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Daughter of Darkness
USA 1990
produced by Andras Hamori, Gerald W. Abrams (executive), Harry B. Chandler (executive) for accent Entertainment, King Phoenix Entertainment/CBS
directed by Stuart Gordon
starring Mia Sara, Anthony Perkins, Robert Reynolds, Dezsö Garas, Jack Coleman, Erika Bodnár, Kati Rák, Ági Margittay, Attila Lote, Mari Kiss, Ferenc Némethy, István Hunyadkürthy
written by Andrew Laskos, music by Colin Towns
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After the death of her mother back in Chicago, young Catherine (Mia
Sara) heads off to (the then still communist) Romania in search of her
long lost father. Too bad though that all the clues she's got are a
photograph from 20 years ago & her own nightmares - & America
diplomat Devlin (Jack Coleman) is rather reluctant in helping her,
rather urging her to go back to the USA, since as it seems, the Romanian
secret police Securitate are already on her trail. Still, thanks to her
dreams Catherine manages to find Anton (Anthony Perkins) who tells her
her father had died long ago. But little Cathy is not yet content &
does some more research with her only friend, old cabdriver Max (Dezso
Garas) both in Bucarest & in Transylvania, bjut her efforts are only
rewarded by the Securitate temporarily incarcerating her, &
presenting her with the corpse in her father's grave ... a woman.
Disillusioned she looks for comfort with goodlooking Romanian guy
Grigorij (Robert Reynolds) but has to find out that he is a vampire
(after all, we are in Romania) who wants to have her wicked ways with
her, but she is saved by Anton, who turns out to be the leader of the
vampires & furthermore (to little surprise) her father - & this
is making her a half human half vampire halfbreed. & while Anton has
only the best of intentions concerning his own offspring, Grigorij sees
a solution to all the vampires in her since she can also walk by
daylight, & he wants to bed her (rather understandably, though for
other reasons) in order to procreate. Anton however saves her, but falls
victim to his own vampire brood, who imprison & torture him (through
a cellar window they expose him to the wandering sun, slowly burning his
skin). Catherine, who is already in the plane to the States does leave
it in the last second, feeling her father's pain thanks to some
telepathic bond, & she can persuade cabby Max to help her save her
father. But when the sun goes down & they have almost succeeded, Max
turns out to be one of them, & everything seems grim for her, until
Devlin steps in again, & he helps her to burn all the vampires in
the diverse cellars & drag her father out of there, but in the end,
of course, only Grigorij has survived the ordeal & he threatens
Catherine, who is saved by a recovering Anton in the nick of time, who
of course also has to sacrifice his life.
Though this movie was actually done for television, & the
limitations of the format sometimes show rather painfully (fade-outs
ever so often for commercial breaks & the like), this is actually a
reasonably solid if not very exciting vampire flick &, conmpared to
other drivel he did, ranks among director Stuart Gordon's better work -
even if it is a far cry from his best like Re-Animator or From
Beyond.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
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