THE FORSAKEN (2001)
Movie Review
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Director: J. S. Cardone
Starring:
Kerr Smith, Brendan Fehr, Izabella Miko
Run time: 90 min.
[ FILMOGRAPHY ]
Plot synopsis: A cross-country road trip takes a dangerous detour when driver-for-hire Sean (Kerr Smith) picks up Nick (Brendan Fehr), a hitchhiker who is on the trail of a band of vampires. At a roadside diner they encounter a crazed and helpless woman, a recent victim of a vampire feeding, and Sean becomes infected. Now the three must race against time to track down and kill the source of the virus: a centuries-old vampire with superhuman strength and an appetite for blood.
REVIEW
I was upbeat about this movie. I figured The Forsaken would surprise me--a dark horse coming out of nowhere to provide 90 minutes of great vampire entertainment. Well, I was surprised all right. Surprised by how fast a promising vampire movie can disintegrate into complete crap.
The movie gets off to a decent start and the story seems okay. A roving bird's eye view flies the viewer over southern California scenery to the opening credits. Sean (Kerr Smith) is working the daily grind making movie trailers when he gets an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: get paid for driving a car to Miami for it's owner and attend his sister's wedding when he gets there. A one-week vacation request begrudgingly granted, a few good-byes to co-workers and Sean is driving on his merry way into the southwestern desert night.
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So far so good. At this point I was figuring there would be some nasty vampires in the desert. I was looking forward to how Sean would deal with the problem since obviously he was driving right into the midst of trouble. Before long Sean is forced to stop at some nowheresville motel after a flat tire shortens his trip. Bumps in the night from the room next door disturb his sleep and cause him to have disturbing slasher vision dreams. Cool. It must be vampires killing someone… |
I refer to Sean's dream as "slasher vision" because this cinematic effect is a Cardone specialty throughout the movie. Slasher vision consists of extremely rapid paced scene changes that mostly accompany the depiction of violent acts. It makes it so you can't really see anything specific, but you do get a clear image of blood and rage and violence. It works okay the first few times. You get the impression that Cardone is trying to convey a kind of vampire imagery by using this effect. But by the end of the movie it is completely over used and abused. Every time the vampires start killing people it goes into this crazy slasher vision imagery and you can't see a damn thing unless you hit the pause button and go frame by frame.
Which is pointless anyway because there isn't anything to see. Cardone's vampires don't have any fangs. Instead of biting victims, they prefer to chase them down in cars and shoot at them with guns. Then when they get a victim down they lick the blood like a dog. Admittedly, I'm no director myself, and I've watched enough vampire movies to get the idea that shooting a realistic vampire bite is not the easiest thing to do, but this is pathetic. Vampires = Deadly Fangs. It's just unfathomably stupid to make a vampire movie with fangless vampires. I suppose Cardone was attempting to do some kind of hip, modern presentation of "real" vampires with a "rare blood disease," but it fails miserably. |
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In a nutshell, The Forsaken takes the viewer on a pointless joy ride across the desert southwest. The main protagonist (Kerr Smith) meets the mysterious vampire slayer (Brendan Fehr), and they try to save themselves as well as the slowly transforming innocent girl (Izabella Miko) from the "forsaken" master vampire (Johnathon Schaech). There are car chases, gun shoot-outs, and three and a half explosions later the vampires are all dead. I get the feeling that Cardone thought it would be a great idea to make a vampire movie, but without any forethought he brought along all the props for a shoot 'em up action flick. Realizing his mistake he figured a few explosions and lame car chases would enliven the show. Nope. Not even a half naked Izabella Miko can save this piece of crap from the trash bin. What a disappointment.
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One wooden stake for The Forsaken because this movie should be forsaken by you.
Cardone utilizes car chases and explosions
to tell his vampire story.
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