Fantastic!

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

During the first minutes of this movie I was ready to absolutely hate it. Cheap looking, filmed entirely at night, darkness, ultra cheap sets, very narrow focus on just people- little scenery, unintelligible British accents- and yet another re-interpretation that butchers vampirism.But as things progressed, I found myself looking past those shortcomings and actually liking this movie. The problems didn't go away by any means, but the performances by Katia Winter (Ruby), who is a hottie, and by the main villain played by René Zagger, make this movie actually worthwhile.The movie begins somewhat incongruously mixing past and future in short unconnected scenes. There's the murder of a woman by a serial killer, a guy chatting to a girl on a phone-sex line, the same guy driving a car and talking about addiction, strippers dancing. Among those strippers is Ruby who is abused and mistreated by her boss and his muscle because she doesn't want to offer "additional services" to clients at the club. She runs into our main male character who is a vampire. He treats vampirism as an addiction that needs to be satisfied every night. He cannot control himself and turns Ruby into a vampire.Ruby, however, is not willing to kill others for blood. They both agree to try and quell the urge by taking relaxants, pain relievers and other pills until they can drive to a dr. who can help them. But their plans are foiled by the club-owners muscle who is in love with Ruby. Not only that but he's also the serial killer who has been brutally killing women. And eventually he finds Ruby. But he has another surprise: he's a vampire as well! At the end of the movie all of the short scenes that were put at the beginning of the movie are reconnected to clarify things. Personally, I hate vampire movies that aren't vampire movies. This is one of them. This could very well be an addiction movie. Aside from that though, this movie grows on you because Ruby is well-acted, sympathetic, pretty, and sexy. The villain is brutal and ruthless yet comical in a way. The actor mixes your standard sadistic misogynist with Elvis, making a remarkable character. There's one outlandish scene of him licking the face of one of his victims that starts out just looking funny but becomes cringe-inducing after a while. As a vampire movie, this is pretty bad, but if you look at this movie as a human drama it's actually worth a look.

Having been privy to a preview screening of this film back in October 2006 (although I gather that this was in fact the 'premiere'), I can only hope that some serious time in the editing suite has been undertaken by the team behind this film.The comparisons with Tarantino are grossly misplaced. Long, drawn out, unfunny monologues coupled with crass, misplaced violence do not a Pulp Fiction make.The relationship developed between the leads of Vincent and Ruby never convinces. Their first meeting in a coffee shop is, frankly, embarrassingly scripted (blueberry muffins are not an aphrodisiac, no matter how much writer, director, producer etc etc Lawrence Pearce would have us believe).It is usually difficult to put a finger on where to place the blame in these circumstances. But considering the director chose to undertake all of the roles listed above himself, I am afraid the blame must lie firmly at his door.This is not to say that others are not to partly responsible. The acting of Rene Zagger (a stalwart of The Bill) is, at times, woeful. I have not seen this much ham since I visited Preble County Pork Festival.Some jumbled dream sequences are well shot and at times interesting. But by the time you've seen them for the third time over viewer interest has been lost. The same applies to the general look of the film (one assumes Mr Pearce was not in charge of the cinematography). The film looks superb in places having been filmed in DV. However, pretty pictures do not make up for a clunking and, ultimately boring, script.Neither scary, funny or sexy, those of you expecting Night Junkies 2 will have a very long wait indeed I'm afraid.

