Plot: What’s it about?
Connor (Colin Egglesfield) and his girlfriend Amanda (Meredith Monroe) are on vacation in Thailand, so they expect a calm, relaxing experience during their visit. But that just isn’t in the cards, as a pack of vampires is destined to break up their vacation. The vampires have glowing blue eyes and when they swarm the couple, the lovers are too shocked to react. As a result, Amanda is taken by the vampires and Connor is left behind, though he isn’t going to be idle. As he searches for his girlfriend, Connor encounters another band of vampires, only this group refuses to feed on humans. As it turns out, this group is involved in a bitter feud with the vampires that took his girlfriend. Soon after, he meets more folks who could help him in his search, as he runs into a band of slayers who want the bad vampires out of the picture. With this uneasy alliance of slayers and vampires at his side, he pushes on with his impossible quest. But can he find his lover and even if he does, will he be too late and discover she is now a vampire herself?
John Carpenter’s Vampires was a fun, somewhat original cineamtic jaunt, a guilty pleasure if you will, one with a beautiful naked woman, cool vampire execution equipment, and solid gore quotient. Not the best movie in terms of storyline, but hey, it was a fun flick. Now we’ve had two sequels and outside of the name Vampires, the common threads are thin at best. The Turning isn’t as sly as the original, but it brings in a new element, a brash dose of martial arts. As cool as that sounds and as fun as those fight sequences can be, it doesn’t add up to enough to save this one. Yes, the action scenes are cool, but they’re infrequent and since the rest of the flick is dull, there’s more boring than fun here. I don’t understand the low gore level, lack of naked chicks, and rare fight scenes, as those are saving graces in a movie like this. Even so, The Turning tries to be too serious for its own good and as a result, the movie is lackluster. But if you’re a diehard horror buff, then you’ll want to rent this, just to see a few solid scenes.
Video: How does it look?
Vampires: The Turning is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The print is very clean and shows minimal signs of wear, while compression is flawless, no defects to report in the least. The colors range from vivid to dank and all stops in between, but no matter what the shade is, all of the hues look picture perfect here, no errors at all. No issues with the contrast either, as black levels come off as sharp and refined throughout. All in all, this is a more than solid visual presenation.
Audio: How does it sound?
A Dolby Digital 5.1 option is used here, but as the film is driven by dialogue and music most of the time, this is not the kind of track to demo your sound system with. A few scenes do liven up the mix and bring the surrounds to life, but outside of the music and a handful of other moments, the front channels handle the audio burden. This is not bad news per se, as the dialogue and other basic elements sound solid, but it does limit the depth and presence, so the mix seems flat at times and never that impressive. This disc also includes a French language track, as well as subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, and Chinese, should you need those.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This disc includes the film’s trailer.
