Stars
Harvey Keitel
George Clooney
Quentin Tarantino
Juliette Lewis
Salma Hayek
Runtime: 108 minutes
Release Date: 1996
MetaCritic Rating: 52% / 100%
89% Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov (Highest)
This is horror with a wink and a nod to drive-in theatres and sweaty back seats. This is how it's done.
0% San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle (Lowest)
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had their fun with From Dusk Till Dawn, and now they need to stay away from each other. For their own good. Forever.
Plot
George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino star as the Gecko brothers -- two dangerous outlaws on a wild crime spree. After kidnapping a father (Keitel) and his two kids (Lewis), the Geckos head south to a seedy Mexican bar to hide out in safety. But when they face the bar's truly notorious clientele, they're forced to team up with their hostages in order to make it out alive.
From Dusk till Dawn
Lost Boys: the Tribe (2008)
Stars
Corey Feldman
Corey Haim
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Release Date: 2008
MetaCritic Rating: Not Rated
Plot
According to Corey Feldman in an interview with MTV: "Once again, you have a fish-out-of-water story of two young folks who move into a new town to visit their relatives and find themselves caught up with a bunch of bloodsuckers. I really like the script because it is very close and very true to the structure of the original film — same kind of scares, same kind of laughs, same kind of relationships."
In a press release in Business Wire, Warner Premier expanded on that, saying, "This sequel takes us to the shady surf city of Luna Bay, California, where vampires quickly dispatch anyone who crosses their path. Into this dark world arrive Chris Emerson (Hilgenbrink) and his younger sister, Nicole (Reeser). Having just lost their parents in a car accident, the siblings move in with their eccentric Aunt Jillian and become new prey for the locals’ way of life. When Nicole unwittingly falls for a local vampire, Chris must locate and destroy the gang’s lifeline before his sister’s transformation is complete; to do this Chris finds himself relying on the expertise of none other than Edgar Frog (Feldman). Subtle references to characters from the original film, and cameos from returning actors offer homage to the Lost Boys legend and set a sinister tone of impending doom."
Official Website: http://lostboysthetribe.warnerbros.com/
Underworld Evolution
Stars
Kate Beckinsale
Scott Speedman
Tony Curran
Derek Jacobi
Bill Nighy
Michael Sheen
Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: 2006
Metacritic Rating: (36% Average Rating)
70% Variety Joe Leydon (Highest Rating)
Overall package is potent. A few rock-the-house scenes of slam-bang derring-do -- are nothing short of sensationally exciting.
20% Empire James Dyer (Lowest Rating) (2 Ratings at 20%)
But for all her slinky, undead-chic looks, Beckinsale can't carry the film on curves alone and there's not much else here worthy of attention. Evolution's action sequences are as horribly bungled as its plot, resulting in a string of repetitive confrontations that feel toothless even by the last movie’s standards.
Plot:
Underworld: Evolution continues the saga of war between the aristocratic Death Dealers and the barbaric Lycans (werewolves). The film traces the beginnings of the ancient feud between the two tribes as the beautiful vampire heroine Selene (Beckinsale) discovers that she has been betrayed by her own kind and seeks her revenge. (Screen Gems)
Offical Site : http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/underworldevolution/index.html
Underworld
Stars
Kate Beckinsale
Scott Speedman
Michael Sheen
Bill Nighy
Runtime: 121 minutes
Release Date: 19th October 2003
MetaCritic Ratings: (42% average)
75% New York Daily News Jami Bernard (Highest Rating) (4 ratings at 75%)
The filmmakers' decision to go with prosthetic enhancements rather than CGI gives the snouts, fangs and snapping jaws a refreshingly tactile look.
20% Washington Post Desson Thomson (Lowest Rating) (2 Ratings at 20%)
It needs a wooden stake AND a silver bullet through its script.
Plot
Underworld reimagines Vampires as a secretive clan of modern aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Lycans (werewolves), a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly. (Screen Gems)
Kate Beckinsale
Offical Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/underworld/index.html
30 days of night
Stars
Josh Hartnett
Melissa George
Ben Foster
Runtime: 113 minutes
Release Date: October 2007
Metacritic Ratings
80% Empire James Dyer (Highest Rating)
This slick and sticky horror is the most accomplished treatment of vampire lore since Near Dark.
