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The Breed
Vampires have come out of the shadows and are living as normal citizens. Two policemen, one a vampire, are assigned to track down a serial killer who tears the throat of his victims and drains their blood.
Release : | 2001 |
Rating : | 4.7 |
Studio : | Motion Picture Corporation of America, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Production Design, |
Cast : | Adrian Paul Bokeem Woodbine Bai Ling Péter Halász James Booth |
Genre : | Horror Action Science Fiction |
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Reviews
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Set in a future police state environment, vampires have decided to reveal themselves to the government. The government, however, has decided to keep this information top secret and not to release it to the public. Bokeem Woodbine plays a police detective named "Steve Grant" who is unaware of vampires until his partner is killed by one of them. Since Bokeem has witnessed a vampire in action, the top secret agency decides to reveal this information to him so that he can catch the killer. One of the vampires entrusted by his community to keep the peace named "Aaron Gray" (Adrian Paul), volunteers to work with Steve to help him catch the killer. Being few in number and quite peaceful, the vampire community doesn't want a rogue vampire to ruin their reputation and invite panic among the humans which might cause the humans to seek retribution. Since one of the vampires is causing all of the problems, Adrian takes Steve to one of their hidden villages to gather clues and compare notes. Since this is where the film gets interesting and not wanting to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, I won't divulge the rest of the story. I will say though that this was an intriguing movie which deviates from the usual vampire storyline. It has a good plot and some interesting twists along the way. On the other hand, the acting was barely satisfactory. While both Adrian Paul and Bai Ling (as the vampire "Lucy Westenra") performed adequately, I cannot say the same for Bokeem Woodbine as he seemed terribly miscast in this film. In fact, his performance was so bad that he almost ruined this film entirely. Fortunately, the plot and the two actors mentioned previously helped negate the damage somewhat. Even so, what should have been a very good movie in spite of the low budget ends up like so many films with few financial resources available. Slightly below average.
Based on the automobiles I would just call it an alternate earth ratherthen put it far in future and i would call it a dark sci-fi fantasy romantic thriller rather then horror perse. A world where vampires had come out of the closet so to speak is rather believable in that if vampires existed as they do in that setting, the problem would be more of the public at large believingb then disbelief. The chill of the movie comes from the reasons why some vampires don't want public view vs those wanting integration with society. The sub plot of the principal vampire animosity against discrimination of beief is very good along with the the human main character. The closer to life possibilities of the vampires of the story make them more believable as a branch of humanity then anything else. What has been found in recent years about various physical conditions makes the possibility of vampires and others existing. The darker alternate setting was more like 1984 then anything else but it would be better to call it as it appeared, an event of the late 50s based on the autos.Calling it a B movie fits, but I viewed it for the storyline not the acting or action sequences but rather for being entertained. If one wants good acting or scenes there are other movies. If one likes a story to entertain and just chill a little this one fits nicely. View it for the story line not the scenes,or the acting but the story and one may enjoy it. It has now rerun on one channel 3 times and I keep finding little story gems.
It's a great movie. Bai Ling and Adrian Paul deserve huge amounts of credit for maintaining their roles and carrying the miasma of authoritarian Gothic goodness while that idiot Bokeem Woodbine savages every line he has, fails to even swear in an appropriate or at least believable manner and basically attempts to single-handedly ruin the movie. His performance is atrocious.That said, the movie is quite good. It has a cold war/Eastern Bloc/orwellian vibe with hints of art deco and the 40s thrown in as well. the plot is interesting and fairly innovative.Anyone who is a fan of films like blade runner, citizen X, etc would do well to check this out as well as any mainstream horror fans. Don't let Bokeem get in the way its definitely worth a view. For an extra treat rent or buy the DVD and check out the audio commentaries.
With a reasonable budget ($4mm, according to IMDb), atmospheric location shooting in Rumania, and an intriguing premise, The Breed should have been a gem of a vampire flick. Instead, it's a contest between screenwriters Gage and Fletcher's comic book dialogue and Bokeem Woodbine's unfathomably inept lead performance to see who can drive a stake through the heart of this mess first.On the positive side, Adrian Paul convinces as an impressively physical vampire detective. Unfortunately, Ling Bai has zero chemistry with Woodbine, although that's probably not her fault, as nobody seems to. Disappointingly, her beauty gets buried under enough mascara to embarrass Alice Cooper.Director Michael Oblowitz demonstrates a flair for tense shoot-outs. But each time he cranks up the suspense, it takes only a few words from the relentlessly unconvincing Woodbine to obliterate the mood and return the viewer to Square One. This becomes such a routine occurrence, one is torn between frustration and laughter.The screenwriters' insistence on sophomoric "in" references only serves to make matters worse. A doctor named Fleming talks of James Bond and Blofeld, and other characters are named (no kidding) Lucy Westernra, Cross, Orlock, Gray, Seward, and Bathory. If that isn't enough, f-bombs drop everywhere.Needless to say, writers are answerable to directors, directors report to producers, and actors sometimes insist on improvising. So it's hard to know who's to blame for the end result. But ultimately, as another reviewer correctly observed, The Breed can only be enjoyed for what it had the potential to be.