Vampire movies tend to be either romantic, straight horror, or romantic horror. But vampires also find themselves at home in comedy movies, too.
Vampires, eternal creatures that they are, are like cicada. They burst from the ground and terrorize everything they come into contact with, until the horror wears off and they become punchlines more than actual threats (The metaphor, admittedly, may need a little work.) They then go back into the ground for a while, only for the cycle to begin anew at some later date.
Innocent Blood finds itself firmly in the space where vampires had lost most of their bite. Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula came out the same year, but so did the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That should tell you everything you need to know about where the zeitgeist was headed.
Innocent Blood honestly looks like it would be more at home in 1987, right down to the fashion, clothes, style, and humor. In this movie, a French vampire named Marie lives and hunts in New York City, looking to break fast with a taste for Italian.
It’s a vampire mobster movie. Goodfellas meets Love at First Bite would give you a pretty good idea what you’re getting into. Anne Parillaud plays Marie with a sad, wistful, yet plucky energy. You sense her loneliness, but you also understand why she makes the choices she does. She would be right at home in a more romantic vampire movie, yet finds herself hunting some of the broadest Italian stereotypes this side of My Cousin Vinny.
The main thrust of the movie finds undercover cop Joe Gennaro working to take down crime boss Sallie ‘The Shark’ Macelli, played by Robert Loggia having the time of his life. When Joe’s partner in crime crosses paths with Marie and becomes her latest meal, Joe’s undercover identity is blown wide open and he’s put into witness protection and taken off the case. Marie, meanwhile, insinuates herself into Macelli’s circle and ends up accidentally turning him into a vampire when she’s interrupted before she can finish him off. Thus, she and Joe join forces to take the newly turned Macelli down before he can turn New York into his own personal feeding frenzy.
It’s not a perfect movie, but the absurdist sense of humor does a lot to carry it when the plot threatens to run away with itself. Marie is a great vampire, vicious and cunning yet overwhelmingly human at times. Loggia’s Macelli is a genuine threatening presence as a human, and once he becomes a vampire he’s even better.
Definitely give this one a watch. It’s a fun romp, if a bit silly, but definitely worth your time.