Vampires: The Turning

"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!

This is an entertaining combination of Kung Fu and horror. The performances are decent and the action/fight scenes are well choreographed.

The film moves along at a brisk pace. You won't be bored.

There's very little sex or T&A, unfortunately, but I won't hold that against it.

While no "Citizen Kane", This flick is way better than I initially thought it would be. It's a worthy diversion for an afternoon.

With all the absolutely worthless crap that Hollywood releases nowadays, it's a shame this never got a wide (or any) theatrical release.

It seems as if this was intended to be the first of a series. If that's the case, I'd definitely check out any sequels.

...and you kill an hour and a half. Despite the low score on IMDb, this movie is not a 4-out-of-10 vampire movie. Anyone who thinks it is does not know the depths to which vampire flicks can sink. This was a (mostly) competently acted movie with good production value and fun martial arts. Rather than lots of bad SFX, we get a few okay SFX (mostly freaky contacts, fangs and dead-vampire-melting) a net gain in my book. It's predictable, but most vampire movies are, and there are no gaping plot holes, or at least not larger than in most movies.

That said, it's not Hamlet, at least not well-acted Hamlet. The main actor isn't particularly charismatic, and seems to have one basic expression throughout the movie, which I read as "fierce determination," but at least he *has* a facial expression (try van Helsing in "Way of the Vampire" for the alternative), and it fits with his mental state for most of the stuff. Stephanie Chao is no great shakes either, but she's pretty, and has a natural sincerity to her voice that makes up for some of her lack of emotion. They should have given Meredith Monroe more to do.

This is, too, only a bastard step-child (yes, that's what I meant) of John Carpenter's Vampires. It has a new origin of vampires that is not really compatible at all with the original. It does keep the winch, but it looks like they put it in just to prove some kind of family resemblance. If the producers actually paid anything to get in on this franchise, it was a waste of money, since they didn't bother to put in any element (other than the winch) from the original.

Overall, It's far from the worst such movie, but not nearly among the best. If you like vampires and kung fu, and movies with a photogenic cast, this is a good way to waste 84 minutes, especially if you've got some kind of unlimited rentals. Just don't go out of your way unless you're a genre fan.

I watched the movie and though it might have been a little confusing, some of the stunts and fight sequences were awesome, and just the subtle use of contacts and fangs for the vampires went over really well, because asians already have the exotic look down, with the contacts it just made them appear more appealing and alluring, my hats off though to COLIN, because he was one definite hottie. I loved him in this film and hope to see him do more, ROCK ON! Patrick Bachau is in this film and I can't really see him as anyone other than Sydney from THE PRETENDER, Stephanie was great in the film, but we really could have done with Meredith Monroe, I thought she went insane anyway, she just came off as this whiny chick, who chose to go with COLIN's character to Asia, did she really think they were just gonna look at silky fabrics and lighted signs. COME ON!!

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.