Review of Innocent Blood (1992) by Jean-Francois V — 05 Jul 2009

Also known as "A French Vampire in America" (a variation on the theme of Landis's own "An American Werewolf in London", perhaps to make up a trilogy someday with "A Luxembourg Zombie in Kazakhstan"), "Innocent Blood" is a Donnie Brasco meets vampire chick movie. But though it features some gore, and especially some graphic blood sucking (curiously fangless though, despite the adherence to such cliches as the aversion to garlic), it is intended mainly as a black comedy - with a fair amount of slapstick and silly faces.

Robert Loggia as the mafia don who turns vampire tries to utter as many F-words by himself as he and the rest of the cast did nine years ealier in "Scarface" (I think he was almost there.) Anne Parillaud, who was quite a hit back when she was married to director Luc Besson, fails completely as a mixture of vulnerability and monstrosity, looking slightly ridiculous with her Christmas-tree eyes (that's what the alternately red, blue and green luminescent eyes felt like to me.) The black stockings and the full frontal and rear nudity are weak attempts to make her look sexy, but her hobo haircut, boyish face, bad acting, annoying French accent and total lack of class (she was going for the "innocence" of the title) completely spoiled the effect. To my eyes, she looked liked some doped chorus girl from a French rock band of the seventies.

The film is complete trash and very exploitative (the nudity is always pointless, and there are extended shots of a dozen half-naked dancers in a strip club, at least one of whom is a pornstar.) It is also poorly constructed and a failure at any of the genres it attempts to blend. The "extended kinky sex scene" the USCB refers to is probably the motel scene, which starts with Parillaud handcuffing herself, but she soon effortlessly gets rid of the cuffs with her vampire strength anyway.

Horror fans will probably be pleased by the various cameos by such directors as Dario Argento (as a nurse), Sam Raimi (as a butcher boy) and Tom Savini (as a reporter), and others by Frank Oz, Forrest J. Ackerman and scream queen Linnea Quigley (the punk chick from "Return of the Living Dead", doing some more screaming), as well as the numerous references to earlier Dracula movies by Browning and Fisher, "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" and Hitchcock's "Two Men on a Train." But this was not enough to endear the movie to me, and I rather feel like I've wasted 100 minutes.

Vegans and vegetarians should also be warned that the film contains numerous scenes involving meat eating and even sleeping on meat, and sets with dozens of dead animals hanging from the ceiling. But I suppose that didn't prevent the movie-makers from stating that no animal pain or death was involved in the film. Meat, after all, just doesn't count.