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16 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Lawerence Peacre has truly revived the long dead sub genre of vampires., 11 May 2007

Author: Luke from United States

Have you ever wanted to just sit down and watch a great vampire film? Yea well if you are looking for one you won't find one until you go way back to probably Near Dark. I am always hesitant when it comes to watching vampire films. Especially low budget vampire flicks. I have seen so many failed attempts at the sub genre that I really gave up on it. But Lawrence Pearce has come to the rescue with what I feel is the best Vampire flick I have seen since Near Dark hit the screen in 1987.

Night Junkies begins in a seedy strip joint in London where prostitution is heavily endorsed. Unfortunately its hottest ticket in town, Ruby, is not going for it. So her "pimps" are trying their best to make her "rethink" her situation. While Ruby is constantly under stress on the other side of town is Vincent. A low key guy with a nasty addiction, blood. He only appears at night and if he doesn't get his fix every night you don't want to be near the guy. Slowly you begin to see he is not the only one with this need to feed. Slowly Pearce brings you into Vincents world and shows you what life is like for a vampire on the streets of the seedy underbelly of London.

Before we know it Ruby and Vincent have a chance encounter at a café and they strike up a conversation. What was supposed to be a one night stand turns into a complete disaster when things head south.. WAY south. No one is safe as Ruby's pimps want her back and working. Vincent soon realizes that he has to do something and fast.

Night Junkies at the very core is a love story told against the wonderful backdrop of London. What is best about this film is that you could completely take away the vampire slant and just inject any kind of drug into the story and it would play perfectly. But with the horror slant it works fantastic for us horror fans. Not only is this movie pretty violent but it also has a healthy dose of T&A from the lovely Lauren Adams. This woman is truly a goddess and I hope she pursues her career further because I would love to see much more of her in the future. Her role in this particular film was much to small.

I would not be surprised if we saw this movie play with the After Dark Horrorfest '07. It was brilliantly crafted and handled very well on a meager budget. Its not as low budget as some movies we review on this site but this movie was made for less then what some Hollywood movies use for catering. But the best thing is it doesn't show. Night Junkies could play in a theater near you and you wouldn't know the difference between it and the million dollar trash that Hollywood will pump out.

To every single fan that has been dying for a great vampire flick, the wait is over. Lawrence Pearce has delivered a fantastic take on the vampire affliction that truly rocks. With its amazing locations, fantastic performances and not to mention a great looking cast this is one flick you don't want to miss out on.

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15 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
proud to proclaim myself a night junkie, 13 May 2007

Author: turnerlara from United Kingdom

As a puritanical fan of cinema and the concept of vampires, I have felt woefully let down by the spate of vampire flicks in recent years. The low budget ones especially have been cringe worthy. And then Lawrence Pearce comes along with his debut feature to restore my faith. It goes to show what someone with talent and vision can do on a true shoestring of a budget.

Night Junkies banishes the supernatural and elitist aspects that are always tied to the vampire genre, and gone too is the un-relatable overly brooding protagonist. Pearce's vampires are junkies in the truest sense of the term, and it is certainly a much more disturbing context, particularly with a view to the more than psychotic character: these are just people, albeit with a very unusual addiction. It creates a vulnerability in the characters that is endearing, and allows for the humanising moral debate within the vampires on who they feed on, or even if they could bring themselves to do it at all, giving them fantastic depth instead of emotional flat-lining.

Neither the sex nor the violence are at all gratuitous – although it is certainly shocking in places. Misogyny is not a keyword for this movie, but sexy certainly is. While most vampire movies flirt with the idea of eroticism, this film puts out. And the key thing to it is that it is never out of place, you never think that it is there for audience titillation; it flows smoothly with the plot, as it should.

The Tarantino references are well earned, and like all good Tarantino movies, this movie has plenty of lines to quote. The script is fantastic in fact; the dialogue is never over fussy or disjointed. And as with any script, the delivery can make or break it. Despite the general rule that low budget equals less than second-rate acting, this film refuses to conform. The acting is far superior to other low budget movies in the genre, divine in places I would go so far to say. And while the plot is certainly dark, it is never gloomy, there is a humour to it that us horror fans particularly enjoy, especially when it is done so well so as not to detract from the mood or to create moments where it becomes a parody.