25% New York Post Kyle Smith (Lowest Rating)
The movie approaches the final scene with a straight face, but it left the audience giggling spasmodically. This script probably should have gone all the way and thrown in a few quips: If your movie is a joke, at least be intentionally funny.
Plot
This is the story of an isolated Alaskan town that is plunged into darkness for a month each year when the sun sinks below the horizon. As the last rays of light fade, the town is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires bent on an uninterrupted orgy of destruction. Only the small town's husband-and-wife Sheriff team stand between the survivors and certain destruction. Written by Risin' Outlaw
Blade III
Stars
Wesley Snipes
Kris Kristofferson
Jessica Biel
Ryan Renolds
Runtime: 113 Minutes
Release Date: December 2004
63% Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder (Highest Rating)
Thankfully, Reynolds (bearded, looking a bit like Jason Lee) adds some scrappiness and humor to a series that might otherwise have collapsed under self-parody.
20% Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov (Lowest Rating)
Of all the missteps made and absurdities offered, the most glaring is the casting of what appears to be a steroidal Eurotrash pimp as no less than Dracula.
Plot
The vampires succeed in framing Blade for the killing of a human (a familiar being used as bait when posing as a vampire). Blade, now in the public's eye and wanted by the FBI, is chased down to his hideout where his mentor, Abraham Whistler, triggers an explosion inside the building, sacrificing himself to protect their operation.
After being captured by the police, who are about to hand him over to the vampires, Blade is rescued by the Nightstalkers, a human clan of vampire hunters. They are led by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds), an ex-vampire, and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel), Abraham's daughter. They ask his help to go after Danica Talos (Parker Posey), a powerful vampire leader, who has succeeded in locating and resurrecting the ancient first vampire Dracula, or Drake (Dominic Purcell), as he is now commonly known. Talos hopes that she will finally be able to kill Blade.
In his first confrontation with Blade, Drake shows a sort of affinity for the "Day Walker", as they are both "honorable warriors" (somewhat ironically, while Drake is delivering his speech about honor, he is hiding behind a newborn baby he has taken hostage).
Blade realizes that normal combat won't be enough to take down Drake, and he learns of a bioweapon, Day Star, that the Night Stalkers had been working on, that will wipe out all vampires. The catch: They need a sample of Drake's blood, as his vampiric genes are "pure", to make the virus work. The second catch: The virus may also kill Blade due to the fact that he is half-vampire.
While Blade and Abigail are out hunting, Drake finds their base of operations, and, disguised as Whistler, kills the entire staff, and captures King, who had been injured in their last encounter. When Blade and Abigail return, they discover their comrades dead and King missing. Meanwhile, at Drake's skyscraper fortress, Talos has her henchmen torture King to get the information of what his group was working on.
In a desperate attempt to rescue the soon to be re-vamped King, Blade and Whistler storm Drake's skyscraper fortress, during which Blade confronts Drake. After a prolonged battle, Blade impales Drake with a Daystar arrow and draws Drake's blood releasing Daystar and wiping out all nearby vampire life, also killing Danica Talos. Drake then dies from the Day Star virus soon after it is released and Blade seemingly dies as well.
Blade II (Movie)
Stars
Wesley Snipes
Kris Kristofferson
Ron Perlman
Luke Goss (From Bros)
Matt Schulze
Runtime: 117 Minutes
Budget: 55 Million (Approx)
Released: March 2002
IMDB Rating: 6.5 / 10
MetaCritic: 52%
90% Washington Post Desson Thomson (Highest Rating)
To appreciate the movie, you have to be okay with vampire violence. I don't mean subtle little nips at the neck and, ooooh, it's directed by Werner Herzog.
0% San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle (OUCH Lowest Rating)
Duller than first version.
