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Embrace the Darknesss II Director: Robert Kubilos
Jennifer is now played by Renee Rea with Sean Vossler as her boyfriend Peter, who has no idea she has recently become a vampire. She dumps him and, after a sympathy shag, moves to LA where she sets up home in Galen’s apartment, an extraordinary ultra-modern place where all the walls are made of one-meter-square metal plates. Next door is a goth nightclub called Pulsate which is owned by sexy couple Jack Connor (Tristen Couer d’Alene - no, honestly - with an extraordinary sort-of-English-sort-of-Irish accent) and Lizzie (Catalina Larranaga). The set-up seems to be that Jack and Lizzie - who are of course bloodsuckers - pick their favourites off the dancefloor, take them to a back room and have sex before biting them. They take enough blood to make the victims forget (and even come back to Pulsate again) but not enough to kill them. When not supping blood, they drink an odd-looking blue liquid which is “pure haematin”, and they live in a palatial penthouse apartment which is supposedly directly above the industrial grime of the nightclub alley entrance. Lizzie, who says she is 2,800 years old, was evidently Galen’s lover but has now taken up with Jack, who shows Jennifer the ways of vampires and in so doing falls for her. So Lizzie takes her revenge by killing the mayor’s wayward daughter and framing Jack, but is interrupted by vampire hunter Van (John Maryland) and Jen’s ex Peter. That’s pretty much the whole of the threadbare ‘plot’ and to tell the truth less than 12 hours later I’ve completely forgotten who survives at the end.
Producer Jennifer M Byrne (who, astoundingly, was assistant production co-ordinator on kids series Beetleborgs Metallix!) made Embrace the Darkness III the following year, which looks like it has no real connection with either of the first two films. Embrace the Darkness II is nicely photographed (by Andrea V Rossotto: Carnosaur 3, Raptor, Vampirella - also second unit on Casper: A Spirited Beginning and the title sequence of Alien Species) but frankly dull, though it does make up for this by being mercifully short (about 85 minutes). The goth costumes are interesting and the vampire teeth/blood effects are nicely handled; and it is at least about vampires rather than just people who happen to be vampires. Is it erotic? Not really. As soon as any couple start to strip off, we cut to above-the-waist-only shots. Everyone in the film is very beautiful and looks lovely either dressed or undressed, apart from one unnamed minor character who has hideous plastic boobs and appears in a full-length frontal nude shot which was evidently not noticed by the producers or censors. MJS rating: C- DVD: Amazon.co.uk | ||
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