Children of the Night (1991)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is essentially a campy horror flick with some one-liners, some blood and Ami Dolenz. The film concerns a small country town overrun by vampires and only an out-of-town teacher (Peter DeLuise) and the town drunk (Garrett Morris) are able to fight the legion of the undead. Our unlikely heroes have to protect virginal Ami Dolenz whose blood is intoxicating to head vampire David Sawyer.STORY: $$ (The story is bare bones. Too many campy horror flicks poke fun at small country communities. A little originality wouldn't hurt. The camp works at times but more often it is absurd. The vampires aren't menacing but more along the lines of comedy. This is clearly one of those turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy flicks).ACTING: $$ (Nothing special here either. Cult actress Karen Black has a cameo as the town maneater and young Lloyd Kalicki is quite good as the perverted pre-teen peeping tom. Shirley Jacobs as Ami Dolenz's grandmother may give the best performance. Ami Dolenz, as always, is fine as the object of intrigue but some of the other main actors were poorly cast. Josette DiCarlo is beyond annoying as the town sheriff and Garrett Morris hiccups his way through his role as a drunkard. Peter DeLuise was a horrible selection as the leading man. He lacks a strong screen presence and in a film like this, you really need a Bruce Campbell, Bruce Abbott type as the leading man and not some no-name like Peter DeLuise).NUDITY: None. But a soaking wet Ami Dolenz is alright.

After 10 years of trying to hunt down a legit copy of this one, the wait was finally over in 2007. And to me, it was worth it. This is a sadly over-looked vampire-gem from the very early 90's (to my knowledge it never even made it over to our country on VHS or DVD; rather puzzling since pretty much everything has always been available over here on rental VHS until DVD started to change the videostore market)."Children Of The Night" certainly is an above average (crossbreeding) genre film and I for one got as much enjoyment out of it as I did with movies like "Vamp" and "Fright Night" (to name only 2). Above average, as far as production values, SFX and cool ideas go. Because the screenplay is a muddled mess, the pacing is off and the dialogues aren't exactly quality stuff either. The musical score had a bit of a "Hellraiser" (the original) vibe to it, which does raise the film to a higher, more sinister level at times. The scarce humorous aspects in it took some time to get used to (and seemed out of place first), but a drooling and horny vampire-version of Karen Black chained to a bed sure got me in the right mood. Very decent special-effects and vampire make-up too. And the most remarkable aspect of all: This film establishes a never-before-seen type of vampires. Or at least adds a new type of myth to these beings. You'll have to discover that for yourself, because I'm not going to tell what it is.All-in-all, even though I can understand people not really digging this kind of vampire-mixture, "Children Of The Night" turned out a very enjoyable watch for me. The first half has a fair amount of tension and manages to scare on some occasions, the second half is just plain good old vampire slaying fun. Other highlights in director Tony Randel's horror history are "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" and "Ticks" (AKA "Infested"), so you might have a better clue now of what to expect from this movie.

Watching practically unknown nineties horror films can be a bit hit and miss - and this one is undoubtedly a huge miss! All I realistically expected from this flick was a fun vampire movie, but all I got was rampant boredom. There's very little inventiveness in this film, and essential elements such as tension and suspense are also severely lacking. Director Tony Randel directed the first Hellraiser sequel a few years before this film, and that really got my hopes up as Hellraiser 2 was everything a sequel to the 1987 horror masterpiece should be; but he had much better material to work with then, and that is the principal reason why Children of the Night fails. The plot begins with the ever-present horror theme of some kids taking part in an old college ritual. It involves them swimming in some lake under a church, and they accidentally end up waking up a vampire. Pretty soon, their town is overrun by bloodsuckers and it's up to a bunch of dreary characters to save the day. Basically, all you need to know about this film is that the acting is terrible, the special effects are laughable and if you've seen more than a few vampire movies, you've seen all that this film has to offer already. Not even the presence of cult scream queen Karen Black can save it! Give it a miss.

Children of the night is the second in a string of 3 movies released by Fangoria films in the early 90's. I remember these movies were pretty heavily promoted to horror fans at the time. The best of these was mindwarp, and the worst one was severed ties. Children of the night falls squarely in the middle and it's kind of a middling movie in general (maybe a bit worse than middling depending on how you look at it).Early in the film there are a few scary scenes and that's why i don't give it a lower rating. It's sort of cheesy all the way through, but in the early going, there is some genuine darkness here and there... Unfortunately it deteriorates into a silly mess halfway through. It tries to be sort of a horror comedy, but it doesn't deliver any laughs. It feels like the director wants this to have a comic book quality and at times it does, but the material would have been better served with a darker treatment. The biggest problem with the film is it's lack of any sort of internal logic. It could have been a pretty entertaining movie, (even with it's undesirable cornball quality) if the plot didn't continually break down on a fundamental level. There are illogical horror films that work (like Lucio Fulci's "Seven Doors of Death") And they work because the whole film has a nightmarish, dreamlike quality... This film never pretends to have that kind of aesthetic. It's a more down to earth movie, and it needed to make sense.A good example of the flawed internal logic.... There is one vampire that seems immune to all the effects of vampirism. She retains her personality and is able to control her evil urges. Her remarkable ability is never explained and it seems that the only reason she was made that way was to allow for the films contrived and illogical ending sequence. All through the film you'll be asking yourself "why are they doing that?" the characters responses to the situations they face make no sense at all and it's so extreme that it's even over the line for a horror movie.so my recommendation would be... Watch this if your a vampire aficionado or a big horror fan, but if you start losing interest in the second half, just go ahead and turn it off... It doesn't get any better and you'll be pleased to see the credits roll