CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT (1990)
Fangorian!
I know what you're thinking. "At last, somebody's taking the songs of Iced Earth and turning them into feature films! Can a huge-scale rendition of the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" trilogy be far behind?"
Well, no. CotN is about Allberg, a little town that's introduced with a subtitle as being a quiet, unassuming town nestled way back in the woods. Then we see a van with loudspeakers driving around, loudly proclaiming how all will perish from God's wrath and burn in Hay-yell, we see some little kid rifling through the porno mags, and we see the town drunk stumble out into the street and get hit by a car. That pretty much sets up the tone for the movie.
I didn't have very high hopes for this one - vampire movies have largely worn too thin to be of much use (last year's twin vampire-slayer movies excepted), and Tony Randel, who we all once had high hopes for, has largely frittered away his career and credibility on shit like the Power Rangers, and the Amityville movie with the haunted clock. But overall, this one comes across pretty well, and I dare say it's the movie that Bordello Of Blood should have been.
Karen Black (I don't think any actress in history has been saddled with as many bad wigs as this lady) is given top billing, but her role's small. The plot centers around a young lady who goes swimming with her friend in a local crypt (yeah, you read it right), drops her crucifix on a corpse down there, and soon enough the whole town's swimming with the undead. Undead who find themselves with speech impediments now that they've got these huge fangs. It's actually pretty funny, whether or not it's intentional.
The cast is uniformly terrible (even Garrett Morris, who usually distinguishes himself), with the sole exception of Josette DiCarlo as a cranky police officer, who's hilarious. There are some inventive moments, like an icky, creative scene where Karen Black entombs herself in translucent goo, and a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it scene where Peter DeLouise knocks off a vampire's face with a wooden board. No, not his whole head, just his face.
A good sense of humor and a rapid pace breathe some life into what could've been a really stale little piece of crap. Produced by the folks at Fangoria magazine.