Plot Summary (Provided by Wiki)
Two years have passed since Blade defeated Deacon Frost, and he has been keeping himself busy in the hunt for Whistler, who killed himself after being bitten by vampires in an effort to avoid 'turning', but came back as a vampire anyway. Blade has been sweeping across Russia and eastern Europe searching for his old friend and mentor, enlisting the aid of a young man named Scud to design him a new line of equipment and weapons. Blade fights his way through a large gang of vampires, leaving a bloodsucker named Rush alive after getting information from him, yet telling him he'll be back for him. Finding Whistler locked in a tank of blood by the gang, who were keeping the old man alive for purposes of torture, Blade rescues him and brings him to Prague.
Meanwhile, a crisis has arisen in the vampire community. A seemingly more developed strain of vampirism (dubbed the "Reaper virus") is sweeping through their ranks, giving its carriers fearsome new powers and features. The original carrier of the strain appears to be Jared Nomak, a one-time vampire who appears to have mutated into a creature even more dangerous - one that prefers the blood of vampires to human blood, in the process transforming his vampiric victims into Reapers themselves (albeit far less stable).
In order to combat the virus, the vampire elder / overlord Eli Damaskinos and his familiar servant Karel Kounen (a lawyer) send their minions Asad and Nyssa (who is Damaskinos' daughter) to find and strike an uneasy treaty with Blade, convincing him with the argument that though vampires kill humans for food, they do so only in a controlled fashion. Reapers are even more dangerous as they feed almost constantly and once they finish the vampire population, they will doubtlessly descend on humankind. Whilst Blade may hate vampires, the Reapers are far more dangerous and neither side can attack them without uniting first.
To this end, Blade teams up with the Bloodpack, a group of vampire warriors and assassins who were originally assembled to kill Blade. The Bloodpack are Nyssa and Asad, along with Reinhardt, Priest, Chupa, Lighthammer, Snowman and Verlaine. Reinhardt (Ron Perlman), challenges Blade with a racist insult: "Can you blush?" After Blade responds by goading him, Reinhardt attacks him, but Blade sizes him up, attaching a bomb to the back of his head, promising to kill him if he gets out of line. Setting their mutual hatred aside, Blade leads the Bloodpack in the fight against the Reapers and the investigation into their origins. Heading to a vampire nightclub, which they believe will prove good bait for the Reapers, Blade and the Bloodpack are attacked, learning that ultraviolet light is the only effective weapon against them. Priest is bitten multiple times and Blade executes him as he changes into a Reaper. Lighthammer is also bitten once but does not immediately turn, or tell anyone. They find a Reaper near a sewer entrance, dying, but not from its injuries. They take it back to base for autopsy.
The Reapers bear a certain resemblance to Blade, being far stronger than common vampires and lacking an allergy to silver, but they also possess radical physical mutations: three-way jaws, leech-like tongues and hearts encased in a thick layer of bone at the front and back – in short, their only major vulnerability is ultraviolet light. All these advantages are countered by an incredibly fast metabolism - they must feed at least daily to avoid starving to death. However, Nomak is the only one who can survive long-term, and maintain higher brain activity; for the others it is a losing battle - they only function on basic instinct, and their metabolism is unstable, causing them to sicken and die shortly after being turned, regardless of feeding pattern. Realizing the Reaper base is in the sewer, Scud develops UV light grenades and passes them out, also making a bomb from some of them, in order to flood the sewer with light and kill all the Reapers at once. He also creates Reaper luring devices, using their pheromones. During this time, Blade forms something of a intimate relationship with Nyssa.
In the sewers, Blade splits the team into groups. Reinhardt and Chupa corner Whistler, and Chupa proceeds to savagely beat Whistler on behalf of the death of Priest: "We lose a partner, and Blade loses one!" Reinhardt quickly grows bored and abandons Chupa, hunting for more Reapers. Whistler releases a batch of Reaper pheromones into the air in a bid to save himself. As Chupa is about to finish Whistler off with an M16A3, the Reapers attack and maul Chupa to death, allowing Whistler to escape. Meanwhile, Lighthammer transforms into a Reaper and feeds on, and kills, Snowman. His lover Verlaine gets him to chase her up a manhole, so that when she removes the cover, both of them are killed by the sunlight. When the Reapers kill Asad, it's left to Reinhardt, Nyssa, Blade and Whistler to defeat them.