I think one of the biggest joys of this movie is that it doesn't just appeal to a singular demographic or type of movie fan: it isn't limited to the enjoyment of the die-hard vampire or horror movie buff. It is enjoyable on both those levels, of course, but also for the drama and thriller audience this would hold a thrall. In fact the romance that unravels between Ruby and Vincent is truly captivating; it is a real romance, not the numb emotionally stunted whim so often portrayed in films of the genre that Pearce has managed to give the kiss of life. In short, seeing this film almost makes you feel that you have seen a number as it fills the need that each of the genres of horror, drama, thriller and romance fill – you finish it feeling satiated in the best sense of the word.

I can't wait to see what will come next from this director, and I can only hope and pray for another instalment in this world he has created so expertly.

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Worth the wait, 6 August 2007

Author: ryanisameateater from California, US

Night Junkies is a movie you will either love or hate. I, like most people I think, found out about this movie from the directors Myspace site where he's been using all sorts of marketing tactics to keep people interested during the long wait for the US release. Most of it fun, sometimes a little heavy handed.

Was it worth the wait? For me, definitely. For some others, definitely not. If you were hoping for a blood and guts Vampire movie with lots of special effects like the Blade movies, then you'll feel disappointed that Night Junkies is in fact more like a dark Vampire drama than a high action blood-sucker movie. Like Interview With a Vampire's more talky scenes set in modern day England.

I, however, really enjoyed it. I found the atmosphere throughout richly textured with the colors and lighting, the sets, the music and the style of it being deep and dark and sexually charged.

Some of the characters could have been a more explored and the movie could have been a more ambitious in it's aims. It ends up being quite a small story between just a few characters, but I read that it was made for $100,000 which is pretty amazing really. Night Junkies ends up being an interesting, and pretty unique vision of a type of Vampire movie I haven't seen before.

Lawrence Pearce is obviously not a director afraid of being in the public eye, by his Myspace site and the interviews I've read on the net. But well done, he should be very proud of his achievements so far.

The actors who played Vincent and Ruby gave admirable performances too, and the guy who played the Jack the Ripper characters is hilarious is a psychotic sort of way. Special mention should go to the composer and bands that made the music, it is a soundtrack that I'd buy.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Night Junkies, 22 March 2008

Author: Scarecrow-88 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Lurid vampire film, set within a seedy part of London where night feeders feast on the blood of prostitutes. Well two, in particular, both bitten by a mysterious woman, never named(..and whose face is never shown). One is Vincent Monroe(Giles Alderson), a night feeder who waxes existential about how the addiction for blood is akin to a heroine junkie's need for the next fix. He falls in love with a tough-talking, street-wise exotic dancer, Ruby(Katia Winter, who smolders on screen)for whom he bites, and turns, into a feeder. Ruby is haunted by the nightmarish childhood where memories of her heroine-addicted father(..seen at the opening as we view his puss-oozing arm, infected by the ugly needles)who would commit suicide in the next room. Ruby is being groomed as the top stripper of a club magnate, Max(Jonathan Coyne), a bald vicious sort, in tailor-made suits who "protects" the female investments under his employ. The lucrative prostitution ring he runs in his stripping establishment is ran under Max's iron fist and, along with his muscle(Daniel Kobbina), persuades his girls to participate in keeping the business a success. Ruby is continuously pressured by Max to take her position as a dancer one step further by making more money having sex with clients. Soon Ruby will attempt to leave her boss with Vincent working as her avenger..but a Jack-the-Ripper type psychopath(René Zagger), under Max's employ, also a feeder(..the other male turned by the mysterious female who seems to meet men she picks up at bars with the sole intent on spreading her "sickness" to others)has a fixation with Ruby and will seek revenge for what Vincent does to his boss, as well as to settle a score with the one who denounced his advances. This psycho is the actual one feasting on his boss' employees.

