Victime du vampire

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.

Tape this one late at night from Showtime or Cinemax and then fast forward to the Charlie Spradling Dance\lovemaking scene towards the end. Charlie is the only redeeming quality of this flix. I wish the scene at the beach had Charlie laid out in the tiger thong instead of that lame crybaby vampire, played by that guy who played Nick, idiot boyfriend of Mallory from Family Ties. Charlie rules though, I wish she made more films.

This movie is a remake of the movie "Dance of the Damned," which came out a mere 5 years prior, only this one is available on DVD. Both movies are about a vampire who is hiding his desire (not very well, mind you) to be human (to feel the sun, to be close to others, to end his hunger for blood), who must feed tonight. He chooses an at-the-end-of-her-rope stripper as his teacher/meal, due to a dark, suicidal quality he senses in her soul. She thus is able to act as a "bridge" between his world and that of a normal human, while discovering she has a lot more to live for than she thought. Overall, this is a good movie. One can tell the acting is quite scripted at times, but the overall theme doesn't suffer for it. *** out of ****

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.

I found this movie to be a refreshing look at vampiric lore. Of course the dialogue lacked the needed gripping storyline but the actors did fairly well with that. Scott Valentine didn't portray the vampire as I would have however it is a low budget film and the director may have wanted a detached almost oblivious vampire who becomes abusive when he loses control. Charlie did well I thought. In fact I would like to see her perform more roles similar to this one. Being a tortured soul in search of answers and truth. Perhaps a part two to this film where she gives birth to Jacobs child. Or perhaps she drained Jacon or brought Jacob back from death. At least this movie didn't fake a larger than life storyline above the supernatural existence of vampires. And given the low budget the cinematographers did a helluva job as well. All in all I was entertained for 81 min at 3am. Cudos to the folks that participated.