Innocent Blood (1992)

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

"Innocent Blood" is not the best film John Landis ever did, that would be "Trading Places" and "Animal House", but it is much better than "An American Werewolf In London." I happen to be a huge fan of "Innocent Blood." It offers everything people might be looking for in a horror or gangster film (It is actually both (Although I will focus on the vampire part)), and deserves to be better known than it is. One thing that is very important to note, is unlike a lot of horror films, that have some comedy and romance involved, the suspense, chills and gore are there. Basically, it is about a female vampire named Marie (Anne Parillaud), who is very different than any other vampire I have ever seen in a film, she only feeds on bad people, which is why the title "Innocent Blood" is a misnomer. What she does is after feeding on the "Victims" she makes sure they are killed, so they cannot comeback and harm others. However, when she does it to Mob Boss Salle (The Shark) Macelli (Robert Loggia (Who does steal the film)), she is interrupted and prevented from doing that, so he is able to comeback from the dead, and creates an army of Mafia Vampires. She is determined to stop him, before he and the Mob are able to take the City (Pittsburgh) over. She ends up meeting Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), who is also after Macelli, and they start to fall for each other right from the start, but the biggest issue is starting to trust each other. From Joe's point of view, it is obvious, hoping she will not bite him, and from Marie's, that he can be trusted not to give her secret away (That she is a vampire, and is over 100 years old). Spoilers ahead: There is one scene who they are going to make love, and Joe is afraid of her, but she convinces him to restrain her. However, she easily breaks free, and the demon within her, sees him as food, but she is able to overcome those instincts. Together, they are able to defeat Macelli, but the biggest problem is what happens next? The issue with vampires and humans is when put together, generally humans become vampires, sometimes vampires get killed, and on occasion vampires get cured ("The Lost Boys" & "Near Dark" come to mind), but they never meet as equals. However, since Joe does not want to become a vampire (Nor does Marie want that for him), and since she is over 100 years old, she cannot be cured, neither of those will occur. In the end she wants to finally die, by sharing a sunrise with Joe, and lets him know they cannot be together because as she says "I take life." But Joe says "If you were perfect, you wouldn't still be single." She realizes that she actually has a chance to find some happiness, with someone who sees her as Marie, not the vampire (You do have some humans who want to gain immortality, so they actually use vampires for that purpose). So in the end, because of Joe, and only killing bad guys (Perhaps the most decent vampire out there), she finally gets happiness in her life (imagine 100 years by yourself, and instead of being like other vampires (Being part of a coven), but the price you pay is being alone? I am sure it is not easy). She is given a once in a lifetime break from her "Undead" life, and with Joe, gets to enjoy life again. Basically like Marie, it is a one of a kind vampire film. 10/10 Stars.Click here to Reply or Forward

Innocent Blood starts as a French female Vampire named Marie (Anna Parillaud) decides to eat 'Italian' & targets the gangsters working for Italian mafia man Sallie 'Tha Shark' Macelli (Robert Loggia), Marie lets herself get picked up by a Mafioso named Tony (Chazz Palminteri) & then bites his neck & drinks his blood before blowing his head off with a shotgun to make it look like a Mafia hit. After seducing Sallie & going back to his place Marie also kills him with a bite to the neck but undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) stops her before she can finish the job & later that night Sallie returns from the dead as a powerful almost invincible Vampire ready to take over the city with his Vampire mafia family. Realising what she has done Marie teams up with Gennaro to find Sallie & kill him once & for all but find themselves falling in love with each other...Directed by John Landis I must admit that I had never heard of Innocent Blood until it played on a cable television channel over here, looking at the telly guide (on-screen these days, none of this old fashioned paper magazine nonsense thank you) I saw it was a horror film with Landis as director, a quick check at work revealed not one person I asked if they had seen it had even heard of it so I wasn't expecting much but to my surprise Innocent Blood is a likable & fun mix of genres that is better than it has any right to be. The script mixes horror, black humour, outright comedy, gangster clichés, action scenes & even strives for eroticism at times with a fair amount of nudity & it all gels together in an endearing sort of way that makes you like it. The character's are broad clichés, from the cops to the really stereotypical Italian mafia gangsters who represent every American's clichéd conception of them but the script is fairly humorous & the film as a whole never takes itself too seriously, the character of Anne the Vampire is maybe the weakest with no background or clear rules behind her powers or weaknesses. Like a lot of Vampire films Hollywood pick & chooses the Vampire lore bu which it wants to stick to, sunlight still kills a Vampire here but so do bullets to the head & broken necks while they have no fangs although still bite people's necks & drink their blood. At just under an hour & fifty minutes long the time flew by while I was watching it, it has a great pace & while the mix of genres & sometime uneven tone can make it seem a little disjointed it's never less than entertaining. The main problem I had was the limited scope of the story, it takes too long for Sallie to realise his great powers & even then does nothing with it, why he just stands there at the end & lets Gennaro shoot him dead is actually quite baffling.There are quite a few genre cameos, from cult Italian director Dario Argento as a paramedic to special make-up effects man Tom Savini as a reporter to Frank Oz as a coroner to Forest J. Ackerman to Spider-Man (2002) director Sam Raimi & even Linnea Quigley has a small role as a nurse. Besides that lot Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee (both playing Dracula) & Alfred Hitchcock make small appearances on television screens in films that certain character's watch. There's some decent splattery gore here considering Innocent Blood as a mainstream film, from a morgue full of autopsied bodies to ripped out throats to bullet wounds to a cool scene where a Vampire burns in daylight & plenty of blood splatter too. There's a fair amount of nudity, when we first meet Marie for instance she's completely nude, there's a strip club scene & a sex scene between Marie & Gennaro. On aspect of the production I didn't like was the different coloured contact lenses the Vampires wore to change the colour of their eyes, I just thought it looked cheap & I hated the Tiger style roaring noises they made when trying to look threatening.I assume Innocent Blood flopped at the box-office which is why no-one has heard of it, it's nicely made with glossy Hollywood production values but maybe lacking a big name star to draw in the crowds. Renamed A French Vampire in America in an obvious play on the title of director Jonn Landis' classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) this isn't as good but he's made a lot worse to be fair. The acting varies, I thought Parillaud was awful & bland & I didn't even find her attractive either, other cast members fare better with a great performances from Robert Loggia in particular.Innocent Blood is a fun way to pass a couple of hours, it was a pleasant surprise that I didn't expect to be so entertaining. Sure it's shallow I suppose, a bit predictable & sometimes uneven in tone but just sit back & have fun with a top performance from Loggia, some decent gore, a bit of nudity & even the odd car chase & shoot-out. Nothing deep or meaningful but definitely worth a watch.

