Living in a poor section of the city, a teenage girl finds that her community has been invaded by a coven of vampires looking to feed off the poor and weak in the area to gather their numbers into a war against humanity, and gathers her friends to fight back alongside other vampires looking to stop them.

This was a highly enjoyable and worthwhile vampire effort. Among the more likable features here is the incredibly complex and involved setup that provides a launching point for the vampire activity to come from. With the early introduction to the mother and daughter living in their run-down community barely getting by and being forced to rely on her studies to provide a way out of their environment, the contempt for being around her friends who she likes but doesn't really appreciate their lifestyle and the general unease with the authority figures in the community telling her what's going on with her life all, this ends up making for a highly-convoluted story that sets everything up rather well. Alongside the main storyline, the idea of how she and her group of friends come together without any prejudices to help her makes for a rather likable time here. That setup allows this one to have a lot of fun with the vampire attacks that take place. Starting off immediately with the first attack on the homeless man who's swarmed and tackled viciously to start this off in grand fashion, the attacks here have a lot to like. The fact that there's plenty of evidence to show their savageness by just immediately swarming a victim and just taking them out in massive sprays of blood-splatter creates a highly enjoyable time here by making this one feature some threatening and imposing creatures. Combined with some highly enjoyable ideas about their lore involving the targets they select and how they manage to go about hiding in the community through several of their powers being displayed to help conceal their identity there's a lot to like here involving the creatures. On top of this, there's also a lot to like about the final half here where this one reveals the final plan of the master vampire which gives this quite a lot to like. Offering the kind of rational explanation that sounds logical and quite reasonable to where we almost want to be on his side regarding the use of racial injustice and reform into a major part of his plan for taking over the citizens. It nearly paints him as a sympathetic figure doing it in a back-handed way to help strengthen and enhance the community, although this comes off way too late in the film to have the kind of effect it really should've. Likewise, it also signals the overall brevity of the final fight between the two who finally come face-to-face with each other in the closing minutes so there's no sense of the epic final boss-fight this is trying to give. However, these are minor quibbles overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Well, the 2021 horror movie "Black as Night" came without me ever hearing about it, and I stumbled upon it by random chance. And with it being a new vampire movie, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it.

While writer Sherman Payne managed to put together a good enough storyline and plot, the movie did suffer from being just-another-run-of-the-mill vampire movie. Yeah, while entertaining enough, the storyline just didn't differentiate itself from the numerous similar vampire movies out there. At least you know what you will be getting in for here, when you sit down to watch "Black as Night".

I must admit that I found the movie's cover rather intersting, and it was what initially made me single out this particular movie. Director Maritte Lee Go managed to take the somewhat generic script and make it watchable enough for a single viewing.

The acting in "Black as Night" was good, and lead actress Asjha Cooper (playing Shawna) definitely carried the movie rather well. I was not familiar with her prior to this movie, but she really managed to stand up and did well. I have to admit that I was rather thrilled when I saw that Keith David was on the cast list, and he does bring his usual dark charms and usual demanding attention while on the screen thing with him, for better or worse. One thing that was disappointing, though, was the fact that Keith David wasn't really given as much on-screen time as he deserved, or as the character he portrayed deserved.

Visually then "Black as Night" was good. The movie deviated from the usual vampire lore with long upper fangs only for the vampire creatures. Instead, the vampires portrayed in "Black as Night" had rows - both up and down - of sharp fangs, making them look more feral. A nice touch, for sure. And I like the effects when a vampire was slain, that was definitely good entertainment.

"Black as Night" is watchable, for sure. But the contents of the storyline and the fact that it is essentially a rather generic vampire movie makes it unsuitable for more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Black as Night" lands on a bland five out of ten stars. There was just too much squandered potential here.

Yikes, where to start... A young girl (Asjha Cooper) is walking home one night when she encounters some New Orleans vampires feasting on a homeless man. Though attacked herself, she is rescued and then proceeds to show her best friend Fabrizio Guido and school heartthrob Mason Beauchamp her scars, sets about learning how to combat these creatures and soon the trio are formidable mini Van Helsings. If it is trying to draw an allusion with black poverty in New Orleans then it is woefully simplistic in it's approach. If it is trying to be a horror film, then it misses by a mile - indeed were it not for the fact that Beauchamp is quite handsome and Andrew Penrow really quite ridiculous then this film would have precisely nothing to recommend it to anyone. Why Blumhouse churned this dross out is anyone's guess, but it doesn't do anyone any favours on the creative side, nor for any kind of discerning audience.