Good story, Not enough for a whole film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

After the recent passing of her mother, Katherine (Mia Sara) decides to travel to Romania to find the father she never knew. Guided by dreams she is lead to Anthony Perkins with a Dracula accent. 35 minutes into the film, the "V" word is used and things are not hard to figure out from the plot spoiler title. Katherine plays "Mrs. Columbo" to locate her father who may or may not be dead.IMDb lists it as a TV movie which accounts for the lame sound track and mediocre plot.This movie about Romania is part of a multi-pack called "15 American Horror." Parental Guide: No f-bombs. Brief sex and nudity.

You'd expect something more than this bland, obvious, bloodless vampire thriller from a collaboration between Stuart Gordon (of "Re-Animator" infamy) and Anthony Perkins. The stunning Mia Sara stars as a young American girl who travels to Romania to find out what happened to her father; she has a photograph of her father, and it looks like Perkins, but when she meets him she doesn't recognize him (!), and apparently the audience is meant to gasp when Perkins is finally revealed as her father. The film is a big disappointment, though it's fun to see Noah Bennett from "Heroes" looking so young. *1/2 out of 4.

"Daughter of Darkness" is an actually pretty good film with a few small flaws to it.**SPOILERS**Arriving in Romania, American Katherine Thatcher, (Mia Sara) determined to find herself a new life. While searching through the city with Max, (Dezso Garas) keeps seeing a strange dragon symbol that resembles a design on her medallion she wears which helps her along with the search for her missing father. Meeting with local Grigore Protoescu, (Robert Reynolds) who helps her along, and she manages to do a little more digging into the past, eventually coming across Anton, (Anthony Perkins) who has a terrible secret for her. Eventually cornered with the realization that her father is a member of a secret society of vampires that needs their blood to stay alive, and that everyone else she trusts is either a member or are a willful helper, she tries to escape from their clutches before she becomes one of them.The Good News: There's some good stuff to this one. One of the best is that there's a habit of including really neat scenes in random order throughout the film. Some of them are pretty creepy, including a rather intense chase of a black-robed figure through the streets at night, which leads into the incredibly explosive finale that really ends it the right way. The foot chase to the taxi later on is also pretty good, and it even manages to get in some pretty good stuff later on. There's the whole finale to this, which is where most of the fun in the film comes from. From the creepy torture dungeon to the stable hideout, there's some good locations for the all-out action assaults. Those are great, as there's the torture segment in the dungeon which is actually really cool, as the sight of the vampire being strapped to a machine that lets in daylight to scar and torch the hands, arms and face, and the impressive visual of that happening, is a great site and manages to make them feel a lot more threatening when it occurs. Then there's the confrontation in the stable, which is just great. From the introduction of the fire to set everything ablaze to the brawling with the vampires and the destruction of the location and the thrilling escape, it's really fun and enjoyable. It's also got the fact that the vampires are all knocked off by being set on-fire is really great, as there's plenty of great scenes that show them running around on fire. It's a great site, and mixed in with the really great setting and fun action make the ending fun. What makes these work is the really entertaining storyline for this one. There's a really great mystery angle at work, with the reason for the journey to Romania a logical one that allows for some creepy goings-on that it manages to incorporate because of what's going on, and they're all done really nicely in here because the story allows them to. These here are the film's good points.The Bad News: This one here had a few flaws to it that do hold it down. The main one here does have one of the worst problems with it's vampires in here. This one here does have the new bloodsucking angle, but beyond that and the can't-stand-sunlight angle, there's almost no need for them to even be vampires. This one would've worked fine with a cult of vampire wannabe's who think they're vampires or had something else done with what's been given so far, because this one really doesn't feel like a vampire film at all. This would still be entertaining with the cult angle rather than the vampire coven, and a little more with this would've been fine. The other flaw to this is that there should've been a little more action to this in the beginning. Since it focuses on the mystery more than anything else during that part, it manages to be a little boring for these scenes, as it's in the beginning and it takes a while to get into. These here are the film's few problems.The Final Verdict: With some very good points to this and only a few really noticeable flaws that hold it down, this one ends up as being one of the better entries available. Give this one a chance if it sounds interesting or find these kinds of films themselves quite fun, otherwise the flaws here will be quite worthwhile.Rated R: Violence, Language and Nudity

Daughter of Darkness tells the tale of a Chicago high school teacher named Katherine Thatcher (Mia Sara) whose Mother has recently died, Katherine decides to travel to Romania to track down the Father she never knew with only a photograph & an address to go on. Once in Bucharest she contacts the American consulate Jack Devlin (Jack Coleman) who warns Katherine to be careful in her investigations as Romania is not the safest of places. Ever since she was a young child Katherine has suffered from vivid dreams which have turned into nightmares & have become even more real, while searching for her Father Katherine notices a few familiar looking things, places & landmarks that she recognises from her dreams. Katherine ends up at a glass works where she meets Anton (Anthony Perkins) who turns out to be her Father, unfortunately for Katherine she has attracted the attention of the Romanian secret police & her Father just happens to be the ruler of a group of modern day blood sucking Vampires, Katherine learns she has Vampire blood running through her veins...Directed by Stuart Gordon Daughter of Darkness is an OK horror film that passes the time but didn't exactly amaze me. The script by co-producer Andrew Laskos takes itself extremely seriously & starts off a bit slowly but the pace eventually picks up & it turns into a reasonably effective film. Much of what happens in Daughter of Darkness is very low key, it's not a particularly exciting film, I wasn't glued to my seat, it's not scary & there's nothing original about it but there was just enough to it to maintain my interest & stop me from going to sleep. As in a lot of Vampire films Daughter of Darkness cherry picks the aspects of Vampire film-lore that it wants to use, these Vampires are killed by sunlight & sleep in coffins but they don't use fangs to drink blood & crosses don't do anything either. The whole thing is rather predictable & you can see the so-called twist coming a mile off, the character's are pretty good, the plotting is OK & everything works reasonably well in context. Daughter of Darkness is one of those films that is uniformly average in almost all departments, I can't say it's a bad film but at the same time I'm not going to say that it's brilliant because it clearly isn't.Director Gordon does a good job here at making at lot of Daughter of Darkness effective. This isn't the sort of horror Gordon is known for & I was surprised to see his name on the credits as he is probably best known for splatter films such as Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987), Castle Freak (1995), Dagon (2001) & King of the Ants (2003) amongst other's. Shot on location in Romania it certainly has a unique feel to it, there's some atmosphere but little in the way of blood or gore present in some of Gordon's other genre films, in fact I can't think of any.While I was watching Daughter of Darkness I kept saying to myself that it looked very flat & bland like a made-for-TV film & then what do I discover when I check the IMDb? Yep it was indeed made-for-TV & frankly you can tell right from the off which isn't a compliment. It's generally well made although it obviously had both a low budget & low production values. What on Earth is that accent supposed to be Anthony? Mr. Psycho (1960) himself Anthony Perkins has one of the most ridiculous accent's ever captured on film, I really think this guy has made a career out of one film & he is definitely living on past glories or rather glory as in singular.Daughter of Darkness is a somewhat unremarkable film, it's OK & it's watchable but I'd probably have forgotten all about it by the end of the week. Worth a watch if your bored but there are better films out there.