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ridiculous rating

Fantastic!

Blistering performances.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

THE GODFATHER meets Dracula! This film from director John Landis starts off promisingly: the first half of this film is great, with lots of in-jokes and overacting from Robert Loggia, playing a leading Mafioso. The idea of vampire mobsters is interesting, and played for laughs for the most part with strong effect. I didn't care much for the lead, Anne Parillaud, who begins the film naked and removes her clothes numerous times during the long running length, perhaps this is a desperate attention grabber.There's some kinky sex involving handcuffs and lots of references to over movies for horror fans, such as the films Dracula and THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS playing on TVs. It's entertaining, but doesn't go beyond face value. With this and AN American WEREWOLF IN London, it seems like Landis loves making easy viewing horror films for horror fans. Watch out for a hilarious scene where Loggia begins to dissolve in the sunlight, without realising what's happening. There's also a lot of swearing in this film which may be off-putting to some although it ties in with the gangster genre well enough.One thing this film really does have going for it are the special effects. The main ones are the glowing eyes, which are effectively shocking the first few times we see them. The best effect in the film is the disintegration of one of the vampires in the sunlight. His flesh burns apart, his arm comes off, and finally his neck bursts open spraying blood and his head dissolves. Quite shocking really, I was surprised this film got a 15 certificate rating here in Britain. Overall, the film feels a lot like a pre-runner to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, and I'm surprised that nobody seems to remember it these days as it's one of the most fun vampire films of the 1990s.

Marie is a vampire in the big city who picks her victims from the criminal underworld. One night she hooks a big fish, crime boss Sal Macelli, but the feed goes wrong - she has to flee before she finishes him off. Now he is one of her kind, she must find and dispatch him before he can feed and become immeasurably powerful …This is an extremely enjoyable vampire movie. It's a handsome production, with excellent Pittsburgh location photography. It has plenty of scary and sexy moments, like all good vampire films should. But most of all, Michael Wolk's script cleverly mixes together horror and gangster movie elements with terrific results. Sal starts out as your standard crime boss, does a very funny slavering transformation into a vampire, then realises the implications for his syndicate if he turns them into superhuman killers. He's still in the same line of work; nightlife, killing and power-struggles, only now he and his men will be unstoppable at it ! This is a terrific idea; the only film which even vaguely resembles it is Juan Padrón's brilliant but little-seen 1985 Cuban movie Vampiros En La Habana. Talented perennial supporting player Loggia has tremendous fun as the evil kingpin, staggering around in horror as he wakes up in the morgue, sucking the blood out of frozen steaks and generally terrifying the life out of everyone. Parillaud (Nikita) is great as Marie the vampire; lithe, athletic, frequently nude and with an amusingly ear-bashing thick French accent, and LaPaglia judges the all-over-the-place part of Joe well as he juggles layers of undercover cop / turncoat / vampire lover / confused hero. The support cast are full of funny performers too, particularly Rickles as the mob lawyer (his two death scenes are hilarious), Kagan as his much put-upon wife, Guzman as a detective, Proval as a hoodlum, scream queen Quigley as a nurse and Landis' trademark cameos by directors (here Dario Argento, Michael Ritchie, Tom Savini and a funny Sam Raimi as a meat-locker clerk). Landis directs with great wit and style; he makes the movie feel like an authentic spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian American gangster film which a vampire has mistakenly wandered into and milks the comic/horror potential for all its worth. Featuring great monster makeup by Steve Johnson, scary eyeball effects by Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton and lots of great old horror movie clips on TV, this is a fine frighteningly funny fanged flick for horror fans looking for something stylish and different.

~Spoiler~ Innocent Blood is John Landis' chaotic and hilarious take on the underworld and...the underworld. This is the movie where two genres unite: vampire films and mafia films. Who would have thought two of the most bloody genres would be so much fun together? Our first hero of this story is the centuries-old vampire, Marie. Marie has a conscience and only kills people who deserve it (hence the Innocent Blood title). Naturally she targets the mob; who's less innocent than them, right? Problems arise when she is interrupted dining on the Don so to speak. Sal "The Shark" Macelli doesn't die like he was supposed to, instead he becomes a vampire who goes on to recruit his whole "family" to the ranks of the undead. This creates a problem for our second hero, Joe Gennaro. Joe's an undercover cop who's trying to put away the Macelli family. As you can imagine, all sorts of comedic predicaments ensue. That's all I'm going to give away. The terrific cast includes some big names. Anne Parillaud of Le Femme Nikita fame stars as the sexy femme fatale. Anthony LaPaglia plays Gennaro and Robert Loggia is the scene-stealing Sal "The Shark." Speaking of scene-stealing, Don Rickles plays Sal's goofy attorney. The supporting cast includes Chazz Palminteri, David Proval, Luis Guzman, Tony Sirico, and Angela Bassett. Be on the lookout for some great cameos from some of the biggest names in horror. My only real complaint with the movie...Landis should have called it A French Vampire in Pittsburgh. That would have made a perfect companion piece with his American Werewolf in London.

John Landis is not the type of director who goes for any deeper meaning in his films outside of the occasional well-staged car chase in heavy traffic; however, this time, working with Michael Wolk's first-rate screenplay, he excels in narrative as well as in visual form. An undercover cop in Pittsburgh, posing as a thief for the Mob, becomes attracted to the scintillating French woman who is hellbent on killing kingpin Robert Loggia (seems she's a bloodsucker by night--and forgot to "finish the food" the evening she put the bite on Loggia's Sal the Shark!). Not terribly bright, but full of puckish black humor and one exciting, masterfully staged sequence after another. And when things calm down a bit, as with the motel sequence between hot twosome Anne Parillaud and Anthony LaPaglia, Landis is adept at smoothly changing the movie's rhythm. It's an impressive, gory, foul-mouthed, yet adrenalized and satirical piece of work, Landis' best. *** from ****