Before Twilight we still had the forbidden vampire/human love....but thankfully there was no sparkling and there was blood....lots of it. Vampires did what they were supposed to do....kill.Innocent Blood is a surprisingly interesting take on this notion. A peaceful female vampire who only feeds on the blood of the evil and a police officer after her after a high profile murder come together to face a common foe.LaPaglia I always refer to as the poor mans Bill Pullman since they always remind me of one another, but for the right reasons. He is likable and this is essential for any leading man. Does LaPaglia take this opportunity and run with it? No! But he is entertaining none the less. Its our lady vamp who steals show, her performance is fantastic. She remains feminine and even fragile for most of the film but still maintains an animalistic ferocity that is required for the blood sucker role.This movie breaks down no walls and is nothing we for the most part haven't seen before but its refreshing, well acted and with a sweet ending.Its a shame you have to look so hard for other movies including members of the movies cast because most are excellent but badly underused within the industry.

Marie is a vampire in the big city who picks her victims from the criminal underworld. One night she hooks a big fish, crime boss Sal Macelli, but the feed goes wrong - she has to flee before she finishes him off. Now he is one of her kind, she must find and dispatch him before he can feed and become immeasurably powerful …This is an extremely enjoyable vampire movie. It's a handsome production, with excellent Pittsburgh location photography. It has plenty of scary and sexy moments, like all good vampire films should. But most of all, Michael Wolk's script cleverly mixes together horror and gangster movie elements with terrific results. Sal starts out as your standard crime boss, does a very funny slavering transformation into a vampire, then realises the implications for his syndicate if he turns them into superhuman killers. He's still in the same line of work; nightlife, killing and power-struggles, only now he and his men will be unstoppable at it ! This is a terrific idea; the only film which even vaguely resembles it is Juan Padrón's brilliant but little-seen 1985 Cuban movie Vampiros En La Habana. Talented perennial supporting player Loggia has tremendous fun as the evil kingpin, staggering around in horror as he wakes up in the morgue, sucking the blood out of frozen steaks and generally terrifying the life out of everyone. Parillaud (Nikita) is great as Marie the vampire; lithe, athletic, frequently nude and with an amusingly ear-bashing thick French accent, and LaPaglia judges the all-over-the-place part of Joe well as he juggles layers of undercover cop / turncoat / vampire lover / confused hero. The support cast are full of funny performers too, particularly Rickles as the mob lawyer (his two death scenes are hilarious), Kagan as his much put-upon wife, Guzman as a detective, Proval as a hoodlum, scream queen Quigley as a nurse and Landis' trademark cameos by directors (here Dario Argento, Michael Ritchie, Tom Savini and a funny Sam Raimi as a meat-locker clerk). Landis directs with great wit and style; he makes the movie feel like an authentic spaghetti-and-meatballs Italian American gangster film which a vampire has mistakenly wandered into and milks the comic/horror potential for all its worth. Featuring great monster makeup by Steve Johnson, scary eyeball effects by Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton and lots of great old horror movie clips on TV, this is a fine frighteningly funny fanged flick for horror fans looking for something stylish and different.

New York is littered with mobsters, from the Gambinos to your average street trash. But two people are taking out the trash: Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia, "Empire Records"), an undercover cop in the mob's inner circle, close to breaking the biggest case of his career. And Marie (Anne Parillaud), a vampire with a conscience, who targets only those with blood on their hands. While their paths may cross and be in conflict (you can't prosecute a dead man), in some ways they may just need each other.John Landis, the director, blends romance, horror, mobsters and comedy. And I'd say he does it fairly well. Landis' idea of romance seems to be excessive nudity (plenty of fully nude shots and women in topless bars) but I don't think that people will have a problem with it. I found it distracting at times, but not overly so. Who can complain about nude women and the occasional Harry Manasse? The comedy is subtle at times, but you need a dark humor when dealing with vampires. Don Rickles is great, and I really enjoyed the cameo from Tom Savini as an obsessive reporter. Sam Raimi shows up, as well, and I think I caught a few others. Horror cameos work well and pay off in spades if you want fanboys like myself gawking and saying "I know that guy!" while everyone else in the audience has no clue what directors look like and don't care. I'm rambling, but you know... that's the little thing that sells a film to me. (Another running theme is people within the film watching old horror films intently... if Landis had any more nods, he'd be a bobblehead doll.) The blood and gore are here, the acting is good... Frank Sinatra dominates the soundtrack (which is appropriate). There's some confusion about how this film fits into the vampire mythos. Some standard variations exact: there don't appear to be transformations (though Ana may have been a bat in one scene), the vampires have mirrored reflections, sunlight is harmful but not nearly as deadly as usual. And turning people simply requires you to not remove their head rather than any fluid exchange. Purists might get uptight, but this isn't supposed to be taken that seriously, guys.I'd consider "Innocent Blood" a modern classic. Landis is a living legend and this can be marked as one of his better pieces. Sure, you love "American Werewolf" (and you should). And yeah, my favorite is probably "Deer Woman". But "Innocent Blood" deserves more respect and attention than it tends to get... mobsters and vampires are meant to go together, and any time you can turn a simple blood-and-guts story into a morality play, you've scored points with the critics. Or, at least with me. But I bet Ebert loved this one, too.

~Spoiler~ Innocent Blood is John Landis' chaotic and hilarious take on the underworld and...the underworld. This is the movie where two genres unite: vampire films and mafia films. Who would have thought two of the most bloody genres would be so much fun together? Our first hero of this story is the centuries-old vampire, Marie. Marie has a conscience and only kills people who deserve it (hence the Innocent Blood title). Naturally she targets the mob; who's less innocent than them, right? Problems arise when she is interrupted dining on the Don so to speak. Sal "The Shark" Macelli doesn't die like he was supposed to, instead he becomes a vampire who goes on to recruit his whole "family" to the ranks of the undead. This creates a problem for our second hero, Joe Gennaro. Joe's an undercover cop who's trying to put away the Macelli family. As you can imagine, all sorts of comedic predicaments ensue. That's all I'm going to give away. The terrific cast includes some big names. Anne Parillaud of Le Femme Nikita fame stars as the sexy femme fatale. Anthony LaPaglia plays Gennaro and Robert Loggia is the scene-stealing Sal "The Shark." Speaking of scene-stealing, Don Rickles plays Sal's goofy attorney. The supporting cast includes Chazz Palminteri, David Proval, Luis Guzman, Tony Sirico, and Angela Bassett. Be on the lookout for some great cameos from some of the biggest names in horror. My only real complaint with the movie...Landis should have called it A French Vampire in Pittsburgh. That would have made a perfect companion piece with his American Werewolf in London.