Marie is a vampire in the big city who picks her victims from the criminal underworld. One night she hooks a big fish, crime boss Sal Macelli, but the feed goes wrong - she has to flee before she finishes him off. Now he is one of her kind, she must find and dispatch him before he can feed and become immeasurably powerful …This is an extremely enjoyable vampire movie. It's a handsome production, with excellent Pittsburgh location photography. It has plenty of scary and sexy moments, like all good vampire films should. But most of all, Michael Wolk's script cleverly mixes together horror and gangster movie elements with terrific results. Sal starts out as your standard crime boss, does a very funny slavering transformation into a vampire, then realises the implications for his syndicate if he turns them into superhuman killers. He's still in the same line of work; nightlife, killing and power-struggles, only now he and his men will be unstoppable at it ! This is a terrific idea; the only film which even vaguely resembles it is Juan Padrón's brilliant but little-seen 1985 Cuban movie Vampiros En La Habana. Talented perennial supporting player Loggia has tremendous fun as the evil kingpin, staggering around in horror as he wakes up in the morgue, sucking the blood out of frozen steaks and generally terrifying the life out of everyone. Parillaud (Nikita) is great as Marie the vampire; lithe, athletic, frequently nude and with an amusingly ear-bashing thick French accent, and LaPaglia judges the all-over-the-place part of Joe well as he juggles layers of undercover cop / turncoat / vampire lover / confused hero. The support cast are full of funny performers too, particularly Rickles as the mob lawyer (his two death scenes are hilarious), Kagan as his much put-upon wife, Guzman as a detective, Proval as a hoodlum, scream queen Quigley as a nurse and Landis' trademark cameos by directors (here Dario Argento, Michael Ritchie, Tom Savini and a funny Sam Raimi as a meat-locker clerk). Landis directs with great wit and style; he makes the movie feel like an authentic spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian American gangster film which a vampire has mistakenly wandered into and milks the comic/horror potential for all its worth. Featuring great monster makeup by Steve Johnson, scary eyeball effects by Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton and lots of great old horror movie clips on TV, this is a fine frighteningly funny fanged flick for horror fans looking for something stylish and different.

John Landis is not the type of director who goes for any deeper meaning in his films outside of the occasional well-staged car chase in heavy traffic; however, this time, working with Michael Wolk's first-rate screenplay, he excels in narrative as well as in visual form. An undercover cop in Pittsburgh, posing as a thief for the Mob, becomes attracted to the scintillating French woman who is hellbent on killing kingpin Robert Loggia (seems she's a bloodsucker by night--and forgot to "finish the food" the evening she put the bite on Loggia's Sal the Shark!). Not terribly bright, but full of puckish black humor and one exciting, masterfully staged sequence after another. And when things calm down a bit, as with the motel sequence between hot twosome Anne Parillaud and Anthony LaPaglia, Landis is adept at smoothly changing the movie's rhythm. It's an impressive, gory, foul-mouthed, yet adrenalized and satirical piece of work, Landis' best. *** from ****