I commend the effort of director Lawrence Pearce whose obviously working with a rather low budget..it really shows because he shoots most of the film at night, with characters shot in darkened rooms and streets. Set in London, the director opts to show very little of the characteristics associated with the city, probably due to financial woes than choice. Yes, he does use modern techniques, but the director seems intent on keeping this "vampire" tale story-driven, even if the setting is riddled with foul characters and ugly circumstances. London, in this film, is portrayed as a nasty world replete with loathsome people. The title is quite appropriate..this views vampirism as an addiction with the need to feed insatiable, always there yearning for blood as the body desires oxygen. We are privy to Vincent's methods in how he selects and disposes with his victims. He tries to be selective, but there are times where he must not be choosy.He informs Ruby as they stroll a bridge that over the edge is his "..cute little community which rests at the bottom of the Thames." Ruby finds this repulsive, but Vincent believes he's doing them the community a service, if he left the bodies he fed from lying dead, "..it'd be like a user dumping needles on the street." This film is very talky with Vincent narratively explaining the burden of his addiction. At the forefront is this tragic love story between two lost souls trying to make a pact against feeding, but fighting the craving for blood(..along with the psycho searching for them and his climactic confrontation)will test their bond. Not a bad little movie, I rather liked it. But, the film is drenched in unpleasantness(the sleazy nature of Max's business is exploited; René Zagger's sadistic psycho beats a drunken hooker across the face in a rage, lapping up the blood on her face like a starving mutt), so it's not for all tastes(..pun intended). Many might feel that René Zagger is a bit too over-the-top..he certainly seems to be enjoying himself, relishing his violent behavior theatrically.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Whiny Emo-ers whimper about their Un-Life, thoroughly plodding and boring, 11 March 2008

Author: mactechg4 from Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, Earth, United States, New England

Dear Og is this a *BAD* film, it's not so much a Vampire film as it is a druggie drama, with Blood taking the place of controlled substances (which also appear in the film)

I consider myself a fan of "B" movies, I love a good MST3K-class movie, or a good horror film, this is neither, this is nothing but a slow, plodding melodrama, and a thorough waste of time, I couldn't even finish watching it, I gave up at the halfway point, I just couldn't take all the Emo whining

Heck, I'd rather watch Un-MST'ed Manos the Hands of Fate before I'd watch this, or even the Star Wars Holiday Special without Rifftrax enhancement

The Pros; Decent amount of female nudity (always a bonus) ;) uhh.......sorry, can't think of anything else

the Cons; the "vampires" have no fangs, a problem I've noticed in many current vampire films, especially the direct-to-video crap like this the total lack of the ability of the main characters to hold your interest for any amount of time No characters worth caring about, at the halfway point, I wanted everyone involved in this film to die

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Vampires behaving badly (unvampire-like)., 6 August 2007

Author: Boloxxxi from United States

Ahh, yes! -Another take on the vampire lore! I like the fact that the writer of this thing is trying to do something different with the vampire idea (as others have tried to do). The basic change always seems to involve removing some of the traditional qualities of the vampire that most of us are familiar with. In this instance, the writer went for broke and removed almost everything but the need for blood.

I'm none too happy with that.

The vampires in Night Junkies seem like ordinary junkies or ordinary people with a chemical addiction. There is nothing eerie or supernatural in their appearance. FOR GODSAKE, THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE FANGS! IMAGINE THAT! Practically speaking, having extended incisors makes taking blood more efficient; "neater" in fact, since you need only make 2 puncture holes in the right place. However, with regular "human" teeth it becomes a messier affair as it requires some tearing of flesh to get what you want. We could therefore say that these particular vampires are not as evolved as traditional vampires with there long sharp "practical" fangs.

I think the main reason for these untraditional vampires is that the writer (and most of the IMDb commentators) wants a fresh perspective and to "update" the vampire idea. I'm all for a fresh look at the vampire idea but I really believe you do a disservice to it when you take away the eeriness and creepiness of it; the "supernatural" or "otherworldly" flavor of it, if you will. This is a big part of what scares you. So why take it out by stripping the vampire of so much of their power? The vampires in this movie are horrific only in the sense that serial killers are. Nothing preternatural about them, just psycho. This is one reason I did not like the movie that much. But also, with these human-like vampires, the movie seemed more like a depressing slice of life of those who live on the fringes of society due to mental disorders, drug addiction, and prostitution. Everybody in this movie seemed depressingly dysfunctional. In fact this "vampire" movie comes off as a METAPHOR for drug addiction and the sad lives of those so addicted. So if you want to see this movie -BE WARNED! It is a drug addiction-type movie more than a "vampire" one.

