Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie Review

Made Men Made for Dinner

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 19, 2017

Innocent Blood was ahead of its time. In 1992, no one knew what to make of a vampire comedy that was just as silly as it was gory. Until then, comedic vampire films had been strictly PG (e.g., Love at First Bite), while buckets of blood were reserved for serious horror films like Bram Stoker's Dracula, which appeared the same year. Even today, after TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel have demonstrated how vampire tales can accommodate both fear and laughter, Innocent Blood's R-rated mix remains a rarity. Indeed, the film's original cut had so much blood (not to mention sex and nudity) that it had to be trimmed to obtain an R rating. But director John Landis' preferred version played in Europe, and that unedited edition has now been restored for Blu-ray in a new transfer from the Warner Archive Collection, which also returns the film to its widescreen aspect ratio. (The U.S. DVD was 4:3 from a VHS-era transfer.)

Set in Pittsburgh, Innocent Blood centers on Marie (Anne Parillaud), a vampire with a conscience that limits her feeding to those who, in her estimation, deserve to die. She would rather go hungry than feast on "innocent blood". Michael Wolk's script is silent on Marie's origin and background, aside from hints about her being very old, and there's no attempt to explain how this beautiful bloodsucker with a French accent ended up in Pennsylvania's former steel capital. The film also picks and chooses its elements from traditional vampire lore. The word "vampire" is never uttered, crosses and wooden stakes are never brandished, and Marie's delicate features are brightly reflected back at her whenever she stares into a mirror. She has the customary speed, strength and agility of the undead, plus their familiar need to avoid sunlight and a pronounced revulsion from garlic. Notable supernatural manifestations include eyes that change color like a mood ring mirroring Marie's emotions, and a voice that switches into an otherworldly register at moments of anger or stress.

What Marie calls her "choosiness about food" leads her to prey on Pittsburgh's warring mob community led by boss Sallie "The Shark" Macelli, who is played with characteristic brio by Robert Loggia, one of several future denizens of The Sopranos to appear in Innocent Blood. But Marie's dining spree trips over a long-term undercover operation by detective Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), who has spent years masquerading as a member of Macelli's crew and working his way up the ranks. When the remains of Gennaro's chief contact, Tony (Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale), are found in his car, the local U.S. Attorney, Sinclair (Angela Bassett), chalks him up as another casualty of the ongoing war, but Gennaro thinks otherwise, and his investigation brings him face to face with Marie. By that point, they have a common enemy, as a wave of vampirism sweeps through Pittsburgh's underworld, threatening to transform the entire Macelli gang into an army of superpowered killers. Marie blames herself, because she failed to "finish" one of her victims by blowing off his head to prevent his transformation into a fellow creature of the night.

Much of the comedy in Innocent Blood results from the improbable collision of two competing sets of genre tropes, as swaggering gangsters are routinely overpowered and massacred by a feminine presence of the sort that they usually enjoy and discard without a second thought. Landis revels in every gory demise, dwelling on the graphic makeup effects with the same relish he displayed in An American Werewolf in London. (The death of Macelli's fretful lawyer, played with appropriate Jewish agita by the late Don Rickles, is especially memorable.) Parillaud's Marie accentuates the tale's absurdity by her very presence, as her winsome innocence contrasts with the bloody mayhem she leaves in her wake. It's the same quality exploited so effectively in Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita to make the title character a sympathetic romantic heroine who's also a ruthless assassin. Here, Parillaud pulls off an even more unlikely romance with Det. Gennaro, who finds his criminal masquerade diverging into realms he could never have imagined. Consenting adults have been known to handcuff their partner during sex for the sake of arousal, but in this case it's a matter of self-preservation.

As with many of Landis' films, Innocent Blood is filled with sly references to pop culture, with TVs in the background playing clips from classics like Dracula, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Strangers on a Train. The film also contains Landis' typical array of cameos, including director Frank Oz as a befuddled medical examiner, makeup artist Tom Savini as a news photographer, and directors Sam Raimi, Dario Argento and Michael Ritchie in a variety of walk-on roles.

Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Innocent Blood was shot by Swedish-born cinematographer Mac Ahlberg, who was no stranger to extreme makeup effects after photographing Reanimator and From Beyond for director Stuart Gordon. (He also worked with Landis on Oscar and Beverly Hills Cop III.) Warner treated the film badly on DVD, using a dated VHS-era fullscreen transfer that poorly served the film's many dark scenes. The U.S. DVD was also limited to the R-rated theatrical cut, although releases in other regions contained slightly longer versions with additional nudity and gore.

For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection, Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility scanned a complete interpositive of the U.S. version at 2K, along with select reels of an interpositive from the European release. Because WAC was unable to locate any cutting guide or notes from the original editorial process, a shot-by-shot comparison was used to ensure that the new master stitched together from these sources was the most complete version possible. The final running time is 115 minutes, approximately three minutes longer than the theatrical release. MPI used an original answer print on low-fade stock as a reference for color-correction, followed by WAC's customary clean-up to remove dust, scratches and damage. According to reliable sources, the negative from which the IPs were struck was unusually damaged and dirty for a film from this period, but you wouldn't know it from the final result, which is virtually pristine.

I suspect that Innocent Blood's Blu-ray presentation will be controversial, because the disc accurately reproduces the soft and often indistinct textures of a project shot mostly at night and in darkened interiors. In well-lit scenes, the image is acceptably sharp and detailed, but as soon as the light dims, the frame becomes an impressionistic layering of outlines, shadows and dimly lit faces, with frequent accents from patches of brightly illuminated (and often surreal) color. The overall effect is moody, beautiful and most importantly, true to the filmmakers' intent, but eyes accustomed to contemporary digital sharpness may react differently. (One of digital photography's strengths is its superior ability to capture detail with minimal light.) WAC and MPI have resisted any temptation to modernize the film with artificial sharpening or grain reduction, and the image remains film-like throughout. The Blu-ray of Innocent Blood has been authored with WAC's customary high average bitrate, here 34.99 Mbps.

Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Innocent Blood's original stereo track has been taken from the magnetic print master, cleaned of any age-related deterioration and encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. Even when played through a surround decoder, the mix remains front-oriented, but it is effectively spread across the front soundstage, with dialogue firmly (and clearly) anchored to the center. The dynamic range is broad, with sufficient bass extension to lend authority to gunshots, the occasional explosion and various manifestations of the supernatural. Ira Newborn, who was John Hughes's preferred composer and also scored The Naked Gun movies and Landis' Into the Night, provided the agile score, which segues back and forth among gangster-movie parody, horror-film suspense and gentle romance.

Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is a trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:58), which is more than Warner's 1999 DVD had.

Innocent Blood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even by present-day standards, when the proliferation of vampire-themed entertainments would appear to have exploited every imaginable permutation of the Nosferatu legend, Innocent Blood is a unique creation and one that's ripe for rediscovery. WAC has given it a superior treatment that is highly recommended.