You won't be disappointed!

Admirable film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Joey Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) is a new henchman for mob boss Salvatore 'The Shark' Macelli (Robert Loggia). Sal is a ruthless killer. Joey turns out to be an undercover cop working under U.S. Attorney Sinclair (Angela Bassett). Marie (Anne Parillaud) is a vampire with a moral code. She only kills the criminal class and she finishes her food meaning she decapitates them before they turn. Tony (Chazz Palminteri) vouched for Joey but he gets eaten by Marie. Her next target is Sal but she doesn't finish before she gets shot and chased away. Sal is reborn and Marie needs help to bring him down.I really like the premise of a gangster vampire. I would have preferred a dark intense horror. Director John Landis brings a lighter touch which detracts from the intensity. There is plenty of blood but it's not that grotesque. LaPaglia does great mobster acting but this movie could use another type of action hero. The premise is great but the execution is less than thrilling.

Anne Parillaud, Robert Loggia, Anthony LaPaglia and Don Rickles star in John Landis' 1992 horror comedy. Parrilaud (La Femme Nikita) plays Marie, an attractive, French vampire who feeds on the not so nice guys. Loggia (Scarface) plays mob boss, Macelli, her target whom she bites, but fails to finish him off. Soon, he becomes a vampire and decides to turn his crime family into an undead family. LaPaglia (The Client) plays undercover cop, Joe who helps Marie stop him and also finds romance with her in the process. Rickles (Casino) plays Macelli's lawyer, Manny and there's also appearances by Angela Bassett, Frank Oz, Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Linnea Quigley and Tom Savini. This is a good film with creepy and humorous moments, a good cast & great make-up effects. I recommend this.

As some of you may know, I not only consider Landis' AN American WEREWOLF IN London (1981) the finest "Wolf Man" flick ever but it is also, hands down, the greatest horror film to emerge during the last 3 decades. Still, while I have always been aware of this one – which deals with vampires – I somehow never got around to watching it until now! I did catch Landis' two good entries in the "Masters Of Horror" series, though, not to mention the debacle that was his episode from TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983).Anyway, this is typical of the era in keeping nudity (right from the start, and some of which is surprisingly kinky!) and gore (as expected from a vampire movie, we get plenty of the red stuff) at the forefront. The film attempts to give a novel spin to the well-worn theme by making the heroine something of a femme fatale (a well-cast Anne Parillaud) – complete with first-person narration, where she rather uninspiringly refers to other humans as "food" – and throwing her amidst a modern-day world of 'cops and robbers' (thus continuing the noir analogy but which does not really lead anywhere!). The latter seems to emanate from a Martin Scorsese picture, what with the first such scene involving a man being beaten in the face with a toaster, but then it leans towards the heavy-handed when the mobster (Robert Loggia), vampirized by Parillaud when he takes her home for a fling, begins to infect his gang left, right and center! The hero (Anthony LaPaglia) is an undercover cop and he instantly catches the eye of the leading lady in that she does not want to convert him to her nature, even if his pursuit of her for presumably killing Loggia (which he had been meticulously planning to personally bring down) is relentless – she even glides over him in a POV shot inside a church! Once he realizes what she is (though, apparently, the word "vampire" is never actually used!), he naturally has a hard time convincing his colleagues...that is, until corpses start coming back to life with uncomfortable regularity. Herein, however, lies the film's main problem: the vampires here hardly act like your typical bloodsucker (which, by the way, they do not simply bite the jugular but rather tear right into the neck like an animal!). When aroused, their eyes glow and they give out feral sounds (which again resemble more a werewolf or, at least a panther, as this reminded me quite a bit of CAT PEOPLE {1982}!). Besides, the deathly make-up makes them look more like zombies than anything else! Other minuses, while we are on the subject, and especially in comparison with American WEREWOLF, is that the script (not written by the director himself in this case) shows little of the earlier film's knack in blending together the narrative's two styles, to the point that the comedy and horror here seem to belong in different movies but, also, the accompanying soundtrack pales beside that of the 1981 lycanthrope masterpiece (though one appreciates the in-joke of the mob being particularly fond of Frank Sinatra, given the singer/actor's notorious lifelong association with real-life underworld figures)! That said, a number of scenes are well done (notably Don Rickles' literal hospital 'meltdown'), Parillaud and Loggia (amusingly, he does not know what he has become at first and goes apeshit when he starts disintegrating in the sunlight) are terrific and, as usual, Landis incorporates his usual touches of the fabled "See You Next Wednesday" marquee and a handful of 'star' cameos, including genre authority Forrest J. Ackerman, directors Frank Oz and Michael Ritchie, and even fellow horror-meisters Dario Argento (then filming TRAUMA {1993} in the U.S.), Sam Raimi and Tom Savini!

Easily one of my favorite vampire movies ever (together with Kathryn Bigelow's "Near Dark", amongst others). Since I get the feeling that this movie is a bit under-appreciated, you might get the feeling that my rating perhaps is a bit over-rated too. But can you blame me after having watched one too many crappy vampire movies over the years? Honestly, I love "Innocent Blood". It's a perfect mixture of mafia and vampire stuff, skillfully directed by John Landis. Comedy and horror in a successful blend. A lot of cool cameos (Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Linnea Quigley...). We have some good actors who went on to act in HBO's "The Sopranos" later on (that, at least, has got to say something). Anne Parillaud is totally up for the part and perfectly believable as a sexy French vampire in Pittsburgh with a taste for Italian food. Some great special effects. Even the romance worked in this flick. Well done John Landis! If you've previously enjoyed his "An American Werewolf In London", then you should do alright having a blast with "Innocent Blood" too.