After a climactic battle, Blade activates the UV Bomb, incinerating all the Reapers except Nomak. Nomak confronts Whistler, but spares him to pass information along to Blade. Blade is suddenly apprehended by Damaskinos' forces, along with Whistler and Scud, led by a somewhat UV wounded Reinhardt. Back at the overlord's base, Whistler tells Blade the Reaper strain is not a virus at all, but rather a genetic experiment gone wrong. In his efforts to replicate Blade – a day-walking silver-immune vampire, Damaskinos had numerous experiments performed on Nomak, who is in fact his estranged son. He remarks that Nomak was the first carrier of the strain but ultimately flawed, seeing as he was vulnerable to daylight, as were all the other carriers whom he'd infected. Damaskinos then reveals another horrible truth — he has been creating many more vampire prototypes, intended as the next step of vampire evolution, all of them kept in fetal form in a massive incubator. All they require now is Blade's biological make-up to give them protection from the sun, and the vampire nation will all be Daywalkers. In order to achieve this, Damaskinos plans to have Blade killed and dissected.
During his captivity, Blade attempts to activate the pre-placed explosive in Reinhardt's skull, but Scud reveals that the bomb (which he himself had crafted) was never designed to go off. Scud is in fact one of Damaskinos' familiars and planned to side with the vampires rather than fighting against them. Figuring that it would all be over for the human race once all vampires were immune to daylight, he decided "[he] would rather be a pet than cattle." However, Blade has a trump card - he has always suspected Scud's servitude to Damaskinos, and his backhanded double dealing. Activating a second switch on his remote, Blade kills the unfortunate Scud, who unluckily happened to be holding the bomb at the time. After Whistler rescues him from the dissection (after escaping from Reinhardt with a gun himself) by killing Karel Kounen, who was watching over Blade, Blade fights his way through Damaskinos' henchmen, and after bisecting Reinhardt with his sword, heads towards the lead vampire himself while Whistler destroys the vampire fetuses by shooting them.
Meanwhile, a vengeful Nomak has entered Damaskinos' stronghold, seeking revenge on the father who mutilated him and turned him into the first Reaper. Just before he can escape, Damaskinos is betrayed by Nyssa (disgusted with herself and her father's extreme methods) and killed by Nomak. In order to "complete the circle", Nomak also bites Nyssa at her request and then makes to leave, whereupon he is confronted by Blade. After a very brutal fight, Blade finds the weak spot in Nomak's physical defenses and jams his sword beneath his arm, partially penetrating his heart from the side, bypassing the bone shield over it. Blade then falls to the floor, nearly finished due to broken ribs and internal bleedings sustained during the fight. Severely injured, Nomak crawls away and props himself up against a pillar. He is mortally wounded, but happier that way, so he puts himself out of his misery by shoving the broken sword the final inch into his heart. Before he dies he comments that “it hurts no more” (the Reaper Virus seems to cause him great pain at all times).
With Nomak dead, Blade then carries Nyssa outside for the sunrise at her request, where she disintegrates in his arms before she becomes a Reaper.
Finally, the vampire Rush is in a London strip club, preparing to make use of one of the booths. However, as soon as the curtains open, he is shocked to find Blade on the other side of the glass, who casually remarks "You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you?", and stabs his sword into his skull.
Blade I (Movie)
Stars:
Wesley Snipes
Kris Kristofferson
Stephen Dorff
Tracy Lords
Runtime : 120 minutes
Budget: 45 Million (Est)
Gross Revenue: 131 Million
Released: 1998
IMDB Rating: 6.9 / 10
MetaCritic: 45 / 100
80% Film.com Tom Keogh (Highest Rating)
A pulsing, wooshing, visceral experience that amounts to great fun and an entirely disposable movie.
20% LA Weekly Paul Malcolm (Lowest Rating)
Working from a script by David S. Goyer ("Dark City") that lacks any sense of humor or character, Snipes seems unsure if he should vamp it up or play it straight, while Dorff just plain sucks.
