This 1987 thriller was a predictable hit with the teen audience it worked overtime to attract. Like most of director Joel Schumacher's films; it's conspicuously designed to push the right marketing and demographic buttons; and granted; there's some pretty cool stuff going on here and there. Take Kiefer Sutherland; for instance. In Stand by Me he played a memorable bully; but here he goes one step further as a memorable bully vampire who leads a tribe of teenage vampires on their nocturnal spree of bloodsucking havoc. Jason Patric plays the new guy in town; who quickly attracts a lovely girlfriend (Jami Gertz); only to find that she might be recruiting him into the vampire fold. The movie gets sillier as it goes along; and resorts to a routine action-movie showdown; but it's a visual knockout (featuring great cinematography by Michael Chapman) and boasts a cast that's eminently able (pardon the pun) to sink their teeth into the best parts of an uneven screenplay. --Jeff Shannon