Children of the Night

• Directed by Tony Randel
• September 6, 1991 (Canada)

A schoolteacher and a high school graduate attempt to rid a small town of vampires that have been accidentally released.

Children of the Night is a low budget horror comedy type film I came across at a video store many years ago. Fangoria’s name was attached which spoke of quality in my mind so that gave me hope for this movie. Vampire movies in my opinion have been done to death but this did something interesting with the concept. In my opinion it’s a relatively fresh take on well-worn territory.

I am not calling this movie a hidden gem or great or perfect. I am talking that for its time it was something fresh for the subgenre. The vampire is not a rip off a Bela Lugosi nor is the film something more akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula film.

While listed as a horror film it is more accurately a horror comedy. The scares are mostly PG (PG-13 at best) but the jokes venture closer to R and are similar to the kind in the A Nightmare On Elm Street series. You need to balance humor and scares. One must be of the same strength as the other. Horror comedy is tough, but I think this film mostly gets it right.

The story is set in smalltown America-maybe even Canada. Allburg, portrayed as the stereotypical town, is filled with odd characters. Doc Fisher (Daniel Arthur Wray) and Mayor Horton (Ray Maurin) among others were the odd kind popularized by such shows as Northern Exposure. They opine how Allburg used to be a quiet town. Combined with odd camera angles on the actors, things take on a weird vibe.

I am bothered by something here though and that may be them not adequately fleshing out their mythology. The villain Czakyr (David Sawyer) apparently came to town from Romania posing as a priest. How though does this vampire function in a building filled with religious iconography? In this world are vampires unaffected by crosses and such?

There is also the confusing element with how after the head vampire is killed everyone that got staked is back up and moving around with the only aftereffects being splinters in their chests. I’m not sure how that works. They definitely needed to a better job of letting the audience in on the film’s internal logic.

Our main/important characters are very talented. We have Karen Black as Karen Thompson, Peter DeLuise as the heroic teacher Mark Gardner, Ami Dolenz as the student he must save Lucy Barrett, and Garrett Morris as town drunk Matty. Josette DiCarlo is not bad as Officer Gates. Evan MacKenzie as Father Frank Aldin, Maya McLaughlin as Cindy Thompson, Shirley Spiegler Jacobs as Grandma, Lloyd J. Kalicki as Billy among others are middling at best. The talent gap is huge which is bad when the pros interact with the amateurs.

There is also the perhaps unintended creepiness of the ending. Lucy is a recent high school graduate so at the most she is probably barely 18. As the screen fades to black at the conclusion of the story you can see teacher and student walking off hand-in-hand. Creepy!

Though not perfect, Children of the Night is an entertaining low budget horror film. It’s not well-known and thus probably quite obscure. To the best of my knowledge there is no physical release besides on VHS cassettes and it is nowhere I know of on streaming though you can find questionable copies on YouTube. I do recommend it so use the link to take a look!