Plot Summary (Provided by Wiki)
In 1967, a pregnant woman is hospitalized after being bitten by, as one of the doctors says, some kind of wild animal. In the process of trying to revive her, she goes into labor, requiring a c-section. She gives birth to a baby boy and dies. Approximately 30 years later, a seductive woman (played by Traci Lords) brings an unsuspecting man to a strange nightclub. After a brief time, the man realizes something is amiss in the club yet cannot quite discern why. However, his fears are soon confirmed when blood begins to pour down from the sprinkler system, revealing that most, if not all of the club's patrons are vampires. Unable to escape from the hideous creatures which have now surrounded him, the young man seems doomed until one of the vampires notices an individual who has just entered, whom he calls "the daywalker".
Blade (Wesley Snipes) coolly enters the main dance floor, taking pleasure in the vampires' fear of him. After a brief standoff, one vampire finds the nerve to attack, Blade shoots him, and most of the vampires flee, while several stay to fight. Eventually, after battling his way through numerous guards, Blade singles out one vampire named Quinn (played by Donal Logue), whom he has encountered before, but always seems to survive. After nailing him to the wall with stakes, Blade tells Quinn to "Give my regards to Frost" and sets him on fire, leaving a burnt Quinn along with the confused human as the only surviving inhabitants of his attack. The police arrive, take Quinn's crisp remains and send them for identification.
At the hospital, Dr. Curtis Webb conducts the post-mortem examination on Quinn, along with his ex-girlfriend Dr. Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright). During the examination, Quinn shockingly returns to life and feeds on both Webb and Jenson. Although Webb appears to die instantly, Jenson manages to escape into the hall before she is attacked, where Blade, having pre-supposed that Quinn would come back, turns up. He attacks the rejuvenated vampire, who jumps out a window and escapes. As Blade makes to leave, he sees a bleeding Doctor Jensen lying on the floor, beckoning for him to help her. Seeing a similarity to Blade's mother, he rescues Jensen and they head back to his base of operations.
At the same time, there is a meeting of The House of Erebus, a vampire Shadow Council. The Elder Dragonetti (played by Udo Kier) discusses Blade's recent intensified attacks, and berates a young Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) for his recklessness in running nightclubs. Most vampires believe that they should more or less co-exist with the humans (maintaining a secret, Mafia-like power cabal), whilst renegades such as Frost believe they should rule them outright. There is some sense of superiority from "pure-blood" vampires (i.e. those who are born vampires) against those who are "turned" (born human and later turned into vampires.)
Back at Blade's lair, after patching her up, Jenson meets Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), Blade's mentor and weapons technician in their fight against vampire-kind. Whistler outlines their current mission and the nature of vampires, along with the power they hold in the outside world. Jenson decides to head home, although Blade reminds her it is is a possibility that, due to Quinn's bite, she too may become a vampire. Blade also receives an injection of some kind of serum that he apparently needs.
Upon arriving in her apartment, Jenson is assaulted by a policeman who is revealed to be a familiar - a human being who serves vampires (a collaborator, essentially, that after years of service might get rewarded by being turned into a vampire). Blade rescues Jenson, having used her as bait to lure the enemy in. On the street, Blade tortures the familiar to find out where his base is, but Jenson becomes disgusted and intervenes, accidentally allowing the familiar to escape. After Blade berates her for not understanding how the "real world" works, they stake out the car until the familiar returns and follow him back to another club of Frost's, there discovering a morbidly obese vampire named Pearl. Blade and Karen attack Pearl with a UV-Lamp, searing the vampire's flesh, and making him spill some details of Frost's plans, including mention of the blood god La Magra. Blade and Karen enter the vampire library but are ambushed by Frost's henchmen, led by Quinn and Mercury (Played by Arly Jover ), Deacon's girlfriend. Although Blade and Jenson are assaulted by Frost's private army, they escape due to the timely arrival of Whistler, though they are unable to fully understand Frost's intentions for La Magra. Jenson also realizes Blade is "one of them" but he corrects her because he is actually "something else."
