Cold Hearts (1999)

I love this movie so much

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This low-budget indie film about grungy, vampire youths haunting the beachfront (sound familiar?) could have been smart and amusing, but instead comes off like a fanged version of some WB-style TV show. It misses some clever opportunities to be both stylishly violent and sexy, and instead relies on long conversations between a brooding female vampire (who consistently delivers monotonous sad stories to everyone she meets), and a frat boy with a dufus persona and a dubious moral code. Technically competent but utterly adolescent.

If you like "Dawson's Creek" and you remember and love "The Lost Boys", this is the movie for you. Christopher Wiehl ("Charles") plays the perfect bad guy while Robert Floyd ("Seth") shadows him with the ideal guy-next-door image. Marisa Ryan ("Viki") is very believable as the hardened yet motherly vampire lead. Amy Jo Johnson ("Alicia") lends her natural cuteness to a character a little darker than she's played before. The story is pretty basic with Seth falling for the wrong girl, Viki. Charles does his best to victimize everyone involved with her. Jon Huertas ("Darius") and Christian Campbell ("John Luke") have stand out performances. Although sometimes long winded, Masciantonio adds the right amount of witty dialogue in with a few gross moments. Some of the effects could have been better and looked like they tried to cover them digital effects that were only a little bit better. I was surprised that Tom Savini was the Supervisor. The second time I watched it I kept the credits on. There was a scene I didn't see the first time that pops it. Although a little out of place, it was funny. There was also a listing for the sequel, "Kindred Spirits". I would watch this movie again.

OK, let's see... a handsome young stranger is new in town, and walks around on the local boardwalk. He meets a pretty girl, meets up with the obnoxious leader of the local hip young vampires club, is dared by them to follow them into this cave, gets into a conflict over the pretty girl, an epic fight ensues... No, it's not Lost Boys, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference, since I think even some of the carnival music is the same. (Do you have to pay royalties for sampling a movie?) Even the ending of this stinkbomb is ripped off from Lost Boys. The make-up is below par, even for a low-budget thriller, the characters are one-dimensional, and just exactly how many "Oh, I had this horrible experience" scenes of teen angst does one movie need? The humor is flat and stupid, and everything else is sadly predictable. Yawn. The only scary thing about this turkey is the promise (threat) of a sequel, an idea that hopefully every distributor in the country will drive a stake through.

I don't know who financed it, or why, but this "want to be" vampire flick is really awful. It tries to be hip, and appeal to the young MTV-generation audience, but it is just downright laughable. The acting is horrible, and the directing is horrendous. I heard the budget was $600,000. I want to know where all the money went?