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
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