The vampire genre has got the be most abused genre in movie making. Movie makers just have no clue about what to do with it. When was the last time anyone made a great vampire flick? The latest catastrophe is The Insatiable. Marketed as some erotic horror movie it turns out to be a dull comedic romance, which is neither funny nor romantic. There is a lot of the awful Tarantino-esquire self-conscious direction and (mis)use of music to make things lighthearted. The story centers around a depressed loner loser (bad idea #1) who witnesses a vampire crime. Seen as a crazy guy or perpetrator by the police he takes matters into his own hands going online in search of help. He finds a reluctant vampire hunter with whom he chats online for long times (bad idea #2, people typing on keyboards is never interesting in a movie). He sets out to kill the vampire but being unable to do so chooses to take her captive in a cage in his basement. So most of the action/ interaction will take place between the main characters talking in a basement (bad idea #3). This is a looong, boring, Z-budget movie but with good production values. It's "not rated" but if it were, it's rating would be PG-13. Don't expect a gore fest or lots of sex and nudity- that's just the marketing trick applied to the title. We are told the vampire is insatiable but we have to take the character's words for it because we see no evidence of it. There's one two-second sex-in-clothes scene. Only in American movies do people have sex while clothed. Pretty soon you notice that the story isn't going to go anywhere. The male lead is sympathetic and likable but overacted as is one of his coworkers who plays the funny jerk non-stop. What keeps this movie from being a complete narcotic is the vampire who is a beautiful girl. There's also an attractive neighbor. Pretty but underused girls. The script shows some signs of intelligence here and there. The ending is "good" but given that the rest of the movie is so bad and one has absolutely no hopes or expectations that things will improve, any ending where something, anything happens, would have been good. We are told this thing was filmed in Austin although the only evidence that it wasn't filmed in California is that the girls have gorgeous hair, unlike the lifeless hair of lazy California girls. I was thinking it was filmed in Canada since it's so good natured and dull. Why it takes two directors to film this is a mystery. Half a director could have done it on a weekend. The credits mention a 'behind the scenes' director. Funny, there are no Behind the Scenes in the Special Feautures. In fact there are no extras on this DVD. A shame, any additional screen time of the girls would could have helped. Stay away from this mess.
