Children of the Night

"Children of the Night" has some interesting ideas to update/revamp the vampire mythology, but unfortunately none of it really goes anywhere. The special effects are good and some scenes where the vampires go to sleep in their "cocoon" stage is pretty impressive, but in the grand scheme of things, the cocoon stage has no relevance to the plot and it turns into a routine vampire movie. Several plot points come out of nowhere and the film often feels like it's based on a book that it assumes the audience has read so it skips over important details. You never really get to understand why some people turn into vampires and other don't (do you have to die to a vampire bite? does it take a certain number of drainings?) and other than just stopping the vampires, it doesn't really have anything else going on story-wise. These factors make the plot forgettable and while the special effects are pretty good, some of the acting is bad and plants this firmly as "just another vampire movie". If you're a die-hard vampire fan you might be entertained but it's nothing special at all. Other films have taken just one of the multiple ideas in the film (such as a town being overrun by vampires or a wacky group of misfit characters being forced to combat the undead with rag-tag equipment) and made much more satisfying movie experiences and the ideas that haven't been used in other later films don't pay off so there's not much here to recommend. (On VHS, September 14, 2012)