlum, scream queen Quigley as a nurse and Landis' trademark cameos by directors (here Dario Argento, Michael Ritchie, Tom Savini and a funny Sam Raimi as a meat-locker clerk). Landis directs with great wit and style; he makes the movie feel like an authentic spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian American gangster film which a vampire has mistakenly wandered into and milks the comic/horror potential for all its worth. Featuring great monster makeup by Steve Johnson, scary eyeball effects by Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton and lots of great old horror movie clips on TV, this is a fine frighteningly funny fanged flick for horror fans looking for something stylish and different.