I don't know how this slipped under the radar. The main character is shown to be making hard choices before the first vampire even appears and every scene, practically, is a moral dilemma with great play on viewer expectation. The performances, writing, editing and shot selection all are excellent. Josh Hartnett and, to my surprise, Ben Foster (who knew he was a great actor even before Rampart) were incredible.
I hate to say this because it pisses me off to no end when I hear it from fans of The Matrix Reloaded and The Fountain, but the haters seem to be thick. Every negative review I read demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the vampire myth (particularly a confusion between the semantic and syntactic aspects of genre).
The writers of this film understand vampires. The vampire is pure narcissism incarnate, utterly lacking in empathy, sympathy, and mercy; and the film expresses that through action and dialogue to an extraordinary degree. Vampires lack what makes us fundamentally human, and the horror genre itself is about the delineation between human and monster. Where this movie really shines is in how it shows that we have to make hard choices and become monsters ourselves to fight evil. I rank it right up there with Dracula.
I hate to say this because it pisses me off to no end when I hear it from fans of The Matrix Reloaded and The Fountain, but the haters seem to be thick. Every negative review I read demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the vampire myth (particularly a confusion between the semantic and syntactic aspects of genre).
The writers of this film understand vampires. The vampire is pure narcissism incarnate, utterly lacking in empathy, sympathy, and mercy; and the film expresses that through action and dialogue to an extraordinary degree. Vampires lack what makes us fundamentally human, and the horror genre itself is about the delineation between human and monster. Where this movie really shines is in how it shows that we have to make hard choices and become monsters ourselves to fight evil. I rank it right up there with Dracula.