A vampire film, shot on digital, that's nearly two hours long? Hmm. I'm not the biggest vampire film fan in the world. George Romero's Martin was good, as was the original Salem's Lot, and Vamp, when I think of it, but mostly I just don't go for them. Still, I always give them a chance.
This one starts of with a police sting capturing a serial killer whom they've dubbed 'Vlad'. Instead of taking him down to the station for a kicking, a government agency steps in and whisks him off to a laboratory somewhere, where they start to experiment on him. This sets up some sort of moral play where the doctor (replacing the original doctor killed by the vampire) has to struggle with his vows to take care of his patient, and the demands of the government agency in experimenting on the bloodsucker.
That's a pretty good premise, and there's a good set up as they keep the vampire in check by threatening to expose him to sunlight if he steps out of line (crosses and garlic are useless, as they find out). The interaction between the moralistic doctor and the vampire is rather good, with the vampire guy going for 'subtle' rather than 'awful'. So you've got a 'who are the real monsters here' kind of thing going on. Got that? Fine.
Problem: This film is nearly two hours long, and set mostly in a laboratory. That's an awful long time to keep someone's attention. Worse still, there's a subplot regarding the female police officer who helped capture Vlad (she's fallen in love with him) which the film could have done without, and, sadly, the film just sort of descends into predictability. Which is a shame, because I was enjoying this one. It's fairly well acted and well made, but ultimately commits the worst offence of filmmaking: it's boring. A bit of trimming and this could have been good.
