The Forsaken (2001)

Excellent but underrated film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I've seen worse John Carpenter ripoffs, but this one is pretty blatant. It didn't even really bother ripping off one of Carpenter's better movies, which is kind of perplexing. Still, it was watchable, despite the director's best attempts to drive me off.The Forsaken stars two TV actors alternately chasing after and being chased by a vampire. The vampire is actually one of "the forsaken", a group of blah blah blah, who cares. Yes, there a bit of back story that sets straight all the incorrect vampire myths, tells us their weakness (sunlight), and the rules (must be killed on holy ground). Strangely, if they must be killed on holy ground, I don't understand why they care about sunlight. If sunlight can kill them (they hide during the day), then why do they need to be killed on holy ground? Do they die in sunlight, then instantly come back? Who knows. It's a bizarre plot hole that the director never sought to explain.Like Near Dark, which it also rips off, the vampires are updated to modern times. They use guns to kill people, hide in cars during the daylight hours, etc. It was fresh when Kathryn Bigelow did it, back in the mid 1980s. 15 years later, it's not so fresh.The soundtrack was detestable (full of Nu Metal), but, luckily, most of the music only played for a few seconds, before it faded out. I had blocked out memories of that era, and I resent being forced to experience it again. Without the music, this movie might have gotten a 6/10, but I kind of doubt it.Should you watch this? Sure, I guess. If you're obsessed with vampires, want to watch eye candy prance around, and you miss early 2000s Nu Metal. Otherwise, I'd say... skip it. It's not exactly bad, but there's nothing to recommend. Just stick to Near Dark, Blade, Vampires, or even Anne Rice's melodramatic soap opera, Interview With The Vampire.

Vampires have certainly come a long way over the course of cinematic history, indeed textual history as a whole. What started off as a secluded and rich count living in a massive castle in Eastern Europe has gradually become less and less as the years have worn on. Eventually, vampires would be of Hispanic decent as seen in From Dusk Till Dawn and of African American decent as seen in the Blade films, but there are probably earlier still examples of these two types. In The Forsaken, the vampires are of the teenage variety – a far cry to what vampires as a whole began as which makes the idea of these different, post-modern 'types' of vampires look a little silly and like a gimmick. There cannot be much surprise then, when The Forsaken comes across as something equally so.But there has to be some honesty about this comment and that is that I was enjoying The Forsaken up until a certain point. In the long run, the film is nothing special and when essence of familiarity and formula begin to creep into a film that few will even have heard of, let alone seen; you know it's struggling. Although the film falls into that genre of horror, you feel it does less so for the fact that it is genuinely creepy and more so for the fact that mere vampires play an important role in its plot line. The narrative drive for the film sees one of very few vampire leaders left amongst them hiding out in dustbowl America – it is this lead vampire, who has a pretty nasty back-story from over in Europe, that Nick (Fehr) is charged with hunting down and killing for sake of all mankind. Innocent bystander Sean (Smith), who is on his way to his sister's wedding, gets caught up in this extremely small scale war and will suffer as a consequence.I know the cliché is that you shouldn't pick up hitchhikers and films like The Forsaken really hammer home that idea. Yes, you don't know if they're crazy but it could be worse, they could be the harbinger of a story revolving around the apocalypse. If Wolf Creek told us not to hitchhike because you never know who's picking you up and The Hitcher told us not to pick them up in the first place, then The Forsaken has an equal message of morality emphasising what not to do if someone wants a ride – notice Sean's weakness was the offering of money by the third party; is this a further hidden message about the sin of greed? But this adventure will not be so easy for vampire hunter Nick, who reveals himself at a nicely timed point in the film amongst some nasty scenes involving a girl that is 'turning'. Nick may be way too young for my liking to be such the veteran vampire hunter he says he is we'll all have to go along with it. It turns out these nasty caricatures of teenagers who have been going around teasing Sean and Nick over uncharged car batteries and causing carnage at stoner beer picnics are indeed all part of a gang that fronts this lead vampire that needs to be gotten rid of.But while this idea for a story feels old and outdated, it is remarkable how ordinary the execution for it here actually feels. The idea of a post-apocalyptic world is a scary one and the scenes in which mere mortals are on screen are sparse and over quickly, one or two of which meet their grizzly demise in double quick fashion – the best being the state trooper, a figure of authority and power dispatched relatively easily by the antagonistic vampires. This helps build whatever atmosphere the film needs to make us mere mortals look smaller and less powerful; a race that would not win the war if that's what it came to. But The Forsaken is a film whose best scares are incidences like a particularly large spider creeping towards a young and defenceless girl in a compromising situation as well as the lead villain using a snake to bite his arm in order to achieve some sort of 'high'. The film is all very low key and should not be viewed as an exercise in scares.Along with this, the evil-doers in The Forsaken are either established as individuals of a French (European to the wider extent of things) decent or are black females as seen in the case of Cym (Oruche). It's this biting and somewhat childish way of pointing the finger at Europe as the source for the evil-doing and casting a black, British girl for the role of the chief villain's blood hungry, seductive girlfriend. The Forsaken is a film that starts out promising; gradually gets sillier and then ends with an explosion before establishing a disappointing new order in which we discover nothing really has been achieved. But at least the film moves on the character of the vampire as a whole: they can attain a mere rush over a poisonous snake bite to the arm but when it comes to sunlight, they're still screwed. With this in mind, the sequel might as well have vampires whom can withstand a machine gun clip to the torso but have a character throw a piece of garlic at them, and they run scared.

~Spoiler~ The Forsaken is a vampire movie that had a lot of potential to be cool but fell short. This is probably J.S. Cardone's best film and more than likely his biggest hit. It borrows a little from better vampire movies and that's where the film suffers. You can tell Cardone was going for a Near Dark vibe and some story elements are exactly the same as John Carpenter's Vampires. In Hitcher fashion, Kerr Smith is driving a car through the desert that must be delivered on time. Because he's short on gas money he picks up hitchhiker/vampire hunter Brendan Fehr and the movie starts to pick up. Johnathan Schaech leads vampire clan that is after our heroes. Schaech is a good villain and I like him as an actor, he just has deliver some cheesy lines. I felt embarrassed for him when he has to sing Metallica's Enter Sandman. But he makes up for it with the rattlesnake scene. Despite the cheesiness, it's the buddy rapport that makes this movie good. Fehr and Smith have a good chemistry together and, to be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing a follow-up with their characters (the movie is somewhat open-ended). They'd have to bring more originality to the table however. If you're really into the teen movies from this era, I'd say check it out. You could do a lot worse.

While traveling cross-country Sean picks up a hitchhiker named Nick,a mysterious,pessimistic fellow with no direction.They encounter a freaked-out girl whom Nick seems to know how to help. Come to find out,the girl was recently bitten by a vampire and will completely turn into one in a few days.Nick had the same thing happen to him and thus recognized the symptoms;he's been postponing the inevitable through a cocktail of drugs that can stave off the vampire virus for a while.If he can find and kill the vampire who bit him,the virus will go away."The Forsaken" is a fast-paced vampire flick obviously influenced by Kathryn Bieglow's "Near Dark".The film features a decent amount of blood and nudity.The acting is fine,unfortunately "The Forsaken" is never scary.Still if you want to kill some time give it a look.7 out of 10.