Back at Blade's lair, Whistler tells Karen how Blade became a hybrid. Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire while pregnant, causing Blade to undergo genetic changes. Jenson begins to work on a permanent cure for the vampire condition, using Whistler's research as her starting ground. During this time, Frost kills Elder Dragonetti by subjecting him to a sunrise, and forcibly gathers the other members of the Shadow Council as "volunteers". Shortly after this, Frost makes a second strike. Whilst Blade heads out to fetch the ingredients for his serum, Frost abducts Dr. Jenson from the lair and badly beats Whistler, leaving Quinn and the rest of his crew to finish him off. Upon Blade's return, he finds a taunting video left from Frost. In a poignant scene, Blade aids a bleeding Whistler in suicide so he doesn't 'turn'. Unable to kill him himself, Blade gives Whistler his gun and walks away, hearing a gunshot behind him. Stricken with grief, Blade vows to find and kill Frost.
Blade arms himself for a raid on Frost's base, taking along with him specially-designed pneumatic syringes loaded with EDTA, which has a highly volatile reaction to vampire blood. During his attack on the base, Blade fights his way through a horde of vampires, yet discovers a horrible truth once he reaches the top floor of the building. He learns that his mother (the pregnant woman from the flashback scene) did not in fact die, and is now Frost's vampire mistress, as it was Frost himself who had bitten his mother during her pregnancy. Overcome with shock, Blade is easily subdued by the guards, who knock him out and take him to the Temple of Eternal Night, where Frost reveals the final stages of his plan.
Using his resources and vast wealth, Frost has managed to rebuild the temple and intends to use it for La Magra's resurrection, a key ingredient of which is Blade's sunlight-resistant vampiric blood, along with the sacrifice of the other twelve "pure-blood" council members (Ashe, Cianteto, Dragonetti, Faustinas who held two seats, Ligaroo, Lemure, Kobejitsu, Lobishomen, Von Esper, Upier, and Pallintine.) Through the ritual, Frost becomes an eminently more powerful vampire, far surpassing any other vampire's strength or speed, and gains the powers and attributes of each sacrificed member, including immunity to silver, instant regeneration of lost limbs, superior strength and speed, red bulging eyes (from the Kobejitsu tribe), and the ability to withstand sunlight (from Blade's blood.)
Prior to the ritual, Dr. Jenson is dropped into a pit with a 'zombie' Curtis Webb (not quite a vampire, as he can only function on basic instinct). Defeating Webb and climbing out of the pit, Jenson makes her way to the sacrifice room, breaking Blade free from his sacrificial housing. After allowing Blade to feed on her, he regains his strength just as his mother attacks. Killing her, with his rage driven to even greater heights, Blade heads to the main chamber seeking Frost. Starting with Quinn, Blade kills all of Frost's minions and Mercury is killed by Jenson. Finally, Blade and Frost meet for one final climactic battle at the base of the temple. Blade quickly discovers that Frost cannot be killed by any conventional means, though his transformation is incomplete as Mercury had killed one of the pure bloods in a rage prior to the ritual. This leaves his blood vulnerable and Blade empties every single EDTA syringe he has on Frost (who is now constituted entirely of vampire blood), causing his body to swell and explode.
Climbing out from the underground temple, Jenson offers Blade her cure. Blade refuses, because "curing" him of his need for blood would also remove his Daywalker powers and he would be unable to hunt vampires, and requests for her to make him a better serum, reminding her that "there's still a war going on". Finally, Blade ends up in Moscow, hunting down and presumably killing a Russian vampire who persuaded a human to follow him to a vampire club, in an echo of the beginning of the film.
The Lost Boys (Movie)
Lost Boys
With the help of Star, Laddie (Chance Michael Corbitt), and his brother Sam, who has joined up with two relatively inept vampire hunters Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander), Michael sets out to shake his curse by finding and killing the head vampire. This proves more difficult than it seems, as it is not evident who the leader is. Sam and the Frog Brothers try to prove that Lucy's boyfriend Max (Edward Herrmann) is the leader of the vampire gang, but their tests fail. Towards the end of the movie, it turns out Max is the leader. Their vampire tests didn't work because Michael had invited Max into the house ("Don't ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy," Max said to Sam at the end of the movie. "It renders you powerless.")
