This falls into the category of “not a good movie, but I kind of like it anyway.” This vampire B-movie is fun in a schlocky way—don’t know if I’d ever need to see it again, but I don’t regret watching it.
Derek Bliss is a Hunter. His prey? Vampires, which encroach on the safety of human towns and cities around the world. In Mexico, he gets turned onto a team job that’s more than he bargained for, as every name on a list of potential teammates starts turning up dead. So Derek puts his own team together, an unlikely band of mostly-inexperienced Hunters working to stop a vampire plot that would allow the “suckers” to attack in the daylight.
I’m reminded a little of the aesthetic of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer—the movie, not the show—along with the low-rent gore of Lair of the White Worm. There’s all types of beheading/immolation going on here, as well as free-flowing blood when vampires are staked through the heart. The female vampires, expectedly, are hypersexualized, and their leader is a hypnotic femme fatale type who’s of course as beautiful as she is deadly.
It's all very cheap, in terms of both budget and entertainment, but if you’re in the right mood for it, you still might have a good time. I like the angle of an underground world of mercenary vampire hunters, and the lone-wolf expert having to lead a team of amateurs generally makes for a good time. Derek stores his weapons in a surfboard case, which is an entertaining image. I’m intrigue by Zoey, a character who was infected by a vampire but has been able to keep the condition in check with a medication that prevents herself from turning.
Jon Bon Jovi plays Derek, and while he’s not the most compelling actor around, he gets the job done as a stoic leading man you want to root for. Natasha Wagner does nice work as Zoey, although the plot damsels her a little too often. The film also features Cristián de la Fuente as an implausibly jacked priest, Darius McCrary as another skilled Hunter, and Arly Jover as the mysterious vampire leader Una.
And then we have Diego Luna as Sancho, the youngest member of the team. He manages to tag along when Derek is taking out a cluster of vampires early in the film. Sancho doesn’t know what he’s doing—he doesn’t even know what’s going on at that point—but he refuses to be left out. Despite his inexperience, he’s a quick learner and soon proves himself useful. He’s not in it so much for the danger and the heroics, but rather for the money; he likes the idea of collecting vampire bounties to help his mom out.
If Sancho has a hook as a character, it’s that he’s very young (this would’ve been in the Y tu mamá también era for Luna.) He’s 15 years old, and Derek repeatedly tries to cut him loose until he shows up with an actual note from his mother giving him permission to join the hunt. Derek refers to him as “the kid” and all the others look out for him, even though Sancho never asks them to and always pulls his weight.
This is a likable performance, if not a demanding one. I like that Sancho’s interest in hunting is entirely financial, but that doesn’t mean he quails when the situation gets hairy. Luna is able to be the kid on the team without being annoying or a liability.
Recommend?
In General – Eh? If you like dumb B-movies and are in the right mood for it, you might have a good time.
Diego Luna – A soft maybe. There’s nothing revelatory in this character, but it’s enjoyable.
Warnings
Violence/gore, sexual content, and language.
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