This Geek in Netflix: We Are the Night

I know some of you may have been panicking at the absence of my typical Wednesday article and I would like to let you know that I appreciate your concern and apologize. You see, when a woman likes a man (or men), she loses track of time and gains a certain… bodily soreness which results in delayed reviews.

In 2010, things happened. The Berlin Wall fell. Pearl Harbor was bombed. Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena and two Valley kids retrieved him before becoming the biggest band to grace Earth’s history: Wyld Stallyns. Somewhere in all this uproar, a German film titled We Are the Night was released.

Much (exactly) like with other European films I’ve reviewed, no one is actually going to know who any of the actors are and, continuing with my belief that Europeans have no true emotions, we’re going to skip this section.

Actually, I’m going to lie about the actors.  That seems even better.

Dick “fucking” Van Dyke plays the lead female bloodsucker, Louise. You may know Dick “fucking” Van Dyke from movies such as How I Married a Machete Murderer (the hapless Arlo) and I Know What you Did Six Summers Ago in Band Camp (Yvette’s cuckold, Gregory). We also have Macauly Culkin as Lena, Gabriel Byrnes as Charlotte, and Cillian “Oh My God, Take Me Now, You Creepy Blue-eyed Man” Murphy as Nora. If you watch carefully, you might notice a few cameos from people such as Ian McKellan and Colin Firth.

So it’s a pretty star-studded(ish) cast that you won’t want to miss. Ever. Just watch this movie on repeat and bask in its golden light, but don’t forget to turn over half-way through, as we don’t want you getting skin cancer.

Before I launch into the summary of the start of this movie (which I am now beginning to question as a good format for a review), I have to really address what I feel is a truly important topic in regards to this film.

“We Are the Night“? What does that even mean, really? Are they personifying the night, as I’ve always imagined a personified night to be more along the lines of a Greek goddess or something. Flowly dark robes, glitter in their hair, prone to family in-fighting.

You know what? Fuck this “we are the night” spooky bullshit. How goth do they need to sound, anyway? How about “We are three vampire bitches in Europe”?

GET OVER YO’SELFS, GOTH SUBCULTURE.

Quick summary of this film: crazy blonde lesbian vampire is focused on the idea of finding her soulmate and then never, ever, ever, EVER letting her go. No matter what. Even if she wants to leave. Kill her, cut off her limbs, bronze said limbs, make them into some sort of surrealist art on wheels that she would drag behind her for the rest of her life.

In sum: a typical lesbian relationship.

I know that I now have at least five friends who are planning on punching me for the above statement the next time I see them. For the moment, I will wave at you across the internet and remind you that you can’t reach me from where you are now, and you’ll likely forget to inflict pain on me by the next time we meet.

With this crazy blonde we get sidekicks in the form of an adorable quirky sometimes-redhead and a sultry brunette that managed to keep my attention the entire movie. We also have the strawberry blonde love interest.

You might be wondering why I’m not calling these characters by their names. I’m wondering too.

There is one other character: the male lead and love interest to Miss Strawberry Blonde 2010. He’s a cop, and, to my mind, is way too young and attractive to be a cop. Well, at least an American cop. If all cops in France look like this dude, send me over. I’ll bring my own handcuffs.

Continuing with this hair-identified plot, we’ve got these five characters, three of which are of The Undead, one of which looks like death, and another which is there solely to be a plot device.

Simply: brunette is miserable, redhead is everything you’d expect from a hyperactive anime character, blonde is nuts and obsessive, strawberry blonde is smarter than most give her credit for, and blond is a cop that barely features but has impact on the story.

Does that make sense? No?

Okay, let’s sell you on this movie. The strawberry blonde goes exploring one night and sees two dudes climb through a hole in a fence. She follows them into DINOSAUR LAND!!!

Dinosaur Land disappointingly turns out not to be a land of dinosaurs at all, but an underground club full of incredibly hot people in skimpy outfits. Totally fucking lame and lacking in its possibly reptilian, possibly avian content.

While at the lame club, that blonde vampiress sees the strawberry blonde’s tendency towards pick-pocket activities and strategically places some cash in eyesight and then does the “come hither, Imma lesbian with money” dance at her, which looks creepily like a seizure, but with more oral sex.

The strawberry blonde, being young and naive, takes the bait. Eventually winds up a vampire. (Serious side note: the transformation scene for this is one the best I’ve ever seen in the category of “beautiful turning into a vampire scenes”.)

Being a vampire movie, the strawberry blonde isn’t exactly happy with this transformation, though she tries to hide it. Wants her human life back. Cries a lot. Blames Lestat for turning her. Changes Kirsten Dunst into a vampire, leaves the swamps of New Orleans, has dirty sex with Christian Slater. Dirty, dirty sex.

Shit, that was the summary of my latest fan-fic! Now the plot is spoiled!!

My grief at spoiling my upcoming novel aside, this movie goes exactly to where you think it will. However, while there’s more than a couple cliches come with the expected plot that are scattered through it’s scenes, the film itself done with a bit more pizzazz than we (I) have come to expect from the genre.

I actually enjoyed it (after the rough beginning, which was totally overdone), as it was something fun. The photography, while not amazing and epic, had more than one typically sees in a horror movie, which I have to appreciate, especially now with the nausea-inducing found-footage trend.

This movie does come with a warning, I will be honest. While there are lesbians, there’s no lesbian sex. I can’t actually remember seeing a single bare breast (not that I was manning the TitWatch 2012 campaign or anything). But there’s some dude junk, if you have a fear of dude junk.

So, if you want to watch a movie that hits all the vampire cliches we’ve grown to expect (and if you can overcome your horror of dude junk), this is the film for you. Just ignore the incredibly shit dubbing and fire up Netflix.