Interview with a Vampire (Movie)
Stars:
Brad Pitt
Tom Cruise
Christian Slater
Kirsten Dunst
Runtime: 123 minutes
Budget: 60 Million
Gross Revenue: 223 Million
Released: 1994
IMDB Rating: 7.3 / 10
MetaCritic: 59 / 100
100% Empire Adam Smith (Highest Rating)
Bold, gruesome and melancholic, this Gothic horrorfest offers us much to sink our teeth into: Cruise - who effectively disappears from the screen for half the film's duration - is terrific, Dunst eerily compelling, Banderas hypnotic.
30% Washington Post Rita Kempley (Lowest Rating)
Passionately anticipated and much ballyhooed, the film, alas, is little more than a foppish, fang de siecle costume drama. Its pulse barely registers.
Plot Summary
In present time San Francisco a reporter, Daniel, is sitting in a room with a man named Louis, who claims to be a vampire. Daniel is unconvinced until Louis turns on the light and instantly appears in front of him using extremely fast movement. Daniel agrees to interview Louis, who recalls his previous life and his turn to darkness.
It is 1791. Louis is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and child, not even caring if he lives or dies. A vampire, Lestat, takes notice of him and attacks him but also offers him a chance to be reborn. Louis decides to take him up on the offer and Lestat proceeds to transform him into a vampire. Lestat begins showing Louis how to live the life of a vampire, sleeping in coffins by day and preying on unsuspecting mortals by night. Louis is not comfortable bringing harm to the humans however, and opts to draining the blood of animals and rats instead. Louis continues to defy every attempt that Lestat makes to turn Louis to the Vampire lifestyle, seemingly having retained his conscience. A fed up Louis finally succumbs though and bites his maid and proceeds to kill her. He then burns down his estate and he and Lestat flee, now homeless.
While venturing the streets of New Orleans, the two continue to terrorize the public with Louis still trying to refuse Lestat's ways. Again Louis gives in to his blood lust and bites a young girl, Claudia. Lestat arrives at the scene and congratulates him but Louis takes off, disgusted by his actions. However, Lestat later takes him to the girl, who has become ill from the blood loss. With a promise to make her better Lestat transforms her too, as part of his plan to make her his and Louis' daughter to prevent Louis from leaving. Louis reluctantly accepts her but his scorn for Lestat grows.
Claudia, under Lestat, soon turns into a merciless killer, draining everyone around her of their blood, while all the time developing a strong bond with Louis as father and daughter. Thirty years pass and Claudia is left wondering why she is stuck in the body of an eternal child. Lestat explains that she can never grow up due to the effects of the transformation, which she resents him for. She asks Louis how she came to be and Louis takes her to the place where he bit her 30 years before. Outraged, Claudia expresses her hate for him too and walks away, leaving Louis by himself in tears. However, Claudia forgives him for the deed, citing him as "my love, my maker", showing their close bond. She wishes that they leave New Orleans but Louis knows Lestat would never allow them to leave. With that in mind, Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking blood from two dead children. Weakened, she slashes his throat and she and Louis dump his body in a swamp but he later returns, having drained the energy from crocodiles and other swamp life to survive. He attacks the two but Louis sets him afire and flees to Paris with Claudia, leaving Lestat for dead.
In Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but he is still bothered by the question of how vampires and such an evil came to be. While walking the streets, he is met by a vampire called Armand, who tells him that there are other vampires in Paris and tells him he knows the answers he has been searching for. With that in mind, Louis takes Claudia to see the vampires' show at the Theater. Armand later takes him to their lair and offers him a place by his side while telling him Claudia must leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved daughter and turns to leave. Armand warns him that the vampires know about Lestat's murder and that it is forbidden for vampires to kill another vampire. Louis leaves.
