Schlocky horror-fest falls short in the saturated vampire genre, and almost falls off the scale.

I can't believe I went to see this, when I knew initially that it was gonna be pretty bad. However, two things summoned me to the theatre seat for it. One, it was a a really cheap theatre (thank god), and two, it got the "R" rating in Canada, and for those of you who know the rating system in Canada, it takes a heck of alot to get the dreaded Canadian "R". The equivalent of NC-17 in the States. So I wanted to see just what warranted this for a movie that would, in any other situation, be aimed at teens. I digress though.....

The story follows a young movie trailer editor (aww, how ironic) played by Dawson's Creek's Kerr Smith, as he agrees to take a souped-up divorce-won Mercedes to a woman in Miami, so he can get to his sisters wedding. Of course he has to drive across desert country to get there from California. My first notice of bad things to come was when a car passes him on a deserted highway, with two girls telling him he should stop at a party, a flash of one of their chests, and then they dissapear down the road. Following this, he blows something in the car and has to stay at a local dirt-ridden motor inn. The next day he meets Brendan Fehr's character who needs a ride, and is more than just a hitchiker. They travel together for a few hours, until, hey guess what, vampires show up!

This movie, I can't even call it a film, had everything a movie shouldn't have. Bad character designs, one character, played by "Coyote Uglys" Izabella Miko, wanders around like she is insane for most of the movie, alot of it naked, and doesn't really say much. Perhaps this is because when she does speak, the dialogue is absolutely terrible. Most of the dialogue between Smith and Fehr sounds as if it was lifted out of a silent film from the 20's. Get the picture.

The vampires, however, make the main characters look good in comparison. The main blood-sucker, played by Johnathon Schaech, is forever trying to sound believable and yet can't quite pull it off, and he falls apart completely by the time he starts singing a stale rock song at the top of his lungs attempting to make it sound scary......ooooh, I was freaked, can't you tell. The other vampires in his crew had such minimalist parts that I don't even know their names. There were two girls and another guy, who had the honour of making mistakes so that the venerable (scoff) lead vamp could look impressively smart, and say "no, don't do that, that's a stupid idea". Overall they didn't frighten anyone, and when you look right at them, they just don't seem to be good vampire characters.

The editing in this movie could have been done better by a child. The jump cutting and flashes of killing and blood, was attrociously done. It displaces you to the point where your like, "What the heck was that?!?!".

In the wake of really, really good vampire movies like "Blade", "Interview With The Vampire", and "From Dusk Till Dawn", "The Forsaken" just seemed to leave me wanting to go into the lobby and play the "Bust-A-Move" arcade, however, I persevered to the bitter end because ...hey, I'm the guy who stays in hopes that it gets better at the end. (I stayed until the end of Mission To Mars, and that was a feat!!)

When a film as good as "The Blair Witch Project" scared the living bejeezus out of me (saw it at a sneak preview showing the night before it opened), and didn't even have to have alot of blood and gore to freak me out, I feel that the forsaken tried to hard to put in twisted gore that for all intensive purposes didn't need to be there. When will Hollywood learn that blood and gore no longer frighten people. We need to get back to our roots, where it was the question of the thing you can't see that messes with your mind. Ah, but such is life.

On a last note, I would have to say that this flick garnered a whopping half a star out of 5 from me. I'm being generous.

I don't recommend it to anyone with a pre-disposition to plot and dialogue, and characters.