In Antoine de Caunes' Love Bites, we find ourselves following Antoine (Guillaume Canet), a night owl who has a habit of dropping peoples' names to get into the city's best clubs.One night, he uses the name of a mysterious and elusive fellow night owl- who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time- to crash an aristocratic gathering.But things don't go as planned. He finds himself being whisked into the office of the party's host- a man named Von Brulow. Despite admitting that he lied to get in, Von Brulow believes that Antoine is the man he needs to find the man he's looking for- the aforementioned mysterious and elusive Jordan.Antoine is handed half a million francs and told that he will receive another half a million when his task has been completed. In reality, he has no idea what is going on, or what he's going to do...but he knows that he is not in a position to decline the "job" offer...and it does pay well.With only his small time hustler friend Etienne to rely upon for help (and even then, only when it is in his self interest), Antoine finds himself thrust into the underground world of dive bars, dog fighting, and fetish clubs....as he goes in search of the mythological Jordan.More a conman than a PI, Antoine does manage to uncover some information about the man. Mainly, that he has a sister named Violaine (Asia Argento). And that, together, they may or may not be two of the last remaining Vampires- whose father demanded they bare a child together upon his deathbed, to ensure the survival of the race and return of their powers.He learns, however, that Violaine denied her father's dying request and has rejected the advances from her brother.When the two eventually meet, Antoine instantly becomes infatuated by her deviant, lustful beauty. Though, it's unclear whether she feels the same way, or is just manipulating him for her own ends.As he delves deeper and deeper into this world- driven, now, by an insatiable curiosity- things become darker, as he gets closer to the truth...or possibly just death.You'll have to watch to see how it plays out.All-in-all this is an entertaining little vampire flick, with a sexy lingerie clad Asia Argento, that manages to hold your attention throughout. It's by no means one of the best vampire films of all time or anything, but it's made well and certainly worth a watch. 6 out of 10.

A nightclub gadfly (Guillame Canet) sneaks into a private party by claiming to know a guy named "Jordan". The host catches him and enlists his aid in finding this guy "Jordan", which he agrees to for some reason. After a series of misadventures that take up nearly half the movie he finds "Jordan" and his sexy sister "Violaine" (Asia Argento), and they turn out to be some kind of vampires. They have been making these kind of erotic vampire movies both in Europe and the US for forty years now, and they're really getting to be kind of old hat. This one is also kind of annoying in that it is very modern-day French (i.e. very glossy and derivative of Hollywood). Jean Rollin was doing this much better thirty or forty years ago.It does have a couple of good points though. Asia Argento is absolutely smokin'-ass hot. She has a very memorable scene where she picks the protagonist up in a club and takes him home. She goes to fix him a drink, which she drugs, and comes back naked from the waist down (her pants mysteriously MIA). Moments later they're in bed where in his drugged state he hallucinates that she is THREE bottomless vampire girls all sucking on him (and not just in the vampiric sense!). The guy also has a wife(?) who is a lounge club singer. At one point she sings what appears to be a French lounge-club version of the great Willie Nelson song "The Night Life" (i.e. "The night life ain't no good life"/"But it's my life"). I'm not sure this is actually the Willie Nelson song, since it's in French, but if not, he should probably sue.But if I sound a little uncertain of some things, it's because I didn't really understand French dialogue very well, but perhaps I should have tried more because the English subtitles were either generated by a malfunctioning computer translation program or written by someone who had no grasp on the English language. They're often unintentionally funny (such as when they try to translate bizarre French idioms directly into English), but mostly they're just distracting. I don't know if all of this adds up to a recommendation or a pan, but you can decide for yourself I guess.

Asia Argento stars as Violaine Charlier in this 'vampire' thriller. Antonio (Guillaume Canet) is a mooch, living off his wealthier and more successful friends for everything he needs and wants. To make some extra money, he's hired by a rich businessman (Jean-Marie Winling) to track down the supposed vampire Jordan (Orazio Massaro). Moving place to place in search, Antonio meets Violaine, Jordan's sister. From there, the trouble only escalates into a new high for Antonio.Sadly, the DVD cover was more interesting than the actual film. I know, that's not uncommon, but the sexy Asia Argento wearing a cut-up latex outfit with some S&M-looking people behind her? That screams "BUY ME." Luckily, I picked it up for only a few dollars, and Asia did look particularly good. She's about the only reason to bother with this. While the premise is good and the French truly know how to make a great vampire movie. . . this simply did not work. There was, at most, ten minutes of vampires in the entire film, and the majority of it was made up Guillaume Canet's character mooching and Asia Argento's character being hot. It wasn't poorly made, just nothing special. Not entirely intriguing and I had to fight to keep attention numerous times. There's very little, if any, horror elements to the film, and it's more of a dramedy than anything else. Very little mystery, very few thrills, and nothing really great about it. Unless you're a die-hard Asia Argento fan, I wouldn't bother with this one.Final verdict: 5.5/10.

This is a splendidly produced, directed, acted and scripted modern vampiresque tale carved into the underbelly of raucous French night life. There's plenty of glitter, pizzazz and charm mixed with a heaping dose of grit, filth and decadence that adds a unique realism to a captivating mystery of a ne'er-do-well (the "innocent" Antoine played by Guillaume Canet) thrust into a quest for the enigmatic Jordan "the lord of the night" and his alluring goth girlfriend/sister Violaine (sexy erotic-horror vixen Asia Argento). The audience follows the young Antoine on his spiral downward into nether regions of disturbing violence and despair, but he presses onward, transfixed by the memory of his recent collision with Violaine that left him physically empty and weak but spiritually rejuvenated. With newfound purpose and desire, he braves life-threatening dangers to peel away the fragile skin of ambiguity and uncover the truth about Violaine and the rumors of vampirism. This film diverts from the trappings of Anne Rice influenced romanticism and repetitive classical vampire motifs without resorting to modern-day drug metaphor. This film is better compared to Larry Fessenden's 1997 HABIT than any other recent vampire film. It is an intriguing mixture of the urban (ie. Fessenden's Manhattan), yet one cannot escape the thought that it draws on the somewhat surreal French vampire films of Jean Rollin. It is visibly quirky and riddled with moments of dark humor that serves to undercut some of the more disturbing (and mildly gory) scenes, but it is no comedy. It's unique and interesting throughout - and the mystery is fun to watch unfold.