User Reviews

despite the fact that Comcast only gave it 1 star, I decided to watch this movie one recent rainy Saturday afternoon, and I was pleasantly surprised.

first, a disclaimer: even though I'm a 50-something female, I apparently have the movie tastes of a 12-year-old boy. I loved "Route 666" with Lou Diamond Phillips, and and I never miss "Wishmaster 2" when it's on cable.

but if you, like me, like guilty pleasures, you will like this movie. it's a buddy pic with a desert vibe and rather a lot of bloody vampiric action, so--something for everyone! the acting is--competent, let's say. Brendan Fehr, who plays Nick, is actually pretty good. (I see he also starred in another favorite guilty pleasure, Final Destination.) and the two main characters are pretty appealing: you like them and root for them.

when talking about a good-bad movie I always say "Well, it's not Citizen Kane or anything" but in fact this movie was far more entertaining than Citizen Kane. if you find yourself at loose ends on a rainy Saturday, check it out.

The similarities between this one and a movie by John Carpenter are more than apparent (as other users have stated here too). John Carpenters movie is much better (and even that wasn't a milestone). Maybe with the new vampire craze right now, this would have been successful and I don't think that it must hide between some of the Twilight moments (especially during the second part of the series).

But as it is, this just isn't really good. The action might be the best on hand here, but the characters, the dialogue, the story overall are just that bad, that you are actually wasting your time. There is one scene, that is the most insane ever. (only real spoiler ahead, concerning one scene) A human is playing chicken with a vampire ... and the vampire steers his car away ... Really? Like really? If you still think you don't mind complete madness like that being in the movie, than go ahead and watch

What can I say? This is definitely one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It has no likable characters, a poor story and poor execution.

SPOILERS

The story suffers from a number of plot holes. Example, Nick has supposedly been tracking the vampire gang for months. He knows that they can only be killed by sunlight or decapitation, yet his only weapons are a handgun and a knife! He had plenty of time to pick up a bladed weapon suitable for decapitation, so why doesn't he have one?

Plus, it is stated several times that the Forsaken can only be killed on hallowed ground. Yet they still need a human to drive them around in the day. So sunlight kills them anywhere? So when the head vampire dies at the end, it didn't need to be on hallowed ground? So the 'quest' to reach it was pointless. And yet again we have the 'dawn to mid-day in seconds' cliché found in so many vampire movies.

My main reason for seeing this was Izabella Miko. The way she is shown on the forefront of the video cover suggests that she has a big part. Yet she is completely wasted as she spends 99% of the movie in shock. She is used in the film merely as a way to lure the vampires (yet another cliché- woman bitten by vampires who has a psychic link to them). Not to mention the gratuitous nudity which I despise. She deserves much better than this.

The protagonists treatment of Megan (Izabella) is abhorrent and leaves the audience with no sympathy for them at all. I was really hoping that Nick would die and that is not right. We are supposed to cheer the 'heroes' on, not hate them.

Avoid this movie like the plague.

While driving a delivery car across desolate desert badlands backroads self-absorbed twentysomething slacker Sean (amiable Kerr Smith) winds up running into both scruffy vampire hunter Nick (an excellent, charismatically ragtag turn by Brendan Fehr) and a deadly bunch of age-old itinerant bloodsuckers led by the smoothly malevolent Kit (the terrific Jonathan Schaech, who's wonderfully wicked in a juicy full-blown nasty villain part). Opening with the arresting image of beautiful blonde babe Izabella Miko washing blood off her bare breasts in the shower, culminating with an exciting explosive climax, with a handy helping of graphic gore, raucous roaring rock music and rousing vehicular action sandwiched in between, this delightfully down'n'dirty low-budget Grade B exploitation horror flick sizes up as a tasty trashy treat. Writer/director J.S. ("The Slayer," "Shadowzone") Cardone elicits sound performances from the entire cast (veteran late, great character actress Carrie Snodgress in particular contributes a lively last reel cameo as a feisty old battle axe), keeps the unflagging pace fast'n'furious throughout, and, most importantly, delivers the unapologetically lowdown sleazy goods with a winning dearth of pretense and a hugely satisfying surplus of rip-snorting panache.

