Night Junkies: What "Twilight" should be with no increase in quality.

There is no such thing as a dramatic B-Movie. So nothing that naturally happens due to the low budget can take away from lousy actors giving their heart (and most likely their digestive track) to their role.

Even if a movie is dramatic with an edgy idea and shot on one handheld camera, it may not be classified as Indie. This is especially true when the score and action sequences are reminiscent of every B-Movie made this millennium.

In this state of limbo, one can find "Night Junkies", a movie that is the vampiric attempt to address the concept of addiction.

Vincent is a typical addict whose only concern is to get his next hit. Since his addiction is to blood, he has to stay indoors during the day, so developing relationships ends at his clamping down on his victim’s throat, but when he meets the defiant stripper Ruby, he thinks he found the girl of his dreams. Too bad he had to complicate their attraction by taking a nibble out of her.

Now Ruby is a reluctant vampire, but since this is merely an addiction, she sets out to conquer it. Vincent is reluctant of going cold turkey, and when the strip club owner and a wannabe Jack the Ripper are on her tail, having those undead powers may come in handy. It may be more important for Vincent and Ruby to accept what they are at least until no one wants to take vengeance upon them.

There are a lot of great concept introduced in Night Junkies and even the occasionally well written scene, but otherwise the film makes one want to take up an opiate to sit through it. By no means is this a great vampire movie, and since it cannot be that, the addiction storyline fails. Wretched editing and transitional effects that seem to be poor knock offs of those from Highlander: The Series makes it a total mess of a picture. It is honestly a rare thing for me to admit, but Night Junkies is a movie that fails on every level.

If there is anything that can be taken away from Night Junkies, it is what it is like putting up with addiction in the third person. This comes from personal experience, and after a bankruptcy caused by the unappreciative, it is an experience that no one should be a part of. Perhaps if you are considering saving a down and out whore from herself, you should watch Night Junkies. Sitting through movies that no one can appreciate is part of the ordeal, and if you do not have the simple sense to avoid putting up with that, Night Junkies is your Naloxone.

Cinefiles - Colorado Springs Independent