Tuesday 26 October 2021

Vampire in action movie double bill

Netflix premiered two otherwise unconnected movies in the last few weeks, Blood Red Sky and Night Teeth, which both basically add vampires to existing action movies.

Blood Red Sky has an infectious 30 Days Of Night style vampire seeking a cure, flying across the Atlantic with her son, when her plane is hijacked. Coincidentally, not by someone targeting her! That feels like a bigger coincidence than there being an air marshal aboard in Passenger 57. And it plays this premise straight, which is pretty surprising, and kind of works.

It takes a while to get going, 22 minutes into the two-hour runtime before we get to the hijacking and 34 minutes to the vampire reveal. But once the particularly bad hijacker works it out he acts on this information efficiently, and it quickly gets out of control. (Not sure how the ethically conflicted hijacker clashing with him squares with the plan overall, but never mind.) Oh, and Scottish people are unhelpful.

Night Teeth is indeed basically Collateral with vampires in a post John Wick style, and played somewhat comedic. Due to John Wick and more I had a hard time taking Alfie Allen seriously as a villain, the tone wobbles, and I’m not 100% sold on the central relationship either.

How Vampire: The Masquerade is it? The opening narration explains vampire history and the rules starting with not telling people, beginning with “We’re all around you...” like the credits of Kindred: The Embraced. If it’s not directly Masquerade it’s at least second-generation influenced, as that early Blade shoutout might show, along with The Lost Boys as a reminder of influences in turn. (And a bit Requiem in its use of graffiti to mark territories and the like.)

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