Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Set in a future police state environment, vampires have decided to reveal themselves to the government. The government, however, has decided to keep this information top secret and not to release it to the public. Bokeem Woodbine plays a police detective named "Steve Grant" who is unaware of vampires until his partner is killed by one of them. Since Bokeem has witnessed a vampire in action, the top secret agency decides to reveal this information to him so that he can catch the killer. One of the vampires entrusted by his community to keep the peace named "Aaron Gray" (Adrian Paul), volunteers to work with Steve to help him catch the killer. Being few in number and quite peaceful, the vampire community doesn't want a rogue vampire to ruin their reputation and invite panic among the humans which might cause the humans to seek retribution. Since one of the vampires is causing all of the problems, Adrian takes Steve to one of their hidden villages to gather clues and compare notes. Since this is where the film gets interesting and not wanting to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, I won't divulge the rest of the story. I will say though that this was an intriguing movie which deviates from the usual vampire storyline. It has a good plot and some interesting twists along the way. On the other hand, the acting was barely satisfactory. While both Adrian Paul and Bai Ling (as the vampire "Lucy Westenra") performed adequately, I cannot say the same for Bokeem Woodbine as he seemed terribly miscast in this film. In fact, his performance was so bad that he almost ruined this film entirely. Fortunately, the plot and the two actors mentioned previously helped negate the damage somewhat. Even so, what should have been a very good movie in spite of the low budget ends up like so many films with few financial resources available. Slightly below average.

I've seen too many movies. I admit it. That's why I can tell where most movies are going most of the time. This is especially true of horror movies. I don't mean to imply that all horror movies are same and therefore easily predictable. Rather that there is a tendency towards sameness when it comes to quickly made B grade horror movies. This tendency is what makes me treasure those rare B grade horror movies that manage to surprise me. Movies like "The Breed."The movie, set in "the near future," opens with our main character, named Steve Grant (Bokeem Woodbine), and his partner tracking down a kidnapped girl. Grant is an agent of the NSA (National Security Agency) and I am unsure as to why an NSA Agent would be tracking a kidnapped girl. Unfortunately, so is the script. Moving on. The partners quickly find the girl (too late) and confront her kidnapper. The kidnapper turns out to be a vampire and slaughters Grant's partner. It was at this point that I figured I knew where the movie was going. I assumed that this incident would open Grant's eye's to the world of the occult and he would either A) be kicked off the police force and become an independent vampire hunter or that B) he would be inducted into the secret branch of the police force that specializes in demolishing creatures of the night. Just as the movie looked to be headed straight for path B, it took a left turn and regained my interest. When Grant insists on telling the truth in his official report he is told that the Government has known about vampires for nearly a year and are working on integrating them into normal society. He is then introduced to his new partner, one Aaron Grey (Adrian Paul), who is a vampire and told that they must work together to catch this dangerous rogue who threatens the peace of both races.This is a good premise for a movie and, to "The Breed's" credit, it tries to live up to this premise. It fails more than it succeeds, but at least it fails in a watchable way. The movie spends a little too much time on a murder investigation that isn't as complicated or as interesting as it seems. It sets up an ending that isn't as surprising as the movie wants it to be. It gives action scenes that aren't as exciting as they should be. In between the scenes mentioned above we get a love story that, properly handled, could have been the basis for an entire movie of it's own. We watch two partners learn to trust each other and deal with their differences. We see totalitarian overtones to the government that, if played up more, could have added a whole new layer of depth to the movie. We meet some cool vampires. We see some cool death scenes. Generally, this is a lousy movie, but it is a movie that tries hard. Sometimes, I'd rather watch a failure with high ambitions than a success with that settled for ordinary.