I guess some writers feel that the vampire idea is more believable (and more interesting) if they are more human than they traditionally are. There may be some truth to this. But I say there has to be a way that the traditional vampire who is able to become a bat, a wolf, smoke, and able to climb sheer walls and hypnotize the hell out of you could still be interesting to today's more sophisticated audience. Love, Boloxxxi.

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13 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
An excellent take on the Vampire movie, 14 May 2007

Author: ewyse from United Kingdom

Night Junkies proves that original vampire movies aren't as dead as you may think. Focussing on the character's addictions, it provides us with a different take on a genre, which has been lacking in recent times.

Without giving too much away, Giles Alderson plays a convincing Vincent, a vampire who happens upon a lap dancer named Ruby, played by Katia Winter. Yes, I know it may seem difficult to just 'happen upon' a lap dancer, but they actually meet in a cafe, rather than a club and fall for each other. As the story unfolds, we follow the two main characters as they fight against their addiction for blood and there is a good back story of Ruby's father, a heroin addict, which provides a nice mirror for Ruby's new addiction and her reasons to fight it. They are hunted by 'Psycho', who has a few secrets of his own and is played convincingly (Too convincingly???) by Rene Zagger. Successfully ignoring much of the vampire Mythology, we have no fangs here (Look for a great scene, where Ruby checks her teeth in the mirror), no garlic, no holy water. A stake through the heart or bullet in the head will kill, but then, that would kill anyone right? Set in the back streets on London, Lawrence Pearce's vision of life as a night junkie, mixes the sensual, haunting life of Vincent, with the rather more sexual background of Ruby, producing a film charged with both.

This is Lawrence's first 'flick' and there should be many more to come on the strength of this. Hopefully Night Junkies will get the recognition it deserves, paving the way for Night Junkies 2 and restoring our faith in dark, edgy vampire movies.

All in all a great movie, make sure you get to see it.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
"You are a fart & I want you out of my ar*e." Terrible low budget boring Vampire thing., 13 September 2008

Author: Paul Andrews (poolandrews@hotmail.com) from UK

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Night Junkies is set in London where thirteen prostitutes have been brutally murdered & a killer is on the loose, against this backdrop of fear lap dancer Ruby Stone (Katia Winter) works in a strip club. While walking home one morning she meets a guy named Vincent Monroe (Giles Alderson) & she ends up going back to his flat & having sex with him. Unfortunately for Ruby Vincent happens to be a Vampire addicted to human blood & one bite from him infects her with the addiction. Afterwards not much else happens actually as Ruby has to come to terms with what she has become...

This British production was written, executive produced & directed Lawrence Pearce & I thought it was total crap to put it bluntly. As usual for these low budget pieces of crap the IMDb comments section seem to be overrun with users proclaiming it to be the best film ever & handing out 9 & 10 out of 10 star ratings which always make me wonder whether we have seen the same film or whether these users have other agenda's for trying to big certain films up. Anyway I throughly believe that if you were to take 100 random people off the street & showed them Night Junkies the majority of them would struggle to get through it & there certainly wouldn't be many 9 or 10 out of 10's handed out. For those who claim Night Junkies is original & a fresh take on the Vampire genre obviously haven't watched films like George A. Romero's modern take on Vampire lore Martin (1977) which was made three decades before Night Junkies & just about any Vampire film ever made deals with a central romance between a Vampire & a woman he falls for that goes right back to Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel while the whole 'hidden knife in the tip of a shoe' is ripped-off from the James Bond flick From Russia with Love (1963) & that was made nearly forty five years ago. I suppose that the makers have tried to make Night Junkies relevant in todays society & as it's title suggests it portrays the Vampires in this the same as drug addicts which is where the term 'junkie' actually comes from. From moralising about leaving dead bodies for people to find & making the comparison between drug addicts leaving their syringes lying around to the process of going Cold Turkey to dealing with the Vampire issue in a very cold & clinical way constantly making reference to real life drug addicts. The plot sucks, the dialogue is forgettable (although there's a nice little speech on farts) there's some crap about a killer Vampire that ends in a duller than dull climax & there's a fair bit of romance as Vincent & Ruby try to support each other & fall for each other & the pace is very slow with little going on to maintain ones interest, well mine anyway.

