As a young detective, Joe Gennaro is looking to take down Sal the Shark and his mobsters who have control over his city. Gennaro finds that he may not be the only one looking to take a "bite" out of the crime in Pittsburg, in this 1992 horror movie, Innocent Blood.
The Gangsters are roaming the streets in Pittsburg, terrorizing and sparking fear in the hearts of their enemies. But the mob bosses aren’t always the ones dealing the final blows. In this 1992 film, Innocent Blood re-defines the phrase, “I’m going to suck your blood.” This corky-horror film stars Robert Loggia as a crazed mob boss, Anthony LaPaglia as an ambitious detective and Anne Parillaud as Marie, a very attractive young woman, with a bloodthirsty crave for the bad guys.
At the beginning, Marie shows off her promiscuity and catches a ride with one of the mobsters. Just when the gangster thinks he is about to score with a beautiful woman, Marie’s eyes begin glowing red as she sinks her teeth into his neck and drains all his blood. Marie then proceeds to blow his head off with a shotgun, unbeknownst to the audience; there is a special reason for this that later will turn the city upside down. Marie decides to take out “The Shark,” Sal Macelli, but things don’t go according to plan. After she bites his neck, Marie is shot in the side. The noise from the gun alerts Sal’s driver and causes Marie to flee the scene. This allows Sal to return from the dead as a vampire, out to eliminate the competition and take over Pittsburg, one neck bite, blood sucking at a time.
Marie realizes that the whole city is in grave danger and turns to Joe Gennaro, played by Anthony LaPaglia, who has been an undercover detective in Macelli’s mob organization. The two have an unusual connection, but work well together in order to defeat Macelli and his gang of bloodthirsty vampire mobsters, (sound like a deadly combination if you ask me.) Macelli has already turned his loyal followers into deranged vampires, making the job of killing Macelli and restoring peace to Pittsburg that much more difficult.
Personally, I scare pretty easily, so the first time Maries eye were glowing red and that demonic sounding voice came out of her mouth, I jumped. After the initial scare, I realized that this wasn’t really that scary and actually somewhat comical. The actors have some really cheesy dialogue that will make you laugh, all the way until Macelli catches on fire. (SPOILER ALERT.) This did have the potential to be a pretty good movie, but failed to hit their target. The whole movie centers on the love connection between Gennaro and Marie and their ability to eliminate the mob boss after he becomes an evil vampire. However, this movie isn’t my cup of tea. It has the makings of a good movie; vampires, mobsters, ambitious protagonist characters, but ultimately made for a kind of outrageous film at best.
Time Warner re-mastered this film as an “Archive Collection” and released it on Blu-Ray to its fans. The actual viewing quality wasn’t bad. It still gave you that early 1990’s feel with a mob era style to the story line.
The main features of this film are viewing it in 1080p High Definition, DTS-HD Master Audio, and two minutes of additional footage that was not shown in the US during its initial release in September of 1992, can be viewed on this new release of Innocent Blood.
