Excellent but underrated film

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Movie shot in b&w and takes place in NYC in 1984 (for no reason I could see). Jake (James Raftery) is 19. He's handsome and popular but there's one problem--he's a vampire (none of his friends know). One night he brings home Zohra (Karen Wexler) and, after some rough sex, drinks her blood. He stuffs her body in a trash bag and throws it away. Her hot-headed brother Angel (John Leguizamo) is looking for her and won't give up. Also Jake falls in love with Anne (Ali Thomas)--but can he control his blood lust? I'm going to be nice to this movie. It was made on an ultra low budget and though it doesn't succeed it has plenty of moments. First--the bad. I found the soundtrack VERY loud and obnoxious. It's punk rock and I don't like it. The script is kind of hard to follow and a lot of things just don't make sense. Also there's no real ending. The movie just sort of stops. But--I still like it in some strange way. For one thing the acting is good. Raftery is handsome and intense in the lead role. He expertly portrays his character's anguish at having to drink people's blood and his struggle to suppress it. Also he has multiple nude scenes and does have a nice body. Leguizamo is also good (if a little TOO hot-headed) as Angel. Actually no one is really bad. Also there's some nice directorial touches from director Jeffrey Arsenault. I LOVE one scene where all you see is Jake's eyes as he's watching Anne. Also there's an interview with the fabulous Caroline Munro about vampires. It's in b&w but on the DVD they have the full interview in color. So--this is far from perfect but I really like something about it. It was a labor of love for the director and it shows. I give it a 6.

So what if your life is meaningless and crappy. You live in a crappy abandoned building, and you go to crappy clubs that feature someone like "Screaming' Rachel, and you have a meaningless job in a pizza parlor (although we never see you working). Life sucks, especially your, and especially because you suck - blood that is.Yeah, you do have that extra problem of picking up girls to quench that thirst for blood. I do say this for you, though, you do manage to have sex before you kill them. Your life isn't a total waste.Jeffrey Arsenault didn't do anything in his first film to make me want to see his later ones and, judging by the response on IMDb, no one else has seen them either. There just didn't seem to be much of a plot. Sullen guy picks up girls, picks up Angel's (John Leguizamo) sister, gets in a fight with Angel, falls in love, throws up a lot after eating meat and drinking his own blood, finally can't take it anymore and rapes his love and chops her up after drinking her blood, gets in another fight with Angel. God, this man's life is miserable!It just sorta ends.It is cool seeing Michael Musto, writer for the Village Voice and frequent guest on "Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann"

The movie is shot by Jeffrey Arsenault with an unblinking eye. It is a textbook case of how to produce and direct a guerrilla film -- it succeeds, but its biggest success is its perfect casting of John Leguizamo as Angel.

The rough-edged New York City atmosphere in Night Owl makes you associate the film with the works of Nick Zedd and Richard Kern. Night Owl is, however, more sophisticated than the works of the transgression guys, and Jeffrey Arsenault seems to be a master of visuals whose skills are still somewhat in a certain stage of development. Anyway, Night Owl makes a nice surprise in an age when most of the contemporary vampire films coming out of the US are made by straight-to-video crapmakers who should never have been offered a camera with a videotape.