Detective Hank Holten divorces his wife (a well-known writer of horror novels; all centered on vampirism), but he is not resigned to the idea that she may be dating others. He thus begins drinking and even stalking her, suffering, consequently, the reproaches of his boss and friend; the latter, to distract him and keep him out of trouble, assigns him a seemingly easy case: the disappearance of a young student named Layla. The detective begins his search and, before long, manages to track the girl down with a group of people at a rave; he follows her and ends up in an old abandoned hospital. Here the detective realizes that the group is actually composed of vampires; he tries to escape but is stopped and bitten by their leader. He will wake up the next day alone in the old hospital with a strange wound on his neck--but was it just a dream or was he really bitten by a vampire and will have to try to kill him to avoid turning into a creature of the night?
“Out for blood,” for the writer, represents a pleasant and unexpected surprise. On the face of it, it would seem to be the usual vampire movie; that is, one could envisage the same worn-out plot (bitten guy trying at all costs to do away with vampires, etc.) and the usual remote-controlled plot twists (so predictable as to almost offend); instead, no, none of that. Admittedly the first half starts out “canonically” and preemptively (although it fairly convincingly sketches the protagonist's personal situation; jealous and obsessed with his writer wife, whom he follows everywhere and tries badly to win back), but as time goes on interest grows. Several elements begin to become apparent that do not allow for certainty about the story: that is, whether it is reality or a hallucination of the confused protagonist, distraught by events and, as already mentioned, addicted to drinking and not a little. Kevin Dillon, playing the detective (the protagonist of the story) gave a good performance: without flashes but also without smearing. About Lance Henriksen there is not much to say: professional and reliable as always, even in a role of not much depth and impact on the story. The only drawback of the film: the photography that is too light (at some junctures, certain scenes look “glossy”); this is a bit jarring, since it does not recreate the right atmosphere that one would expect for some sequences (at certain junctures one would need a dark photography that plays with lights and shadows and not light and bright tones); which should have a certain grip or effect (whatever) on the viewer or at least recreate a distressing and gloomy atmosphere (for example, the rave scene is not very successful: too psychedelic and confusing and, above all, bright: it almost feels like being in a disco with strobe lights). The bloody sequences are concentrated almost entirely in the second half and all turn out to be quite believable (a few tricks are in cgi but one can easily pass over them; after all, the blood flows quite a bit); special effects by the now well-known John Carl Buechler (an old craftsman in the genre with avalanches of titles behind him). The elaborate look for the head vampire is not bad at all: a monster (in full swing, with claws and fangs) who has almost lost his human features; too bad they gave him a really bad voice (distorting the sound to create a pseudo-guttural voice was a really bad idea, which they could have saved big time; moreover, it turns out to be an inexplicable choice, because, surely, it does not make the character more creepy, but on the contrary almost risks making him ridiculous). The film lacks a real antagonist (a rather curious and, if you will, almost original element); one could say that, in turn, the different vampires in the story fill that role; first we have the girl the detective was looking for at the rave; then the ’second“ of the group and, finally, the head vampire. Remarkable is the interlocking ending, which can be interpreted in different ways (the dream reading, for the writer, turns out to be undoubtedly the most fascinating and the most apt, because it is still not much exploited); certainly, one can consider it the highlight of the film; a good surprise at the end can greatly benefit the overall judgment of the film, which would already be positive in itself anyway. All in all, a small little film that can be seen to spend 90 minutes pleasantly without having to turn off the brain.
Review of decker
