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.
"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.