Brad Pitt as Louis
Back at his residence he finds that Claudia has brought home a woman, intent on making the woman, named Madeline, her mother, realizing that Louis may leave her to join Armand. Claudia demands that he transform Madeline but Louis is reluctant to do so. He gives her what she wants and tells her they are finally even, having breathed his last breath of mortality still within him by turning Madeline into a vampire. Soon after the Parisian vampires abduct all three of them, imprisoning Louis in a metal coffin meant for all eternity and exposing Claudia and Madeline to sunlight, destroying them. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and is horrified and grief-stricken to find that the vampires have killed her and Madeline. He later takes revenge upon them all, save for Armand, and burns them alive in their own theater as they sleep. Armand arrives in time to help him escape and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand did nothing to prevent the vampires from murdering Claudia, and leaves him for good.
Decades pass with Louis exploring the world by himself, alone. He later finds Lestat, still alive but forever traumatized. He asks Louis to rejoin him, like old times, but Louis rejects him and leaves. At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Daniel, the interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see what is truly like to be like him, but Louis grasps him in a fit of rage and vanishes. Daniel hurriedly runs out of the hotel room into his parked car and drives away, feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette player. Just then, Lestat attacks him and takes control of the car. He then offers Daniel "the choice [he] never had."
Information gathered from Wikipedia
Thanks wiki
Best Vampire Movies of 2007
Brotherhood of Blood (2007) Rating: N/A
Slaughter of the Vampires (1962) (DVD) Rating: 4.1 /10
Jess Franco's Count Dracula (1970) (DVD) Rating: 5.7 / 10
Frostbiten (2006) (DVD) Rating: 5.6 / 10
Vegas Vampires (2003) Rating 2.9 / 10
Dracula (Masterpiece Theatre) (2006) Rating: N/A
Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron (2007) (TV) Rating: 7.2 / 10
Witches Hammer, The (2006) (UK DVD) Rating: 3.9 / 10
Kingdom of the Vampire (2007) Rating: N/A
Double Feature: Bucket of Blood (1934) Rating 6.7 / 10
/ My Son the Vampire (1952) (DVD release) Rating: 2.4 / 10
The Thirst (2006) Rating: 4.3 / 10
Gothic Vampires from Hell (2007) Rating: 5.3 / 10
Vampire Noir (2007) Rating: N/A
Day Watch (2006) Limited US Release Rating: 6.9 / 10
Rise: Blood Hunter (2007) Rating: 5.4 / 10
The Lair (2007) Rating: 5.7 / 10
Mamma Dracula (1980) (DVD release) Rating 2.5 / 10
Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron (2007) (DVD release)
80s Double Feature: Once Bitten (1985) Rating: 4.9 / 10
/ Vampire's Kiss (1989) (DVD release) Rating: 5.7 / 10
Perfect Creature (2006) (DVD release) Rating: 5.5 / 10
The Monster Squad (1987) (DVD release) Rating: 6.8 / 10
Vampire Secrets (2006) (DVD release) Rating: 6.2 / 10
Night Junkies (2007) (DVD release) Rating: 4.9 / 10
BloodRayne II: Deliverance (2007) (DVD release) Rating: 4.0 / 10 (pretty good for Mr Boll)
Blade: The Series (2006) (DVD release) Rating: 6.5 / 10
Insatiable, The (2006) Rating: 5.9 / 10
Count Dracula (1977) (DVD release) Rating: 8.0 / 10 - Editors Choice
Haunted Histories Collection Vampire Secrets + others from the History Channel (DVD boxset)
Rating: 6.2 / 10
"Moonlight" (2007) Rating: N/A
Double Feature: Kingdom of the Vampire (2007) Rating: N/A
and Kingdom of the Vampire (1991) (DVD) Rating: 4.6 / 10
Dracula's Dirty Daughter (2000) AKA Mistress of Seduction (DVD Re-release) Rating: 6.0 / 10
"Blood Ties" (2006) Rating: 4.7 / 10
30 Days of Night (2007) (Theatrical) December 14 2007: Rating: 7.0 / 10
I Am Legend (2007) Rating: Coming soon
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