I wasn’t sure if I wanted to touch this film. Then I saw Keith David was in it. You had me at Keith I was hoping to see David afterward or else I would have been severely disappointed. Another one of those made for Amazon films, and they are hit or miss and usually hover near the Mendoza Line. Ah well, let’s see what we got.
Start Film
Marvin is out collecting cans because he’s homeless. He gets mad when 3 people near his cart at night. “Them cans is mine! Now I told you, them cans is mine!” Then he is assaulted by 3 vampires. Okay, that’s a way to start a movie.
We meet Shawna and her gay friend, Pedro. He is focusing on her boobs. “The summer that I got breasts was the same summer I fought vampires.” Are you kidding me? Please, keep coming at me with lines like that. Apparently, Ombreaux is the name of the hood in this film, a former plantation in New Orleans. Think of it like Cabrini Green.
I already find Pedro to be grating as hell. Marvin’s cart had barbed wire underneath. Interesting. Chris is this guy that she likes, and she is visiting her mom and didn’t expect to see Chris at the Ombreaux. Denise is her mom and appears to be an addict potentially with mental issues. Denise has a locket with a picture of Shawna and I assume her brother, Jamal. Mama asking for a dollar. When Shawna leaves, she sees a boarded-up section that says keep out and there was a monster in there, like a vampire.
We meet Steven, the father, and Jamal. Shawna asks if mom can come home to live, and not yet. “Cause Chris got mad light-skinned Creole girls with wavy hair,” says Jamal. “And?” says Shawna. “Look how dark you is. You look like Wesley Snipes with braids.” Okay, I am officially here for the quotes.
Shawna is at a party with Pedro. She is checking out Chris, and she admits that she was thirsty. She tries to talk to Chris, but he is a popular guy, he doesn’t know her at all. She says that she saw him at the Ombreaux and he denies it. Then she flubs up and embarrasses herself. She walks home alone because Pedro has found some boy toy. A jump scare of a homeless dude asking for money. She then sees 2 dudes eating another dude and backs up into another. He bites her. A car scares them away. The car stops to honk, see a girl laying on the ground after being assaulted, and the car doesn’t stop after the dude ran away. Really?
She comes home, cleans the wound, and covers up her windows because the sunlight is bad. Preach. Steven comes home, presumably from work He removes the papers covering the windows, and she is fine. I have to ask the dumb question here, but is there a difference in vampires based on race?
She visits Pedro to tell him what happened. She tells him that he got attacked by a group of homeless vampires. Homeless vampires are only going after other homeless and she dressed the part that night. That is the working theory. They go to visit Denise. Shawna wants to bring mom back home. Awww, the locket is gone. Denise was bitten. Denise is a vampire. She attacks, but then is in the sunlight and is set on fire. She dives out the window and dies. Really?
Shawna is gonna make them vampires pay for what they did. Steven shows Shawna the house where they lived before Katrina, but they recently tore it down. I really like this guy as an actor. His name is Derek Roberts, he did an episode of The Punisher, one of The Walking Dead, and The Sacrament. I am pretty sure I remember that episode. of TWD. He tells her how Denise was pregnant during Katrina. He gives her this jewelry box, along with the locket.
Shawna looked online for vampire info and got in contact with Granya. Pedro is so full of himself. So it’s like this white kids club for vampire fiction. This feels like I’m watching South Park. Wow. In order to become a vampire, the person has to die first. She asks how to capture a vampire and keep it alive. This is like a more adult Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark.
Chris delivers food that his mom sent as condolence. His mom and Denise used to play spade and shit. “I ain’t know that”. Ahhh, there’s the N-word with an A. He says that he would have their back if they find out who may have killed Denise. Pedro is worried that Shawna is bringing Chris for the wrong reason. Okay, I may not like Pedro, but I am all in on Chris. They go to the boarded-up section to see if they can find the vampires. This place is all kinds of creaking. Then they hear something. Like an RKO out of nowhere, Marvin attacks Shawna and then Chris. She uses a silver chain to place around Marvin’s neck. They subdued Marvin and have him tied to a chair.
