BY FRED BLOSSER
The
Warner Archive Collection has released John Landis’ “Innocent Blood†(1992) in
a new, remastered Blu-ray edition. The
Blu-ray incorporates two minutes of footage that appeared in overseas prints
but were not included in previous U.S. releases. The film opens with a montage of the
Pittsburgh skyline after dark, scored with Jackie Wilson’s lush 1960 ballad,
“Night.†French vampire Marie (Anne
Parillaud, in a lengthy nude scene) sits alone in her hotel room, deliberating
on where to find her next sanguinary meal. She opens a newspaper to an article about a local Mafia crew headed by
Sal “The Shark†Macelli and smiles: “I
thought -- what about Italian?†She
allows herself to be picked up by one of Sal’s henchmen, Tony (Chazz
Palminteri), whose CD player is loaded with Sinatra discs. Just as Tony thinks she’s going to have sex
with him, she chomps into his throat and drinks his blood -- no dainty bites
here, she does a job on his neck -- and then, having satisfied her thirst, she
obliterates his head with a shotgun blast. The massive cranial damage prevents Tony from coming back as a vampire
himself. Marie also thinks that the
blast will cover her tracks by leading police to believe that Tony was murdered
by rival mobsters (but the forensics guy who later examines the scene figures
out that the blood splatter from the shotgun is smaller than it should be --
“this guy was five quarts low.â€) Marie
chooses Sal (Robert Loggia) as her next victim, but she’s interrupted and
forced to flee after biting him.
Pronounced
dead and taken to the mortuary, the blood-soaked Sal climbs off the gurney and
searches out his gang, turning them into vampires too. “We got the blood. We got the muscle. We’ll crack this town like a lobster,†he
boasts, energized by the super strength he’s developed as one of the
Undead. One of his victims is his sleazy
lawyer Manny, played by Don Rickles. The
stunt casting doesn’t disappoint, particularly if you’re a fan of late insult
comic. The remorseful Marie enlists wary
undercover cop Joe (Anthony LaPaglia) to help her hunt down the gangsters and
do away with them before they can inflict more damage. Joe has a personal stake, so to speak, in
bringing down Sal, Undead or not, whom he’d been close to busting in an earlier
assignment. Moreover, he’s sexually and
romantically attracted to Marie (this is Anne Parillaud, after all). But, knowing she’s a vampire, he’s worried
that he’ll be her next appetizer.
“Innocent
Blood†opened in theaters on September 25, 1992, and earned a relatively paltry
$4.9 million in its brief theatrical run, far outpaced by another release that
debuted on the same day, Michael Mann’s “The Last of the Mohicans.†In the years since, it’s slipped into
obscurity on cable and home video, probably remembered only by compulsive
horror fans and John Landis completists. The new Warner BRD at the correct 1.78:1 aspect ratio presents the film
in peak condition, looking substantially better than it has on any previous
home video edition. In fact, it’s
probably an upgrade over the way it looked in most theaters on first release,
given the slipshod maintenance of projector bulbs in the average suburban
multiplex, then and now. The impeccable
hi-def visuals are particularly impressive in Mac Ahlberg’s on-location
exterior shots in Pittsburgh, with their electrifyingly vivid nighttime neons. Setting the movie in Pittsburgh doesn’t serve
any particular dramatic purpose story-wise, but it gave Landis and the studio a
tax credit from Pennsylvania’s Hollywood-friendly department of revenue, and
locals will get a kick out of seeing the Liberty Tunnel and other area
landmarks.
Like Landis’ “An American Werewolf in London†from a decade before, “Innocent Blood†features the director’s trademark combination of blood and snarky black comedy, big-scale auto pile-ups, and cameo roles by fellow directors and other horror-genre figures -- in this case, Forrest J. Ackerman, Dario Argento, Sam Raimi, and Tom Savini, among others. “American Werewolf†was a hit but “Innocent Blood†wasn’t, although neither film is appreciably better or worse than the other. Maybe 1992 moviegoers were already overloaded with vampire pictures and TV shows. Dan Curtis’ prime-time reboot of “Dark Shadows†had aired on NBC a few months before, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer†had passed through theaters in July, and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula†was on the horizon for November release. “Buffy†had satisfied the teen market for quirky vampires, and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula†would benefit from release as a prestigious Francis Ford Coppola picture in the premium Thanksgiving-Christmas movie season. Landis may also have been a victim of changing demographics, the eighteen-year-olds who had filled movie houses in 1981 to see “American Werewolf†having aged in the years since into suburban couples with kids and less free money for entertainment. Now, movie night typically meant family-friendly entertainment like “Aladdin†or “Home Alone 2.†Mom and Dad might sneak off once a year to see more risque fare with sex, violence, and nudity, but in 1992, that market had already been served by cable-TV’s “Red Shoe Diaries†and on screen by the heavily hyped “Basic Instinct.†It’s also possible that, glancing at the title “Innocent Blood,†casual moviegoers simply decided, “Naw, already seen it†-- confusing the Landis movie with the Harrison Ford courtroom mystery “Presumed Innocent†of recent memory. The title used for French and German distribution, “Bloody Marie,†wasn’t much better, however.
The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of “Innocent Blood†has limited supplementary features -- subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, and the original theatrical trailer -- and no chapter menu. Oddly, the disc sleeve doesn’t highlight the fact that the Blu-ray includes footage not previously seen in the U.S., surely a selling point for collectors. Still, it’s always nice to see a major studio offer new exposure to a previously neglected film, and to do so with a superlative hi-def remaster.
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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Pulp Slam: Rip-Roarin' Tales of Mystery, Murder and Mayhem. Click here to order from Amazon)