INNOCENT BLOOD (1992)
It´s time to make a stand for everything that is good here in our rotten world again, friends. In this case all that happens to be good about our world is spelled John Landis and “Innocent Blood”. When this one was released back in 1992, it was pretty much universally lambasted for being a failure. Critics were disappointed, to say the least. I guess that I could understand them being that this was made by the director who made the werewolf classic “An American Werewolf in London” so when this guy was gonna tackle the vampire genre, everyone was getting a hard on just by the thought of it. Then everyone was all sad and blue when it was released because it didn´t live up to their expectations. Well, boo-fucking-hoo, I say! You see, I was around thirteen when this one was released and thought that it was fantastic. But the thing is that I hadn´t seen this movie since then, until I finally got around to ordering the German DVD (it´s the only one released in widescreen) and sat down to watch it the other night.
It´s always something of a gamble when you´re gonna re-visit one of these childhood favorites. Chances are that you´re gonna agree with everyone that kept calling you stupid as a kid because most of the times those movies you liked turn out to be pretty crappy, so you end up sitting there thinking “Christ, they were right! I must´ve been pretty stupid to like this movie, because this really blows!”
Well, in this case I had the exact opposite experience. This movie was actually better than I remember it being. And do you know why that is? Because John Landis is a genius and his take on vampirism is pretty goddamn funny, that´s why! And gory!
Marie (Anne Parillaud) is a vampire, making her rounds in a wintry Chicago. But she´s not your ordinary kind of vampire. She´s the kind that has a conscience, which means that she tries to limit her throat-sucking to the criminal denizens of her city. Everything´s hunky dory until two problems come up, she is interrupted while feeding on Sal “the shark” Macelli (Robert Loggia) and she begins to develop a relationship with Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), the policeman who has been trying to put Sal away. Sal wakes up in the morgue very confused and very thirsty. He goes back to his old haunts and begins to create an organized crime family of vampires while Marie and her policeman lover decide to hunt him down.
Did I mention that Marie also has quite an appetite for sex? That´s right, just like all good vampires she doesn´t only crave blood. Do you hear that, “Twilight”? That´s why it´s such fun to re-visit this movie because it´s a hell of a lot more gorier than I remember it being and in the first five minutes we´ve also been treated to the wonderful sight of Anne Parillaud walking around her bedroom, in her birthday suit! We´re talking full frontal here and tell me, how can you not like a movie that opens this way?
This is one underrated film we´ve got here, friends. We all know the state of vampires these days with young girls fawning over R-Pattz or whatever the hell they call him today, which is why this movie makes me nostalgic for the vampires of yesteryear. Remember when vampires actually did some killing whenever they showed up in a movie? Hey, it sounds crazy, kids, but that´s what they did! In this one they don´t sparkle in the sunlight, oh no, sir! You see, this Marie gal can be pretty vicious when she sets her mind to it and that´s why her attacks are among the highlights of the film. They´re pretty brutal, especially by today´s standards.
And you know what else I love about John Landis´ movies? It´s because they seem designed to be one and one thing only: fun! And this one is no exception. To see Italian gangsters run around, taking big chomps out of each other´s necks is pretty hilarious. Kind of makes me wonder why the hell no one ever came up with the idea of vampire gangsters before this movie. Especially since Robert Loggia seems to be born to play this part. He really lets it rip as the mob boss. The scene where he wakes up at the morgue is particularly funny. He kind of does the same schtick here that he would later hone to perfection on David Lynch´s “Lost Highway”, when he played that gangster boss with a severe case of road rage.
And you know, since this is a John Landis movie we also get the obligatory slew of cameos from different directors and other faces familiar to horror fans. In this one we get Sam Raimi as guy who works at a meat packing plant, Dario Argento as a paramedic, Michael Ritchie as a night watchman, Linnea Quigley as a nurse, Frank Oz as a pathologist and Forrest J. Ackerman as a guy who gets his car stolen. That´s always fun with Landis´ movies: to spot the different cameos. I know, it´s nerdy, but I admit it: I wear my badge of nerdiness with pride.
But except for the cameos, it´s a pretty impressive cast: Chazz Palminteri plays Loggia´s right hand man, Don Rickles plays the mobster´s lawyer, David Proval is in there, as well as Tony Sirico who played Tony Walnuts on “The Sopranos”. It´s kind of fun to see these guys who usually show up in mob movies directed by Scorsese, send up their image in this way.
And you know, since this is a movie from 1992 we´re talking about here, do you know what the best thing about it is? No goddamn CGI! That´s right, folks! None whatsoever. I know that that sounds pretty unbelievable but that´s how they made films back then: just practical effects. This means that when the blood starts to flow, it really flows here. Landis isn´t holding back here. Imagine that they got away with this back then: a vampire comedy with an R rating? Fantastic.
It´s obvious that Landis himself is a fan boy, as well. He shows his dedication to the genre by almost always having some old horror movie showing in the background and constantly paying tribute to other films. That doesn´t mean that he´s afraid to mix it up a bit when it comes to the vampire conventions, though. The vampires in this one doesn´t need a wooden stake through the heart in order to die. Landis shows a couple of times that regular bullets will suffice more than well. They also have a reflection whenever they look in the mirror. Garlic, however, is still a problem for them. We´re also shown in one of the best scenes of the movie that sunlight still pack a punch.
I kinda appreciate this approach to making a vampire movie. I think it makes it more fun if you deviate somewhat from the standard rules and conventions. But like I said, that does not mean that you should turn the vampires in the sobbing emo kids who sparkle when they´re exposed to sunlight, ok?
So let´s just ignore the fact that Anne Parillaud may not be the best actress in the world, ok? At least not when she´s forced to speak her lines in English, which isn´t her native tongue, then she sounds a bit stilted. She was fantastic in “Nikita” but she isn´t the most charismatic vampire in this one but I´ll take her over Bella any day. But let´s ignore that and concentrate on the fact that this may be one of the last truly entertaining vampire films ever produced. So thanks for that, John Landis!
Until next time: take scare!
Thomas