The start of the film is alright as it's set amongst the seedy London world of strip clubs & prostitution but this is all but abandoned by the half way mark at which point Night Junkies becomes an absolute bore & I personally started to read my newspaper listening to the soundtrack & occasionally peeking at the screen to follow what was going on & I still felt bored. There's no gore or special effects to speak of, there's a bit of fake blood but that's it. The Vampires don't have fangs & Night Junkies presents them as real people just with an addiction for blood which begs the question why don't they feed on animal blood? At least then they wouldn't have to kill anyone. There's some nudity during the first half but that really can't save it.

According to the IMDb this had a budget of about £405,000 which isn't as low budget as one might think, that's nearly half a million quid which is a lot make no mistake & considering that there's no special effects, no star names or action & a small cast I am not overly impressed. The cast of no-one I have ever heard of before make no impact & are fairly poor.

Night Junkies is a film that bored me to tears, I thought it was a basic boring piece of crap the only interest being the London red light district it sets itself in during the first half. A boring 100 odd minutes that you can live without seeing.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Nothing Original or Inspiring Here, 6 January 2008

Author: Jakealope from Albany, NY

I'm not saying this is a bad flick, but if you miss this you haven't missed a thing. Jude Law's "Immortal" is far better and far more interesting to look at. Abel Ferrara made "The Addiction" in 1995, which seems to have "inspired" this one. So non Bram Stoker - Hammer Horror vampires are hardly an original concept. It is a brutal, ugly movie made up with stock characters: the hooker with a heart of gold, the unwilling blood addict, the psycho, punk kids, and totally non present police. I mean there is a crime wave of hookers being brutally murdered ala Jack the Ripper, yet not even a stock bobby trying to restore order.

Mining the seedy underworld of strip joints and prostitution in Dickens like modern London, which seems to be old dark alleys, is nothing we haven't seen before. Mining drug addiction with intelligent but routine observation about addiction that one can find at any 12 Step meeting or a hundred horrors of drug movie is hardly inspiring. Ditto for non traditional vampires. So there is nothing groundbreaking or original in this movie. I saw bits and pieces of previous films spliced into this one. So it is hard to pretend this is something brave and new that is going to knock your socks off. It is full off some really brutal violence, though nothing exceptional by today's standards and the sexuality is there and is probably the only redeeming feature of the flick, Tarantino like dialog is routine too these days. Just cut and paste some lines in MS Word and viola! This is an indy movie as far as improvisation, location shots and low budgets go, but at heart it is a cheap exploitation flick with plenty of brutal violence, psycho behavior and some soft core sex thrown in to pander to sophistos by glossing it over with a patina of some intelligent dialog. In my book, if you shoot for some intelligent and arty effect but end up being mainly ugly, common, derivative and brutal, then you are better off just watching some mindless Alien tear them apart type flick or some cheesy Hammer high Goth vampire flick cause at least you be getting an honest product.

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13 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Addictive!, 11 May 2007

Author: joee_19 from United Kingdom

This movie is exactly what a modern day vampire movie should be. We have moved on from the immortal, emotionally numb vampire characters seen in older films of this genre. This movie highlights thoughts, feelings and strength of character that you wouldn't expect to see and the whole storyline is dark and extremely sexy.

The way in which this movie has been directed shows the vulnerability of the characters superbly, making the characters likable despite what they are. Lawrence Pearce's directing has made this movie dark, romanticised and intense. A fantastic achievement for a first film.

The acting gets 10/10 for me also, Giles Anderson as Vincent is extremely captivating and perfectly matched with his female counterpart, Ruby. The idea of treating these vampires like real life drug addicts adds an original twist to the story, making this my favourite vampire movie to date. The only thing that could possibly contend is a second instalment of Night Junkies!

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