Vampires: The Turning

While I have indeed watched the 2004 movie "Vampires: The Turning" once before, I have to admit that I have entirely forgotten about the story in the movie. The only thing I do remember about it is the title. And since I have just watched "Vampires: Los Muertos", I opted to carry on with this third movie in the franchise.

But honestly, I wasn't harboring much of any grand expectations, as I have forgotten about the movie entirely, even after having watched it once before. And with a staggering 3.6 rating on IMDb, in this very moment of me reviewing it, I can't claim that my expectations were yanked up.

Writers D. B. Farmer and Andy Hurst put together a fair enough script and storyline, though it somewhat paled up against the 1998 original "Vampires" movie.

The only actor I was familiar with in the movie was Roger Yuan. Luckily, I do enjoy watching movies with a fully and wholly unfamiliar cast ensemble, so that at least counted for something here. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

Whereas the previous two movies in the franchise were set in USA, this third movie took place in Thailand. Personally, I found that a nice change of pace, as I enjoy Asian cinema in general.

Visually, then the movie was adequate. It wasn't the most impressive of special effects, for sure, but I will say that the special effects in the movie served their purpose well enough.

My rating of "Vampires: The Turning" lands on an four out of ten stars.

My husband and I enjoyed this movie. We had watched a lousy rental the previous evening and were afraid this would be bad also. However, we were pleasantly surprised. The main characters were believable and quite sexy and romantic in their trip to Thailand. We always enjoy a vampire movie with a different "twist" on things and this surprised us. There was Ong-Bak (Muay Thai) type of fighting, beautiful costumes (both men and women), original female Thai vampires and the cinematography was top rate! The beautiful and exotic surroundings added to the mystery of the movie. I would tell others who enjoy a variation on the vampire theme to watch this one.

I first saw bits n pieces of this movie in the mid 2k on Sony Pix channel.

Revisited it recently.

This is the third installment of the Vampires film series although John Carpenter who directed the first film and produced the second film had no involvement with this film.

So now viewers can do their math.

There is one single decapitation scene, an unnecessary bike chase sequence n few unnecessary kung fu or for that matter wi fu scenes.

It has a hot babe, Stephanie Chao but her sex n nudity scene is one of the worst shot ever.

This movie has lots of vampires but no good action or gory stuff.

"Vampires: The Turning" is a fun, well-filmed martial arts thriller with a horror pedigree. It's a sequel to the John Carpenter film series in name only, and carries forward the Slayer concept from the first two. But the main story is a pretty cool bit of Eastern mysticism with a Thai backdrop, involving two warring sects of vampires that were both spawned in the wake of a solar eclipse. The female leader of one sect wants to wipe her kind out, as she unwittingly loosed all sorts of mayhem. The upcoming solar eclipse is her only chance of doing so, and she enlists an American kickboxer to help her. The movie looks great, moves swiftly and sports some solid martial arts (muay thai) action, as well as some effectively creepy moments. Doesn't hurt that the female vampire is quite the hottie. A solid, fun entry into the genre. Definitely check it out!

In Thailand, the Americans Connor (Colin Egglesfield) and his girlfriend Amanda (Meredith Monroe) quarrel in a Muay-Thai fight, and Amanda leaves Connor alone. She asks the direction of the hotel to a stranger, indeed the mean vampire Niran (Don Hetrakul), and she is bitten and kidnapped by his gang of evil vampires in motorcycles. Connor joins to a clan of "good" vampires leaded by Sang (Stephanie Chao), trying to save Amanda from the claws of Niran.

I expected that "Vampires: The Turning" were a good movie. The locations and the cinematography are beautiful; the very heavy music score is excellent; Stephanie Chao is gorgeous and attractive; but unfortunately, the screenplay and the director are terrible and the very loose costume of Meredith Monroe does not help her fallen breasts. The story is very short, and the unknown Marty Weiss uses long scenes with motorcycle race, fights and boring flashbacks to complete a minimum running time for film. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Vampiros: A Conversão" ("Vampires: The Conversion")