A vampire versus a bunch of terrorists...sounds like fun! But is it really? It's more awkward than anything else really unfortunately.
Thing about this movie is that it's foremost a comedy. The problem with that however is that the comical timing in this movie is incredibly off, making this for most part a terrible ineffective one, comedy-wise. It's awkward really, the moments that the movie is clearly expecting you to laugh, while actually giving you very little to laugh at. It feels like this movie is written as a comedy but not directed as one, which is weird, since the movie both got directed and written by the same person.
It's going for a quirky sort of approach, which isn't really working out though, since the movie its story isn't anything solid or witty enough. The story is more messy than anything else really and it just never has a very pleasant flow to it. Instead it feels very random for most part and besides, the movie is lacking any true creativity. So much you can do with a concept involving a vampire, terrorists and a rogue cop but the the movie is doing far too little with any of it. Sure, that probably is also because of budget reasons but budget restraints shouldn't stop you from ever trying to be creative. As a matter of fact, it should have the opposite effect! The movie just feels too formulaic and predictable, which is odd, considering this movie features a pretty original concept and really plenty of potential.Another thing that is making this movie an awkward one is that it's deliberately trying to be as political incorrect as possible, especially concerning the movie its terrorists. It's already pretty offensive that the terrorists are clearly supposed to be Middle Eastern but most of them are played by non-Middle Eastern actors (Brad Dourif plays their leader) with bad makeup applied to them but what is worse about it is that the movie is using terrorist acts and terrorists as comic relief. It doesn't do this in a 'making fun of' kind of way, which is part of the reason why it mostly just feels offensive, rather than comical. It simply just expects you to laugh at terrorists acts, for which I see no reason and the movie surely isn't giving any good enough reasons why you should laugh at any of it either.
It's not like this movie is maddening bad or offensive though. It's more incompetently done than anything else really. I think all of the right intentions were there but the crew was simply lacking the talent and/or experience to pull it all off in an effective and successful enough manner. That again is also part of the reason why this movie mostly feels like a very awkward one.
Not half as awesome or fun as you probably would expect it to be.
4/10
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I think what you're noticing is that the movie was ruined in post. It was written, directed and edited by Dietrich Johnston, but the film was stolen from him and finished without his involvement. Important scenes were cut, bad sound design, amateur visual effects and color correction just turned the movie into something not as many could enjoy. The director himself hasn't even seen this version.
ReplyDeleteI could see that being the case. It felt a bit scattered at times and the effects certainly left something to be desired. I suppose if it was taken away from the director it went through editing hell. From IMDB it looks like it was completed quite some time ago and it's just now getting out (in an unofficial way). However, the performances by the main actors were mostly great and also the general cinematography was cool.
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