Children of the Night (1991)

A schoolteacher teams up with with a priest to stop a town being overrun by vampires.

Director:

Tony Randel

Writers:

Nicolas Falacci (screenplay), Nicolas Falacci (story)

Stars:

Karen Black, Peter DeLuise, Ami Dolenz

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Karen Black	...	Karen Thompson
Peter DeLuise	...	Mark Gardner
Ami Dolenz	...	Lucy Barrett
Maya McLaughlin	...	Cindy Thompson
Evan MacKenzie	...	Frank Aldin
David Sawyer	...	Czakyr
Shirley Spiegler Jacobs	...	Grandma
Josette DiCarlo	...	Officer Gates
Lloyd J. Kalicki	...	Billy
Daniel Arthur Wray	...	Doc Fisher
Roger Perkovich	...	Gus Willman
Ray Maurin	...	Mayor Horton
Stacy Montezon	...	Jessica
Bekki Vallin	...	Jessica's Mom
Butch Mounce	...	The Milkman

Storyline

Cindy and Lucy are eighteen and going away to college. As a ritual they must rid themselves of the dirt of their small home town (Allburg) by swimming in an abandoned church crypt. They jump in and begin talking about sex when Lucys crucifix falls into the water and drifts down to land on Czakyr's (an ancient vampire) head, apparently waking him up. Some time on-wards a school teacher from a nearby town, Mark, gets directed to Allburg to help Lucy and her grandmother, who are suspected to be in trouble. Lucy becomes the target of a town turned vampire because of her 'virgin blood'. Mark, Lucy and an old wino shack up in an abandoned building outside of town but eventually get lured back to Allburg by the locals. There, with a giant glowing cross spearing the front of their Toyota, they take the town on and battle Czakyr. They win and life is restored to its original normalcy.

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Plot Keywords:

vampire | virgin | crypt | priest | supernatural power | 

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Taglines:

Be home before nightfall... and pray for dawn!

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Genres:

Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for horror violence and language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 September 1991 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Crianças da Noite

Filming Locations:

Calumet, Michigan, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Karen Black and Garrett Morris were the first and only choices for their roles.

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Quotes

Gus: My client is certainly entitled for compensation for pain and suffering.
Doc Fisher: Pain and suffering? The woman is dead.

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Connections

Referenced in The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry (2010)

User Reviews

poor acting in this vampire flick, but some interesting visuals

Two young women go swimming in a flooded church (a neat setting, though it recalls Argento's Inferno). The cross necklace one of them wears sinks to the bottom, somehow reviving a vampire. The vampire is in some sort of hibernation, a state in which its lungs and esophagus are outside of its body! Sometime later, a schoolteacher visits a priest friend who has a vampire captive. It, too, keeps its lungs outside its body. The teacher doesn't want to believe in vampires, but as he tries to help other people finds they are very real.

Most of the acting in this film is very, very bad. Perhaps it's intentionally campy, I don't know. However, I did like the flooded church, the weird vampiric hibernation, and a post-feeding scene where a vampire shoots some sort of cocoon out of its mouth that envelopes its body.

Not really recommended, but vampire fans might enjoy some of the original effects.