"The Insatiable" is a rather fine and acceptable vampire film with a few flaws.
**SPOILERS**
Coming home from work, Harry Balbo, (Sean Patrick Flanery) witnesses a brutal crime going on, but no one will believe his story about a female vampire doing the killing. Becoming obsessed with solving the mystery, he learns how to deal with vampires from master slayer Strickland, (Michael Biehn) and is sent off into battle against Tatiana, (Charlotte Ayanna) the vampire they believe responsible. Finding her, he can't compel himself to kill her and he decides to bring her back to his house and traps her in a steel cage in his basement, keeping her alive by feeding and caring for her. As the relationship grows stronger, it soon draws others into the web who can ruin it for him, forcing him into a position he didn't want to be in.
The Good News: This wasn't all that bad of a vampire film. The fact that the few vampire action seen in here is so good is something to be commended. The opening segments, where she's on the loose in the city, is really fun and actually good. The attack in the alleyway is great, using the darkness to hide the majority of it and having a flashlight to show the good parts, and that leads to the leaping exit as a fun visual. The apartment attack is just as good, for the nudity and the pot-breaking sequence contribute greatly to the good times ahead. The foot chase at the end of it is actually a little tense, mainly once it gets to the apartment building and the trap is sprung. The scenes in between, talking about the different ways of dealing with the a vampire in the modern times as well as the clever way of doing this, all of which is rather fun and original. The main story here is also nice, being new and unique while also having something different about the genre, which is always a plus. The last big plus is the really bloody and messy kills, what few there are in the film. Because of the structure here, there's not a whole lot of opportunities but the ones who are here aren't bad. There's a couple of bitten necks, a nice decapitation, an arm ripped completely off, a stabbing in the chest and one is feasted upon, which are all nice to see in these kinds of films. These here are the film's good points.
The Bad News: There was a couple of flaws in this one. The main issue is that the film suffers from a considerable lack of vampire action. The whole second-half of the film is done in such a manner as to make the action almost non-existent, really reducing the film's enjoyment factor considerably. By basically showing just the vampire hanging around the basement doing nothing except for tempting the lead, which has really little excitement value at all. The endless scenes in the basement serve very little function because it's obvious that the attraction is there but nothing is done with it. They merely reinforce everything that is already known, and the dialog establishes little new points, making them feel quite dull and lifeless. These, as well as the scenes in the workplace constitute the film's second-half, to the point of near-exclusion of anything else, and it's a marked difference over what has happened in the beginning, throwing off a real sense of disappointment when compared to the first half. Even though there's very little which actually happened, it's still not all that spectacular. The last flaw is that there's very little in the way of actual vampire motifs at all. Beyond the neck-biting and sleeping during the day, it's quite hard to believe this is a vampire film at all. There's a discrepancy between the strength, as one scene shows her ripping a door off yet another shows it having a hard time bending steel bars. It could've used a little more to actually stay connected with the vampire mythology. These here are the film's few faults.
The Final Verdict: With a couple of nice moments and a couple worthwhile flaws that pull it down a bit but is still watchable. Give this a shot if you're into the genre or are in the mood for something different within the style, while those looking for more complete genre-experience should seek elsewhere.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, a mild sex scene and violence against animals
**SPOILERS**
Coming home from work, Harry Balbo, (Sean Patrick Flanery) witnesses a brutal crime going on, but no one will believe his story about a female vampire doing the killing. Becoming obsessed with solving the mystery, he learns how to deal with vampires from master slayer Strickland, (Michael Biehn) and is sent off into battle against Tatiana, (Charlotte Ayanna) the vampire they believe responsible. Finding her, he can't compel himself to kill her and he decides to bring her back to his house and traps her in a steel cage in his basement, keeping her alive by feeding and caring for her. As the relationship grows stronger, it soon draws others into the web who can ruin it for him, forcing him into a position he didn't want to be in.
The Good News: This wasn't all that bad of a vampire film. The fact that the few vampire action seen in here is so good is something to be commended. The opening segments, where she's on the loose in the city, is really fun and actually good. The attack in the alleyway is great, using the darkness to hide the majority of it and having a flashlight to show the good parts, and that leads to the leaping exit as a fun visual. The apartment attack is just as good, for the nudity and the pot-breaking sequence contribute greatly to the good times ahead. The foot chase at the end of it is actually a little tense, mainly once it gets to the apartment building and the trap is sprung. The scenes in between, talking about the different ways of dealing with the a vampire in the modern times as well as the clever way of doing this, all of which is rather fun and original. The main story here is also nice, being new and unique while also having something different about the genre, which is always a plus. The last big plus is the really bloody and messy kills, what few there are in the film. Because of the structure here, there's not a whole lot of opportunities but the ones who are here aren't bad. There's a couple of bitten necks, a nice decapitation, an arm ripped completely off, a stabbing in the chest and one is feasted upon, which are all nice to see in these kinds of films. These here are the film's good points.
The Bad News: There was a couple of flaws in this one. The main issue is that the film suffers from a considerable lack of vampire action. The whole second-half of the film is done in such a manner as to make the action almost non-existent, really reducing the film's enjoyment factor considerably. By basically showing just the vampire hanging around the basement doing nothing except for tempting the lead, which has really little excitement value at all. The endless scenes in the basement serve very little function because it's obvious that the attraction is there but nothing is done with it. They merely reinforce everything that is already known, and the dialog establishes little new points, making them feel quite dull and lifeless. These, as well as the scenes in the workplace constitute the film's second-half, to the point of near-exclusion of anything else, and it's a marked difference over what has happened in the beginning, throwing off a real sense of disappointment when compared to the first half. Even though there's very little which actually happened, it's still not all that spectacular. The last flaw is that there's very little in the way of actual vampire motifs at all. Beyond the neck-biting and sleeping during the day, it's quite hard to believe this is a vampire film at all. There's a discrepancy between the strength, as one scene shows her ripping a door off yet another shows it having a hard time bending steel bars. It could've used a little more to actually stay connected with the vampire mythology. These here are the film's few faults.
The Final Verdict: With a couple of nice moments and a couple worthwhile flaws that pull it down a bit but is still watchable. Give this a shot if you're into the genre or are in the mood for something different within the style, while those looking for more complete genre-experience should seek elsewhere.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, a mild sex scene and violence against animals