Oct 13 2008
B+ Movie Review: The Thirst
There are very few tricks that any recent vampire flick hasn’t ripped off from another film about the beautiful and damned. When film makers try for something original, it usually either produces truly worthy cinema or it collapes into a dark red Caro syrupy mess. This also counts when you try to shuffle together ideas from other movies, hoping that the resulting mosaic will come across as a new and distinct idea unto itself.
Example, and today’s review: The Thirst.
I picked this movie up for something like $2 at a movie store’s going-out-of-business sale. The Thirst intrigued me because it was comparing itself to B+ Movie Near Dark . It played on my loyalty to Joss Whedon by casting three Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel actors: Adam Baldwin, Clare Kramer plus Tom Lenk. Plus, for crying out loud, it was $2.
As the opening credits rolled, I was a little skeptical I’d find any entertainment in this movie. But within the first seven minutes of the movie, we get to see two nude scenes, a profanity filled Narcotics Anonymous meeting, a hooker get killed with a lamp, and are reminded that the body contains about 15 gallons of blood, all of which is stored at high pressure. These details were enough to convince me to give the rest of the movie a chance.
By the end, I at least didn’t feel overcharged. Borrowing bits from both vampire flicks and drug movies, it kept showing me moments that just interesting enough that I’d hope they were going somewhere. Unfortunately, they alternated this with scenes full of people I didn’t care about that were paced so my finger would be hovering over the fast forward button just before they’d interest me again.
The plot revolves around two ex-junkies who end up tangled with a family of blood-sucking fiends. About half-way through the movie, the pair decide they want out and try to deal with the need for blood like a drug addiction. In the end, they have to decide if they are going to go along with the murderous crew (who feeds by taking out whole nightclubs of people at a time) or try to save themselves and maybe just a few others.
The film has the seeds of an interesting story which get choked in a pot of bad acting and inexplicable plot holes. The whole film feels rushed, such that the actors are mostly stereotypes rather than fleshed out characters. The head bad guy, a vampire named Darius and played by Law and Order actor Jeremy Sisto, switches between a bad Eastern European accent and a bad Southern accent for no apparent reason. The hero of the film comes across first as whiny, then as a jerk and only in the last third of the film seems to have much of any depth or any quality which makes you want to relate to him. The heroine of the picture is an enjoyable character and is portrayed well, but we get so little of her that we never really make a connection. We’re dealing with vampires that are supposed be hundreds of years old who get pretty soundly messed up by people who’ve been vampires for two days.
Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare or even The Lost Boys out of this movie and with that in mind it was watchable. The Thirst comes across as a project in which someone was trying to make a good picture, but not always the same person in every scene. I don’t regret watching it, but it’s not high on my “must recommend” or “watch again lists”.
The Thirst gets a D from me. Though if I were giving extra points for boob shots, it’d probably get at least a C.
