Amazon.com video review:
John Landis was the perfect director for Innocent Blood, a
horror-comedy hybrid that does for French vampires in Pittsburgh what
Landis's An American Werewolf in London did for hungry lycanthropes
in Picadilly Square. Anne Parillaud, the sexy star of La Femme
Nikita, is perfectly cast as a beguiling vampire who must feed
regularly on human blood, and when she spots a local Mafia kingpin (Robert
Loggia), she says to herself, "I think I'll try Italian!" But once the
Mafioso realizes he's now an undead vampire, he goes on a rampant crusade
of bloodthirsty vengeance, biting his soldiers and consigliere (Don
Rickles, no less!) to recruit an army of undead henchmen. Pretty soon
Parillaud's teamed up with an undercover cop (Anthony LaPaglia) in an
attempt to stop her victims from proliferating throughout the Pittsburgh
underworld. (Disconnecting the central nervous system will kill a
bloodsucker, and the powerful Parillaud can snap necks as efficiently as
she bites them.)
Landis keeps it all moving at a raucous pace, favoring humor without
sacrificing intelligent plotting and interesting characters. Parillaud
evokes sympathy even when her eyes glow fiery red and she's ripping the
throats out of her victims--hey, she's only trying to survive, right? And
Loggia takes one of his best-ever roles and runs with it, spouting lines of
Mafioso dialogue made hilarious by the fact that he's a walking,
blood-soaked corpse. Morbid humor and gruesome makeup are abundant here, as
well as Landis's trademark inclusion of cameos by such horror-movie icons
as Dario Argento, Sam Raimi, and monster-fan extraordinaire Forrest J.
Ackerman. With tenderness, toughness, a dash of kink, and plenty of laughs,
this is the kind of guilty pleasure that includes "I've Got You Under My
Skin" on the soundtrack, just for the sheer enjoyment of a campy
double-entendre. How can you resist? --Jeff Shannon