Time to question Marvin about who turned Denise. “Old Marvin never turned nobody.” – Marvin “If not you, then who?” – Shawna “Uh…now, if I tell you, they’re gonna kill old Marvin. Again.” – Marvin Then lots of N-words. Garlic causes nosebleeds and burns the skin. Marvin says it’s a dude named Lefrak., who is building an army of homeless and addicts. He stays in a mansion, and he drives a red vehicle. Of course, it was him. If you kill Lefrak, perhaps the rest return to normal. Chris wants to put a stake in Marvin, but Shawna volunteers. She goes for it, Marvin leaps out and pins her down, and she stakes him. He lets out a horrendous scream. He is still moving though….then turns into a puff of dust. So, that happened.
Chris isn’t happy about being surprised about monsters. He puts his number in Shawna’s phone. She’s still worried about how fine he is.
Pedro did some research on the former owner of the mansion and at his peak, he owned 400 slaves and held on to the very end. When Pedro isn’t in diva mode, he isn’t a bad character. He makes a lot of sense and is quite smart. They’re gonna stake out the mansion all night.
This is the third pair of women that have come out. “Vampires like ho’s.” – Pedro. That was easily his best line yet. Time to get another girl involved, enter Granya. She suggests that vampires can use mind control on the ladies of the night, AKA the ho’s. If Lefrak tries to mind control Shawna, she just has to try to remember something from her past.
Shawna and Granya go shopping for prostitute attire, while Chris and Pedro got pizza with extra garlic powder. Shawna needs a stake taped to her leg and Chris happily volunteers. She asks Chris why he was so willing to help, and he dismisses it. Obviously, it will tie into why we saw him at the Ombreaux earlier. Oh, and Shawna has a stalker in a taxi. The girls go knock on the door and the big dude says they got their days mixed up and to return on Thursday, but Shawna says they were told to come tonight. He lets them in because he thinks they look young and tasty.
Inside, we hear a man giving instructions to someone. And there he is. Keith MF’n David!!! He is pumping up the crowd. Shawna volunteers to meet Lefrak first. No, I need more Keith. You all are teasers. We meet Lefrak, and he doesn’t like the darker girls, but she makes up for it in youth. Lefrak and here have almost the exact same skin tone, so I don’t know if that was intentional or not. He tells her, no silver.
Chris and Pedro are gonna pump the garlic powder in through the windows. Lefrak’s skin is cold, as expected. She goes to the bathroom before things get hot and heavy. He tells her to hurry up. She asks if they need a rubber and he says not for what they’re about to do. He tells her to look deep into his eyes for mind control. She remembers her and her mom when she was younger. He tells her that she won’t remember him. He goes for the bite.
Everybody in the mansion is coughing. Keith David, his character is called Babineaux, asks what the hell is going on in here. I’m pretty sure that he was the street preacher in front of the Ombreaux earlier, but I never got a clear look. He grunts and growls when he steps outside. He tells someone to go get Lefrak. At that moment, Shawna stabs him. He screams that loud ass scream. Chris and Pedro break in just tossing powder. Lefrak asks Shawn who she is. She says Denise’s daughter. He says “Who’s Den….” and then explodes to dust. Chris and Pedron did some fine work. Granya was given nothing to do there. Keith wants the 4 kids brought back to them, dead or alive.
They reconvene at Shawn’s. She’s the only only one who takes a shower. That’s weird, right? Chris says that they know now if they kill the leader, shit stays the same, but what if he wasn’t the leader? They look at the picture and correlate that the street preacher in front of the Ombreaux was also a slave in the old picture. So Keith David is gonna be the head vampire. If you are watching this and know that Keith David is in this, you’re expecting this, right?
There’s a knocking at the door. Granya keeps telling the group that they can’t come in without being invited. Jamal has lots of questions. It’s kinda funny. 3 of them just break in, so that invitation stuff doesn’t apply. This isn’t The Lost Boys, and I doubt that there will be a shirtless guy playing the saxophone. Main vamp that we’ve seen before attacks Jamal with Chris and Shawna trying to help him. Pedro and Granya have to fend for themselves.
The main vamp is going after Shawna now and who the hell is this guy that just broke in? Per my Amazon X-Ray, one of the most useful features in streaming, by the way, this guy is named Tunde. Not a common name, right? Except there’s actually an actor in this movie whose name is Tunde. Weird, right? Tunde is basically Morgan from the Walking Dead with his staff. He just took out all 3. He was the stalker. He is an 800-year-old vampire. He’s been feuding with Babineaux for over a century. That makes sense.