The Breed starts sometime in '...The Near Future...' where homicide detective Steven Grant (Bokeem Woodbine) & his partner Phil (Reed Diamond) follow up a lead on a particularly nasty serial killer who's running around at the moment. The lead happens to be a stolen van which they find & in a nearby building discover yet another dead body. The mysterious killer is also there, he most definitely resists arrest & even though Grant repeatedly shoots him he kills Phil by biting his neck. Grant survives but the killer disappears into the night... The 'National Security Agency' contacts Grant about the incident, the agencies director says that what he, & Phil, were dealing with was a renegade Vampire. He carries on to inform Grant that there are about 4000 Vampires worldwide & they revealed themselves to 'us' to try & live in harmony together, he also says that Vampires are genetic mutations & feed on a synthetic substitute for blood. Grant is assigned a new partner, a Vampire named Aaron Gray (Adrian Paul) & they are told to work together to discover the identity of the serial killing Vampire who wants to sabotage the peace between the two races...This American Hungarian co-production was directed by Michael Oblowitz & is average at best. The script by Christos N. Gage & Ruth Fletcher is the real problem here. Too many things just didn't work for me, for a start could a high ranking scientist create a virus that has the potential to wipe out the entire human race without a SINGLE person questioning him or finding out? I mean the guy is even using the 'Nation Security Agency' laboratories for Christ's sake! Considering the Vampire race has been around for 1000's of years it seemed strange that there was only 4000 throughout the entire world & that they had never been noticed before. The central relationship between Grant the human & Gray the Vampire was clichéd & really cheesy, I mean at first they don't don't get on & seem mismatched but by the end they are best of friends & have saved each other's lives, we've seen it all before & done a lot better. The whole story is predictable & I can't believe it took Gray over half the film to figure out the painfully obvious. The whole concept just didn't work as far as I'm concerned & the film spent a good 30 minutes explaining it's own set of Vampire 'rules' as Grant would ask a question like how to kill a Vampire & Gray would tell him thus making sure we, the viewer that is, know as well. The breed also makes a few feeble attempts to say things about racism, trust & acceptance, you know all the clichéd things one would expect.Director Oblowitz thinks he's making a cross between The Matrix (1999), Lethal Weapon (1987) & Vampires (1998), well no-one told him that you need a budget to pull that off. He films the fight scenes with people 'flying' through the air plus shooting & reloading their guns in a 'cool' way but they come off as looking ridiculous. He films everything with bleached out colours & a greenish tint. As for the films supposed style, you need to do a bit more than tilt the camera, shine a few neon lights & have some mist swirling in every shot. The gore is none existent, one neck biting, a couple of slit throats, a few gunshot wounds & someone explodes CGI style at the end & it looks terrible.With a really low budget of about $400,000 it shows. The Breed has reasonable production values but it looks cheap throughout & you can tell it was shot in Europe, in this case Hungary. Even though it is meant to be set in the future the cars, clothes & the like suggest otherwise. I found the acting awful, whats with the gay moustache Paul? Woodbine gives a terrible performance & just wasn't right for the role at all. Ling Bai is quite sexy looking whenever she appears.I was disappointed by The Breed, it's one of those films that make a fantastic trailer when they show ALL the cool bits in the space of two & a half minutes set against some techno music. Unfortunately there's another eighty seven & a half minutes to sit through if you decide to watch it. Personally I didn't think much of it.

I found it to be very Kim Newman-esquire in its approach to vampirism. It was likable, despite the painfully wooden acting. The scenery and costumes were heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and the Dr. Strangelove/1984 atmosphere was incredibly cool. However I still have to wonder how the main girl vampire managed to run around with those whacking great collars on her...And exactly what the heating bill was on her Gothic Mansion (tm). And I did love the fact that they used Buda-Pesth as their setting...The club was also cool, and slightly more fetish-y than other vampire movies like Blade...The dynamic between vamp cop and meat cop was quite good, still the same people from opposite sides aiming for the same goal while not quite trusting each other thing, but it made for some passable character development. And did I mention the supersharp 40s-style suit that the vamp cop gets to wear? Like I said, the costumes were gorgeous and well put together. The dialogue was a scream, but I'm sure it wasn't meant to be. "Cut the Anne Rice act!" From the lips of a vampire girl who I'm sure I've seen in gaming books, in fact, most of the main vamp characters seem to be based in the Masquerade vamp-style, running from fetish cyberpunk to nosferatu. The random acts of vampire motion were misplaced too. Stopping during a chase and twitching madly may look cool, but most viewers are going to be wondering WTF is going on. And the actor vamp is just the funniest thing alive...Or not quite so, as the case may be. And the handgrenade made me laugh, but that may just be my sense of humour.