Director: John Landis
Cast: Anne Parillaud, Robert Loggia, Anthony LaPaglia, Don Rickles
Screenplay: Michael Wolk
112 mins. Rated R for vampire violence, and for sexuality and language.

While mostly known for comedies, director John Landis is also the man who made the horror classic An American Werewolf in London, but he’s responsible for the underseen Innocent Blood, a movie I hadn’t been much aware of until the recent In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994 superdoc covered it. Even I didn’t realize that Landis had directed this vampire flick, but it carries his signature comedic style all the way throughout.

Marie (Anne Parillaud, Ballerina) is a vampire who only feeds on the bad guys, and she’s having a lot of fun taking out a number of mobsters, always ensuring to finish off her victim and avoid the spread of her vampirism. When she is interrupted while feeding from her latest victim, mob boss Sallie “The Shark” Macelli (Robert Loggia, Scarface), he is not killed and instead turns, giving him new strength and undead powers to use at his will. Now with Macelli out there turning his made men into murdering monsters, Marie must team up with a former undercover cop to stop him.

Innocent Blood is as much a mob film as a vampire film, similar to the recent Renfield, but I think the tone is better here. When looking at Michael Wolk’s screenplay, it’s hard to think of any filmmaker better fit for bringing this hybrid to the screen. Whatever your opinion on Landis as a person (I’d argue that he should never have had studio backing again after his reckless behavior on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie), when speaking purely as a filmmaker, he’s able to juggle horror and comedy quite well. While the mobster angle is a little too silly, Landis is able to play with those tones nicely, and he makes the horror elements really pop.

As a lead, Anne Parillaud isn’t really doing much to impress as Marie. Though she has undeniable sexual chemistry with Anthony LaPaglia (Happy Feet), she’s just not charismatic to be a commanding lead. She is far and away the weak performance of the film. Her scenes are uplifted by the more enigmatic character actors all around her.

On the flipside, Robert Loggia is excellently wicked in the most scenery-chewing role of perhaps his entire career as Macelli. He’s spitting fire and pissing vinegar in every moment, and once his vampirism takes over, he becomes a menacing and disturbing presence. His performance elevates the already heightened mood and does wonders for marrying the two tones of this vampire/mobster hybrid.

The makeup effects are more understated than American Werewolf in London, but the use of colored contact lenses and sloughing flesh make for excellent effects candy, making Innocent Blood stand out from a very crowded subgenre of vampire movies. It also features what could be the greatest vampiric-death-by-sunlight ever produced for film. The effects here are a spice added to the meal, and they don’t get talked about often enough.

While Innocent Blood doesn’t have a wonderful leading performance, and it struggles to bridge a great opening with its high-octane finale, this is still a peculiar and energetic vampire mobster movie that has some signature humor and some impressive special effects. How it’s gone unnoticed for so long, I’ll never be able to say for certain, but it’s certainly made an impression on me.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe