Review - Children of the Night

Complete with religious zealots, clueless politicians, bloodsucking lawyers and a well-pickled town drunk, Allburg seems to be typical small town, USA. However, under the surface Allburg holds a terrible secret captive in a watery grave.

The teens of Allburg have a tradition. Before leaving town, you must swim a lap in the crypt in the old church to wash the town off of you. If you don't, you are condemned to come back to Allburg. Childhood friends, Lucy Barrett (Ami Dolenz) and Cindy Thompson (Maya McLaughlin) head to the old church so that Lucy can cleanse herself before leaving Allburg and heading off to college. As she does the customary lap around the crypt, Cindy teases her friend about the bodies that are supposedly submerged under water. Turns out she is not too far from the truth . . .

Flash forward a bit and we are in a classroom with teacher Mark Gardner (Peter DeLuise) who is having a one on one session with a troubled student. While meeting with her mother and being chastised for providing un-Christianlike reading material, he is interrupted by his long time friend, Father Frank Aldin (Evan Mackenzie). Father Frank has quite the wild and crazy story to tell. Seems that for the past few days he has been holding his sister-in-law Karen (Karen Black) and niece Cindy hostage in his attic - feeding Cindy leeches and watching Karen feed on Cindy. He thinks that it is all his fault because he has been having an affair with Karen, but truth be told, Cindy was attacked by an age-old vampire in the crypt and left by her friend. Father Frank asks Mark to go to Lucy's house because every time he calls he just gets strange moaning from the other end of the phone. Mark reluctantly agrees and heads to Allburg to check it out.

Once at Lucy's house, Mark is greeted by Grandma (Shirley Speigler Jacobs) who offers him a late supper. You begin to notice that Grandma's house is missing all of its religious artifacts and just as Mark insists on seeing Lucy, Grandma goes batty and attacks. Lucy, who has locked herself in her room summons all her courage to open the door and thwack Grandma on the head and she and Mark make a run for it.

The balance of Children of the Night is a bit confusing but extremely entertaining. From what I can gather when Lucy and Cindy swam the crypt, they awoke an ancient vampire Czakyr (David Sawyer) whom the town submerged years ago. He has been surviving on the blood of the children he took with him upon supposedly killing himself. Rather than clean up the mess left by Czakyr, the town chose to cover up his mess with a whole lot of water and leave it be (we get all this from the town drunk, Matty (Garrett Morris) later in the film).

In order to return the town to normal, Mark and Lucy must destroy Czakyr. Only problem is that Lucy has been a "very good girl" and her virgin blood is driving all of the vampires crazy and Czakyr is hell bent on having her for his own. Armed with the town drunk, a religious van prepared for battle, and a vampire that wants to get revenge on the one that changed her, Mark and Lucy fight the good fight and seem to find a little love along the way. Ain't that special?

Children of the Night is a campy little vampire movie that could be missed, but really shouldn't be. Complete with some really neat special effects, cheesy B movie acting and a decent, almost well thought out plot it's not a bad way to spend a Friday night with a bowl of popcorn.

Children of the Night Movie Cast and Credits

Directed by
Tony Randel

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Nicolas Falacci also story
William Hopkins story
Tony Randel story
Christopher Webster story

Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
Karen Black .... Karen Thompson
Peter DeLuise .... Mark Gardner
Ami Dolenz .... Lucy Barrett
Maya McLaughlin .... Cindy Thompson
Evan MacKenzie .... Frank Aldin
David Sawyer .... Czakyr
Shirley Spiegler Jacobs .... Grandma
Josette DiCarlo .... Officer Gates
Lloyd J. Kalicki .... Billy
Daniel Arthur Wray .... Doc Fisher
Roger Perkovich .... Gus Willman
Ray Maurin .... Mayor Horton
Stacy Montezon .... Jessica
Bekki Vallin .... Jessica's Mom
Butch Mounce .... The Milkman
Brad Overturf .... The Mailman
Garrett Morris .... Matty