Embrace the Darkness (1999)

The greatest movie ever!

Dreadfully Boring

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Oh the irony. While Vampires can not date, movies about them can date. And if they're as bad as this (probably not been received well back then either, although it did spawn two sequels), they date even worse. While Kevin Spirtas is known for other movies and might be able to bring some gravitas to the movie (for some), the rest of the cast does stumble around (and on) their lines as if they've never seen or heard about things like scripts.On the other hand, maybe there wasn't a coherent script to begin with. Wouldn't be surprising this being a soft-core movie (sometimes it does make sense reading the synopsis before watching a movie, solely based on the title) and all. It is produced by Playboy, so you should know what you're letting yourself into ...

Embrace the Darkness is the first in a trilogy of sex and vampire films which makes up a three-DVD box-set. The other two films are called, unsurprisingly, Embrace the Darkness 2 and Embrace the Darkness 3. They all come under the Playboy brand and so they naturally contain a fair quota of sex and nudity. This first film is from Mystique Films while the other two are from Indigo Entertainment.The action starts in a hospital with a bloody murder and the theft of the hospital's blood supply. Moving on from there to LA, we find Miranda (Angelia High) and Galen (Kevin Spirtas) have taken up residence in a run-down part of the city. While Galen spends his time playing his piano, it is Miranda who is the one who actively searches for new victims and brings them back to their apartment. Across the street lives Jennifer, (Madison Clark) a dancer who captures Galen's attention when he sees her dancing almost naked. Into this mix comes Ryan, (Brad Bartram) Jennifer's old flame who wants to restart their relationship. When Ryan finds out what Galen and Miranda really are, they are all set for a showdown but who will survive? There are twists and the outcome is not a foregone conclusion.Why this film has got such a low vote is a bit of a mystery. More blood in the bloodsucking scenes would have been welcome but overall production values are quite high. The actors acquit themselves well enough and there is a good script with a contemplative ending. The women are what you would expect from a Playboy production with Madison Clark being naturally beautiful, and a welcome appearance by the statuesque Jennifer Ludlow. A good attempt at vampire erotica, so 5 stars.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*A vampire couple moves to L.A. The female is very horny while the male vampire wants to lay low. After a century or so together, cracks are starting to show in their relationship. She wants to party, he wants to play the piano. Soon a hot dancer who lives across the street will come into their lives. The guy thinks he's in love with her while his girlfriend just wants another conquest. It's a battle for true vampire love in between a lot of sex scenes.This was decent. The female vampire, (Angelina High), had a very interesting look. She had an extremely short haircut with touches of white in it. It was certainly not the normal hairstyle for women in these movies. Usually every woman has flowing blonde hair that snaps back as they're having sex. Angelina's hairstyle works for her, probably because she has such a tight body that you don't spend too much time looking at her head. The dancer girl was good too. She got to have sex with everybody except for the blonde bartender. I could have sworn that scene was coming. It didn't though. The blonde was too shy. Angelina wasn't shy though. She had plenty of opportunities to get undressed and she made the most of it. Overall, I was pleased with this vampire romp. It's worth a look.

I agree with krobyn that this one was not really a horror movie, and almost entirely an erotic one. Of course, the same is true of many or most vampire type movies. It has fewer vampire and plot pretensions than most though.What carries the movie and makes it pretty good as erotic is entirely Madison Clark. She plays a sultry yet essentially innocent brunette, who is trying to make a go as a performance artist, but becomes the object of vampire attractions, along with others of course.Kobryn says she thinks its really pretty good erotica, though she says from her female perspective. Here's my male perspective. It sure isn't a hard core pump movie, or even really soft-core porn. But it is pretty hot erotica. What entirely carries the movie erotically is raven haired Madison Clark's intelligent and very soulful sexual submissiveness, just beneath the surface, which is the juice of the flick. The girl's got heat. She's a sort of "Betty Boop" type.As for explicitness, it isn't much there. A good deal of partial nudity, and erotic "performance art" dancing though. The underlying soft S&M is what creates the interest. Though the thinness and slowness of the plot makes it hard to sustain unless you're seeing it as a fooling around with your sweetie sort of movie, or while surfing the net between periods on interest, or whatever.Madison Clark has definite potential in erotica though. She seems to have mostly played bit parts as a dancer type so far, before this movie. Hey, Shannon Tweed isn't my type and is rather long in the tooth anyway. Make room.