THE FORSAKEN (2001)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, cosmological* 

THE FORSAKEN, a male-bonding road-movie with vampires, is an interesting misfire. 

Twenty-something Sean, a dutiful young film-editor, is given the task of driving a valuable car cross-country.  While passing through a desolate part of the Southwest, far from most human habitations, he encounters a hitcher named Nick.  Sean gives Nick a lift and later is drawn into the world of vampire hunting, for Nick has been infected by vampirism.  The only way he can avoid becoming a full vampire is to kill the head vampire responsible for his infection, who is also passing through the same area.  Head vampire "Kit" travels with a small retinue of fellow vamps and one human servant, the latter used to drive them about during the day, when the bloodsuckers dare not face the sun.

Sean wants no part of Nick's weird world, but when Sean is bitten by another almost-vamp, the young man has no choice.  Though the vampires are stronger and resist most methods of death-dealing, Nick knows their special list of weaknesses-- the sun, fire, and holy ground-- and seeks to draw them to a place where he can destroy them.  Conservative, rule-following Sean must step up and become a fearless vampire killer or be recruited by the ranks of the undead.

While the basic scenario has the potential to rank with Kathryn Bigelow's vampire-western NEAR DARK, writer-director J.S. Cardone doesn't work hard enough to give his characters the degree of characterization they need.  Sean and Nick cart around one of the vampires' victims for most of the film, but she remains so traumatized that she barely reacts to their circumstances (possibly a lame attempt to emulate a character from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD).  The trashy vampires, from leader Kit to his charismatic girlfriend Cym, are also little more than ciphers.  Sean and Nick have the best lines and the actors play well with what they're given, but they rarely succeed in evoking more than superficial aspects of their opposed characters: Sean the Conservative Plodder and Nick the Moody Rebel.  The final scene of the film has a certain charm based on those stereotypes, but the film doesn't foreshadow Sean's transformation adequately.  Further, Cardone mixes his tropes carelessly, citing demonic possession as the origin of the vampires, yet claiming that vampirism is passed like a "telegenic" virus.