Working on the Las Vegas beat, police officers assigned to a missing person's investigation run into several others all inadvertently crossing paths with a group of vampires using the strip as a hideout and decide to band together to defeat the common enemy.
This one was a lot better than expected. One of the better points is that this one decides to really throw the seriousness out the window and just have fun with the topic, and there's so many random scenes in here that are included just for that reason. Among the best at this is the opening in the night-club, from the stumbling-across-the-ceremony section that features some really freaky images to the alleyway confrontation and the finale with the flying vampire being really great, and the all-out fun of the motel-confrontation in the middle of the desert all provide a lot more disturbing images than expected and really put some fine action scenes in here as well. Even the opening to the limo attack is really fun, with the build-up to the attack even though the inevitable is about to occur, and the sheer fun of the battle with the vampires in front of the casino is one of the best scenes due to the sheer outrageousness of it all to mix it up with a couple of really nice chases inner-cut alongside a pretty decent fight. There's also the films' last half-hour, which is just an all-out action-packed assault which has a lot to like. Starting with the confrontation in the police headquarters, which has several great parts including the interrogation room sequence, a tense and creepy scene where an officer investigates a strange mist in a hallway leading to a bullet-laced frenzy, a pretty new spin on the reveal-the-creatures-as-vampires conversation and the big gunfight-laden finale, all the way to the escape and eventual showdown later on with all the good guys in here going into a room full of creatures with guns blazing and just mowing the vampires down in a hail of bullets and wooden arrows as well as the exposure of some to sunlight, manages to stay exciting the whole time. The last big plus is the blood and gore, which is really nice and messy which works for the film against the mildly irritating flaw as the only thing wrong with it. The fact that the film goes almost out of its way to include a headache- inducing plot is the real problem here, as this one has about five different stories going on in here. First off is the investigation of the missing person's case that leads to the discovery of the vampires requiring outside forces coming in, then switches to the friends coming back for some fun and then the honeymooning couple all thrown in together just manages to be nearly all-out confusing at times, especially when it builds something up with one of the stories and then it cuts away to something else in order to focus on that one. It's great that it manages to throw all the elements together, but way too many characters are here resulting in a start-stop feel to the film that is very irritating because of the requirements needed for the stories and it just didn't need to. Fixing this one flaw would pretty much make this one a lot better, and is really the only thing sticking out as wrong about the film.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity and a mild sex scene.