Moreover, there's a marvelously positive and optimistic statement about the redemption of Generation X in this movie: Sean starts out as strictly interested in achieving his own immediate goals in life, but by meeting Nick and joining forces with him to fight the vampires he overcomes his initial selfishness and thus redeems himself in the process. Cardone persuasively makes the point that the allegedly "lost" and hopeless Generation X has a latent capacity to amount to something; all they need is the right stimulus to spark them into action. Since I'm often perceived as a member of this "lost" generation, I found this message to be both very refreshing and extremely heartening. It's nice to know that there are a few filmmakers out there like Mr. Cardone who haven't totally written us off as a lost cause. A splendidly scuzzy and snappy dilly that's one of my favorite fright features of the early 21st century which even comes complete with some pertinent social commentary about modern youth.

Prolific director JS Cardone(Alien Hunter;Shadowzone;Outside Ozona)brings us this profane Midwestern vampire tale with attitude starring Kerr Smith as, Sean, a young editor of trailers for a low-budget movie company who takes a car delivery job from Cali to Florida, but his journey is disrupted when he unfortunately picks up a hitchhiker, Nick(Brendan Fehr)who just so happens to hunt bloodsuckers. The head vampire, Kit(Johnathon Schaech)he's looking for is of a specific number called "The Forsaken", a clan who accepted an offering from a demon and hence were cursed to only walk the earth at night. Sean and Nick come across a young woman, Megan(Izabella Miko)who has been bitten by Kit and is slowly going through the process of "turning" as the vampire who left the virus in her continues to live. While trying to cool her body(..Nick, who has been bitten and must also find a member of "The Forsaken" before he himself becomes one of the undead, notifies Sean that Megan's blood is "burning" so her body temperature must be cooled)Megan bites Sean's hand leaving Kit's virus in him. So now Kit's death is of major importance because not only does Megan suffer as long as he remains alive, but Sean also is threatened to become a vampire. Nick, appropriately enough, encountered a doctor who had been bitten and was given knowledge of certain drugs which can slow down the process of turning into a vampire. But, the drugs can only last so long so finding Kit and exterminating the source of the blood disease is of utmost importance. But, Kit as his own brood, two female bloodsuckers and a dim-witted subservient day-driver(Simon Rex), who travel with him so Sean and Nick, with Megan used as bait, will need to find holy ground for a legitimate stand-off. Ina Hamm(Carrie Snodgress, rather wasted)just so happens to live in the middle of nowhere with her house stands on top of a Spanish graveyard..perhaps this is indeed the refuge they need as a base to fight Kit.

The film doesn't pretend to be anything else but a horror tale of innocents plunged into a battle against a predator who holds the keys to their salvation. It's too bad this was made in 2001 because Cardone's trashy little vampire film would make perfect drive-in fodder. Schaech's presence as a charismatic and sexy male vampire really adds a great deal to this particular film as does Phina Oruche as his black sex slave Cym who attacks bloody throats with ferocity. Rex will earn chuckles as a rather simple-minded human watcher often saying "Okeydokey" when ordered by his boss to commit murderous deeds to those who threaten them. Particularly memorable is the murder of a cop who pulls Rex's Pen over for speeding, insists on seeing what was in their truck, receiving a shot-gun blast to the chest, and subsequently is burned alive on top of the hood of his police car. The attractive cast is headlined by Smith as the young hot-shot stud with a big bright future in the movie industry whose life is changed by a fateful drive into a most dangerous situation, and Izabella Miko as the doe-eyed innocent whose family was obliterated by the evil clan and bitten by Kit who must settle "unfinished business" when one of his vampire chicks didn't follow his command of killing her. Fehr was a bit too young, I felt, for the part of vampire hunter who knows an awful lot about the history of this breed of bloodsuckers..I often wondered just how he received all this information. But, I guess Cardone was perhaps motivated by the studio to fill his cast with beautiful people so Fehr was selected. The opening of Cardone's film sure sets the tone of this flick, a zombie-like Miko showering the blood from her gorgeous naked body. She's later undressed by Nick attempting to find the vampire bite as Megan lies comatose from the virus raging inside her. Miko is either asleep or mute for a good portion of the film but Cardone utilizes her vulnerability, youth, and beauty quite well..very photogenic. There's a very nifty image of Miko's Megan with her hands pressed up against the back window of Sean's car as they drive away from a scene which nearly killed them. This film isn't all that original and seems to evoke the spirit of "Near Dark", but I thought Cardone uses the setting at night really well and there's a nasty streak this film has that worked for me. There are some unnecessary images propelled into the action from past scenarios which distracted me a bit, but certain gory bits are effective like how vampire bodies explode when in contact with sunlight too long, and a shot-gun blast to the face which does some serious damage. "The Forsaken" would probably make an appropriate double feature with John Carpenter's "Vampires."