To Sleep with a Vampire

There's just no excuse for this. It takes the script of "Dance of the Damned" and remakes it virtually line-for-line and scene-for-scene, with much worse actors (Charlie Spradling doesn't even approach the vulnerability and desperation of Starr Andreeff in the same role, nor is she as good a dancer), with gratuitous fight scenes pasted in and the best touches pointlessly removed, and gives the original --to which it is 90% identical-- no credit whatsoever. Shameful in the extreme.

If you like this one, you need to see the far superior original (it is available on VHS) and experience what this movie is really supposed to be. If you don't like this one, you have taste, and I imagine you've seen "Dance of the Damned" already. Good for you.

(p.s.--I applaud kipper-2 who recommends Denise Duff's performance in "Subspecies 4" as a superior portrayal of the suffering vampire. I second that recommendation and add a rave for Duff's work in ALL the Subspecies films. She is a gem.)

Much of the dialogue is horribly clichéd in this film, which is a shame, but the atmosphere set up from the beginning is well worth sitting through it - reminiscent of the Blade Runner city, I would say. Also, the character of Jacob, while playing the stereotypical, lonely vampire, is refreshing in that he portrays an impoverished psychopath (and not the European nobleman done to death in everything from Dracula to Anne Rice), mad from loneliness but still homicidal; we really experience his inability to endure, but unlike Louis of Interview with a Vampire, his mystically demonic nature does not permit him to develop a conscience. It does pale a bit as it progresses, and this film could not be enjoyed in the daytime, but seen in the early hours perhaps, or the very late, its atmosphere is well worthy of the 7 stars I've given it.

This film has been remade three times, and original is still the best. I think it was called "Night Dance", but by far "To Sleep with a Vampire" is the worst of the three. Scott Valentine is decent, but other than his mediocre performance this Film has no redeeming qualities. What do you expect FROM A REMAKE OF A FILM THAT DIDN'T MAKE ANY MONEY FROM THE BEGINNING.

ERIC-

This film provides an intelligent and entertaining twist to the vampire genre. Even the low-budget constraints (e.g., the strip club scenes) seem fresh. They serve the story without losing their intrinsic prurient interest. There are, to quote my buddy Carl, some "way cool action scenes where the vampire dude beats the crap outta these other dudes." Combined with the scenes in the vampire's lair, the power of the vampire is revealed with a verisimilitude that makes it easy to suspend disbelief. From start to finish, this vampire film sucks you in.

Almost a two-person play, and as such the dialog and the performances of the leads will be important. Neither are particularly good. This might have been stronger, in fact, if it had first been crafted as a two-person play, and then worked into a film.

Anyway, a twitchy vampire who seems slightly autistic becomes infatuated with a stripper (as a result of watching too much porn in his crappy home). He wants to have her tell him about the daylight. He would have been better off finding someone with a day job, or someone who excels at painting a picture with words like a poet, but then they might not have a hot bod.

After he gets her to do whatever he wants (and he's not terribly good at it), he intends to feed on her at 6 AM, at which point the sun rises. Much is made of that deadline, despite the fact that he also says that he can go without feeding, it will just make him hungrier. Additionally, he claims he can't let the stripper go, since she knows about him, but he lets a number of other people go who learn what he is. There are a lot of inconsistencies.

Why this vampire chooses to live in a house so poorly boarded up that light from streetlamps and neighboring buildings pours in as if it were daytime, I'm not sure. With all the time in the world, you'd think he'd have done a better job, or fixed the place up a bit. He's clearly not a wealthy vampire.

This is supposedly a remake, and I'm curious to see the original version of this, Dance of the Damned. Although, that was directed by Katt Shea, and the other films she directed for Corman (Stripped to Kill, StK II) were pretty bad.