Boring

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Joey Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) is a new henchman for mob boss Salvatore 'The Shark' Macelli (Robert Loggia). Sal is a ruthless killer. Joey turns out to be an undercover cop working under U.S. Attorney Sinclair (Angela Bassett). Marie (Anne Parillaud) is a vampire with a moral code. She only kills the criminal class and she finishes her food meaning she decapitates them before they turn. Tony (Chazz Palminteri) vouched for Joey but he gets eaten by Marie. Her next target is Sal but she doesn't finish before she gets shot and chased away. Sal is reborn and Marie needs help to bring him down.I really like the premise of a gangster vampire. I would have preferred a dark intense horror. Director John Landis brings a lighter touch which detracts from the intensity. There is plenty of blood but it's not that grotesque. LaPaglia does great mobster acting but this movie could use another type of action hero. The premise is great but the execution is less than thrilling.

Anne Parillaud, Robert Loggia, Anthony LaPaglia and Don Rickles star in John Landis' 1992 horror comedy. Parrilaud (La Femme Nikita) plays Marie, an attractive, French vampire who feeds on the not so nice guys. Loggia (Scarface) plays mob boss, Macelli, her target whom she bites, but fails to finish him off. Soon, he becomes a vampire and decides to turn his crime family into an undead family. LaPaglia (The Client) plays undercover cop, Joe who helps Marie stop him and also finds romance with her in the process. Rickles (Casino) plays Macelli's lawyer, Manny and there's also appearances by Angela Bassett, Frank Oz, Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Linnea Quigley and Tom Savini. This is a good film with creepy and humorous moments, a good cast & great make-up effects. I recommend this.

Innocent Blood starts as a French female Vampire named Marie (Anna Parillaud) decides to eat 'Italian' & targets the gangsters working for Italian mafia man Sallie 'Tha Shark' Macelli (Robert Loggia), Marie lets herself get picked up by a Mafioso named Tony (Chazz Palminteri) & then bites his neck & drinks his blood before blowing his head off with a shotgun to make it look like a Mafia hit. After seducing Sallie & going back to his place Marie also kills him with a bite to the neck but undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) stops her before she can finish the job & later that night Sallie returns from the dead as a powerful almost invincible Vampire ready to take over the city with his Vampire mafia family. Realising what she has done Marie teams up with Gennaro to find Sallie & kill him once & for all but find themselves falling in love with each other...Directed by John Landis I must admit that I had never heard of Innocent Blood until it played on a cable television channel over here, looking at the telly guide (on-screen these days, none of this old fashioned paper magazine nonsense thank you) I saw it was a horror film with Landis as director, a quick check at work revealed not one person I asked if they had seen it had even heard of it so I wasn't expecting much but to my surprise Innocent Blood is a likable & fun mix of genres that is better than it has any right to be. The script mixes horror, black humour, outright comedy, gangster clichés, action scenes & even strives for eroticism at times with a fair amount of nudity & it all gels together in an endearing sort of way that makes you like it. The character's are broad clichés, from the cops to the really stereotypical Italian mafia gangsters who represent every American's clichéd conception of them but the script is fairly humorous & the film as a whole never takes itself too seriously, the character of Anne the Vampire is maybe the weakest with no background or clear rules behind her powers or weaknesses. Like a lot of Vampire films Hollywood pick & chooses the Vampire lore bu which it wants to stick to, sunlight still kills a Vampire here but so do bullets to the head & broken necks while they have no fangs although still bite people's necks & drink their blood. At just under an hour & fifty minutes long the time flew by while I was watching it, it has a great pace & while the mix of genres & sometime uneven tone can make it seem a little disjointed it's never less than entertaining. The main problem I had was the limited scope of the story, it takes too long for Sallie to realise his great powers & even then does nothing with it, why he just stands there at the end & lets Gennaro shoot him dead is actually quite baffling.There are quite a few genre cameos, from cult Italian director Dario Argento as a paramedic to special make-up effects man Tom Savini as a reporter to Frank Oz as a coroner to Forest J. Ackerman to Spider-Man (2002) director Sam Raimi & even Linnea Quigley has a small role as a nurse. Besides that lot Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee (both playing Dracula) & Alfred Hitchcock make small appearances on television screens in films that certain character's watch. There's some decent splattery gore here considering Innocent Blood as a mainstream film, from a morgue full of autopsied bodies to ripped out throats to bullet wounds to a cool scene where a Vampire burns in daylight & plenty of blood splatter too. There's a fair amount of nudity, when we first meet Marie for instance she's completely nude, there's a strip club scene & a sex scene between Marie & Gennaro. On aspect of the production I didn't like was the different coloured contact lenses the Vampires wore to change the colour of their eyes, I just thought it looked cheap & I hated the Tiger style roaring noises they made when trying to look threatening.I assume Innocent Blood flopped at the box-office which is why no-one has heard of it, it's nicely made with glossy Hollywood production values but maybe lacking a big name star to draw in the crowds. Renamed A French Vampire in America in an obvious play on the title of director Jonn Landis' classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) this isn't as good but he's made a lot worse to be fair. The acting varies, I thought Parillaud was awful & bland & I didn't even find her attractive either, other cast members fare better with a great performances from Robert Loggia in particular.Innocent Blood is a fun way to pass a couple of hours, it was a pleasant surprise that I didn't expect to be so entertaining. Sure it's shallow I suppose, a bit predictable & sometimes uneven in tone but just sit back & have fun with a top performance from Loggia, some decent gore, a bit of nudity & even the odd car chase & shoot-out. Nothing deep or meaningful but definitely worth a watch.

Vampires are not supposed to exist, but then Joe met Marie. Her beauty caught him off guard, but he would not allow himself to become her next victim. Her intentions mirrored his; to get Sallie (The Shark) Macelli, who slipped through both of their fingers, but her rules did not apply to him. But he found himself trapped, stuck between her and a syndicate of crime that had become even more deadly. A dark tale of love and lust plunges through the heart, holding it in suspense and intrigue. Conflict and terror deliver in a driven storyline that weaves together the fabric of crime and the haunt of fiction, and the bite of comedy sinks in deep. The complexities of characters come to life through the touch of talent, and drama and horror keep us riveted, awaiting the end. And the sun rises over a brilliantly crafted story that blends together Lost Boys and The Sopranos and that dangles us across the strings of passion, and we are entranced by another classic masterpiece of vampires,Innocent Blood.