Night Junkies is set in London where thirteen prostitutes have been brutally murdered & a killer is on the loose, against this backdrop of fear lap dancer Ruby Stone (Katia Winter) works in a strip club. While walking home one morning she meets a guy named Vincent Monroe (Giles Alderson) & she ends up going back to his flat & having sex with him. Unfortunately for Ruby Vincent happens to be a Vampire addicted to human blood & one bite from him infects her with the addiction. Afterwards not much else happens actually as Ruby has to come to terms with what she has become...This British production was written, executive produced & directed Lawrence Pearce & I thought it was total crap to put it bluntly. As usual for these low budget pieces of crap the IMDb comments section seem to be overrun with users proclaiming it to be the best film ever & handing out 9 & 10 out of 10 star ratings which always make me wonder whether we have seen the same film or whether these users have other agenda's for trying to big certain films up. Anyway I throughly believe that if you were to take 100 random people off the street & showed them Night Junkies the majority of them would struggle to get through it & there certainly wouldn't be many 9 or 10 out of 10's handed out. For those who claim Night Junkies is original & a fresh take on the Vampire genre obviously haven't watched films like George A. Romero's modern take on Vampire lore Martin (1977) which was made three decades before Night Junkies & just about any Vampire film ever made deals with a central romance between a Vampire & a woman he falls for that goes right back to Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel while the whole 'hidden knife in the tip of a shoe' is ripped-off from the James Bond flick From Russia with Love (1963) & that was made nearly forty five years ago. I suppose that the makers have tried to make Night Junkies relevant in todays society & as it's title suggests it portrays the Vampires in this the same as drug addicts which is where the term 'junkie' actually comes from. From moralising about leaving dead bodies for people to find & making the comparison between drug addicts leaving their syringes lying around to the process of going Cold Turkey to dealing with the Vampire issue in a very cold & clinical way constantly making reference to real life drug addicts. The plot sucks, the dialogue is forgettable (although there's a nice little speech on farts) there's some crap about a killer Vampire that ends in a duller than dull climax & there's a fair bit of romance as Vincent & Ruby try to support each other & fall for each other & the pace is very slow with little going on to maintain ones interest, well mine anyway.The start of the film is alright as it's set amongst the seedy London world of strip clubs & prostitution but this is all but abandoned by the half way mark at which point Night Junkies becomes an absolute bore & I personally started to read my newspaper listening to the soundtrack & occasionally peeking at the screen to follow what was going on & I still felt bored. There's no gore or special effects to speak of, there's a bit of fake blood but that's it. The Vampires don't have fangs & Night Junkies presents them as real people just with an addiction for blood which begs the question why don't they feed on animal blood? At least then they wouldn't have to kill anyone. There's some nudity during the first half but that really can't save it.According to the IMDb this had a budget of about £405,000 which isn't as low budget as one might think, that's nearly half a million quid which is a lot make no mistake & considering that there's no special effects, no star names or action & a small cast I am not overly impressed. The cast of no-one I have ever heard of before make no impact & are fairly poor.Night Junkies is a film that bored me to tears, I thought it was a basic boring piece of crap the only interest being the London red light district it sets itself in during the first half. A boring 100 odd minutes that you can live without seeing.

As a puritanical fan of cinema and the concept of vampires, I have felt woefully let down by the spate of vampire flicks in recent years. The low budget ones especially have been cringe worthy. And then Lawrence Pearce comes along with his debut feature to restore my faith. It goes to show what someone with talent and vision can do on a true shoestring of a budget.Night Junkies banishes the supernatural and elitist aspects that are always tied to the vampire genre, and gone too is the un-relatable overly brooding protagonist. Pearce's vampires are junkies in the truest sense of the term, and it is certainly a much more disturbing context, particularly with a view to the more than psychotic character: these are just people, albeit with a very unusual addiction. It creates a vulnerability in the characters that is endearing, and allows for the humanising moral debate within the vampires on who they feed on, or even if they could bring themselves to do it at all, giving them fantastic depth instead of emotional flat-lining.Neither the sex nor the violence are at all gratuitous – although it is certainly shocking in places. Misogyny is not a keyword for this movie, but sexy certainly is. While most vampire movies flirt with the idea of eroticism, this film puts out. And the key thing to it is that it is never out of place, you never think that it is there for audience titillation; it flows smoothly with the plot, as it should.The Tarantino references are well earned, and like all good Tarantino movies, this movie has plenty of lines to quote. The script is fantastic in fact; the dialogue is never over fussy or disjointed. And as with any script, the delivery can make or break it. Despite the general rule that low budget equals less than second-rate acting, this film refuses to conform. The acting is far superior to other low budget movies in the genre, divine in places I would go so far to say. And while the plot is certainly dark, it is never gloomy, there is a humour to it that us horror fans particularly enjoy, especially when it is done so well so as not to detract from the mood or to create moments where it becomes a parody.I think one of the biggest joys of this movie is that it doesn't just appeal to a singular demographic or type of movie fan: it isn't limited to the enjoyment of the die-hard vampire or horror movie buff. It is enjoyable on both those levels, of course, but also for the drama and thriller audience this would hold a thrall. In fact the romance that unravels between Ruby and Vincent is truly captivating; it is a real romance, not the numb emotionally stunted whim so often portrayed in films of the genre that Pearce has managed to give the kiss of life. In short, seeing this film almost makes you feel that you have seen a number as it fills the need that each of the genres of horror, drama, thriller and romance fill – you finish it feeling satiated in the best sense of the word.I can't wait to see what will come next from this director, and I can only hope and pray for another instalment in this world he has created so expertly.