Tunde tells a story. Babineaux was once a slave in the city. One night, he was attacked by a vampire and turned. He killed his master. This is all animated and actually looks good. As the gap between the haves and the have-nots has grown, he is building himself an army. Babineaux is a vampire supremecist. I never thought I’d type those words.
Pedro asks Tunde why he didn’t eat them. Apparently, with modern-day tech, it isn’t necessary to eat humans anymore. Good answer. The sun only affects new vampires but hasn’t affected him in about 500-600 years. Vampires need a lot of melanin. Jamal compares his sister to Wesley Snipes. Yakubu breaks in all pissed off that he missed the fight. He’s the actor with the real name of Tunde. Tunde needs to go take care of business with Babineaux and leaves Yakubu in charge of the kids. I will give this film an A+ for the variety of names.
Pedro takes a shower to leave Shawna and Chris alone. Chris admits that his brother is also an addict. Chris tells her that she’s beautiful and almost kiss, but Pedro comes in.
Tunde has a group of all Nigerians I think, and they cleared out the mansion, but no Babineaux. There are tunnels under the mansion. She and Chris want to go, but Pedro says no. They just need to get past Yakubu. Pedro has finally decided to finally go to the good school in Texas and deal with all them nasty white folk. Jamal pours garlic powder on Yakubu and the kids escape. Granya is thickening out. Because she’s white. She has to go home and prep for her SATs. Who really has to do that? We now know the answer.
So the kids get to the tunnels, and find some coffins, it looks like some shit out of Skyrim. They run into some vamps. One is Babineaux. Shawna, you fool. He’s too strong. He is dressed like Jack the Ripper. Pedro tries to stake in the back, but that was a failure. 3 vamps chew on Pedro. The stake did go in, but missed the mark. Chris is knocked out. Come on, Shawna, be that strong independent female lead in a horror film.
Babineaux just wants to talk. He asks who Shawna lost. Babineaux tells her that he gave Denise a gift. He talks about the oppression of black people and how he’s seen it all and even specifically mentions 1992. He was there in 9 Deuce!! Of course, he has lived for several 9 Deuces. He wants Shawna to lead by his side. And he loves her skin, she could be day walking by tomorrow. She’d rather die, so big fight time. Will she have to kill Pedro is the question? “It tastes so much sweeter when it’s against your will.” Oh boy. He goes to bite her and she shoves the locket in his mouth. She stakes him. Noooooooo, you made Keith David explode to dust. Chris is suddenly awake with a dead Pedro, and she weeps. Damnit! Pedro, you were supposed to come to life.
We get a sweet jazz band playing at the funeral at the least. This is actually really nice. I would love a New Orleans jazz band to play out in the street after my funeral. Now we get the epilogue mourning Denise and Pedro, but things between her and Jamal are much better. Granya and her became friends. Shawna now tries to get signatures for the Ombreaux. And she’s still got Chris. She wants him to bring a pizza to her place tonight.
Shawna gets home, looking for Jamal She thinks that she has the place to herself. There’s a knocking at the door. It’s vampire Pedro!!!
End Film
I’m surprised to say this, but that was a lot of fun fo the most part. Let’s get the negatives out of the way quickly.
I felt that at times, this movie didn’t quite know if it wanted to be a cheesy episode of Goosebumps or Are you Afraid of the Dark or if it wanted to go more of a Tales from the Hood or Candyman route. The thing is, it kinda wanted both and at times, it made the film feel a bit uneven. Like the cheesiness and then the N bombs, and back and forth kinda messed with the overall tone.
Also, the dialogue…. this was made for a younger audience than me. Perhaps I am not the intended audience at all. And that’s okay because not every movie or song has to be made with me as the target demographic.
With that being said, the acting was very good. I wasn’t keen on Pedro, but he played his role great. Shawna, Steven, Tunde, Denise, and of course, Babineaux, were all played really well. I want to include Jamal and Granya, but their roles were severely limited. I also didn’t include Chris in this list, not because I didn’t enjoy him, but because his character was very simple so he didn’t get any real opportunities to shine.
I also liked how they tied this in with the aftermath of Katrina and gave people a bit of perspective on what life is like afterward. I thought that they handled this really well. I watched this as a joke but I walk away as a fan. I would watch this again.
Final Rating: 5.8
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