La nuit des vampires

Shaky González' "Nattens Engel" aka "Angel Of The Night" of 1998 is a bearable, but disappointing vampire flick, that was obviously intended to be kind of a Danish "From Dusk Till Dawn", but it seems more like a Danish "Texas Blood Money" to me.

When Rebecca (Maria Stokholm), her boyfriend Mads (Tomas Villum Jensen) and her best friend Charlotte (Mette Louise Holland) come to a Gothic mansion, which Rebecca has inherited, they find an old book which tells the tale of a powerful vampire. As they read it, they find out that the vampire described in the book is actually Rebecca's great-grandfather, a priest who was turned into a vampire 100 years ago when fighting a maiden-ripping monster.

Most of the performances in "Nattens Engel" are not even that bad, and the supporting cast contains three well-known Danish actors, Ulrich Thomsen, Mads Michelsen and Thomas Bo Larsen in small roles. But the director Shaky González just seems to try too hard to resemble movies like "From Dusk Till Dawn" and doesn't manage to mix vampire horror, with lots of gun-play and action and some martial-arts-style fighting sequences in an appropriate way. Over all, the script is simply pretty bad and the plot has huge holes. In some parts the movie is shot in fairly cool camera angles, which look OK but in no way original or imaginative.

"Nattens Engel" is a rather disappointing film with a weak plot, but it's not one of those films that have to be avoided at all costs. Some of the women are lovely to look at and there is a fair amount of gore. As a big fan of B-Horror and exploitation, I personally found it bearable, though disappointing. I wouldn't recommend "Angel Of The Night", but if you want to watch it, make sure you have enough beer at home. 3/10

This debut feature from Shaky Gonzalez is a sort of fill-in-the-blanks John Woo/Robert Rodriguez/Lucio Fulci wannabe that while entertaining enough is still so obviously derivative that there´s a heavy feeling of deja-vu over the entire film. Its impressive cast (which seems to be missing only Kim Bodnia) is mostly wasted, but Erik Holmey easily steals the film with his intimidating vampire leader, Rico Mortiz (great name!). It´s hard to completely dislike an attempt at a full-blooded Danish supernatural horror movie, but the result is a bit too loose and even amateurish at times, but Gonzalez earns an A for effort and is a talent to watch out for. Definite cult possibilities, though.

After inheriting a mansion in a remote part of Denmark, an attractive young woman by the name of "Rebecca" (Maria Stokholm) invites her boyfriend "Mads" (Tomas Villum Jensen) and her best-friend "Charlotte" (Mette Louis Holland) to come with her to check it out. Once they get there, she explains that her grandmother was a historian who spent a great deal of her time researching vampires. Not long afterward, Charlotte takes them down into the basement where there find some extremely old books on the shelf. As it so happens, one book in particular catches her eye and, since it involves the history of her ancestors, she begins to read it out loud to her friends. The scene then shifts to 100 years earlier with a priest named "Rikard" (Christian Gronvall) being bitten by a vampire. He subsequently assumes the name "Rico Mortiz" (now played by Erik Holmey) and goes on a murderous rampage which is outlined in the book and takes us up to the present. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I was extremely disappointed with this film for a number of reasons. For starters, this film is billed as both a comedy and a horror. But the problem is that there really isn't much humor here so I'm not sure why anyone would think it was a comedy. The second problem concerns the fact that the director (Shaky Gonzalez) apparently chose to focus on action scenes instead of tried-and-true elements like suspense to liven up the horror. And that was a big mistake, in my opinion, as these action scenes were quite unimaginative. To further compound the problem is the fact that he kept repeating the same action formula again and again. To that effect, what the viewer is left with is a good-looking cast and a lot of inane action scenes which go absolutely nowhere. In short, I was not at all impressed with this film and I have rated it accordingly.

I picked this up as a rental one weekend. I didn't have any expectations, as all I knew about it was what the back of the box had to say. Overall, I was somewhat disappointed. Some of the scenes in the movie really worked well. Unfortunately other scenes played more like a music video. The story wasn't new or strong, but other movies have overcome weak plots. The acting was surprisingly good, but most of the story unfolds in flashbacks fed to the viewer in small, disjointed chunks. The English dubbing started off badly but quickly improved. The director drew heavily on John Woo style action, not always a bad thing, but I think the diving across a room firing two handguns at once thing was a little overdone. I also can't help wonder where everyone kept coming up with the sawed-off shotguns. In a nutshell, this probably won't become a classic, but I don't think it's a waste of time either. I think once the director discovers his own style, we will be in for some excellent movies.

This is something as unusual as a Danish vampire movie. What can I say? It is not the best vampire movie I've ever seen, but absolutely the funniest. The film makers has used some elements from the role-playing game "Vampire: The Masquerade" and the effects of this is quite amusing, if you happen to play it, like I do. Nonetheless, the movie is definitely worth seeing if you're a fan of vampire movies.