Review from BumsCorner

If the sight of a little blood in a movie makes you shudder and go "ick!", then this movie probably isn't for you. Bright red blood profusely sprays, spurts, gushes, and splatters from a variety of mouths, necks, chests, and even groins. Throats get torn out. An intestine or two get chomped on. Multiple people die horribly. If all of that sounds entertaining to you, then THE THIRST (2006) should be right up your artery.

Clare Kramer (who looks a little like Twin Peaks' Sherilyn Fenn) plays a drug-addicted stripper named Lisa. When she winds up in the hospital, her boyfriend Maxx (Matt Keeslar) berates her for hitting the needle again, but is then shocked to find that the real reason she's there is that she has terminal cancer, a fact she's been hiding from him. Late that night, Lisa is visited in her room by a mysterious woman named Mariel (the MILF-adelic Serena Scott Thomas, who played "Dr. Molly Warmflash" in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH), whose intentions are, shall we say, unusual.

Maxx sinks into a grief-filled funk after Lisa's death, so a couple of his friends barge into his apartment and force him to go out on the town with them. They drag him to a wildly-decadent club called "The Inferno" for some well-needed fun, and while inside, Maxx spots someone across the crowded dance floor who looks just like Lisa. She disappears before he can get any closer, but he's so convinced it's her that he makes a beeline out to the cemetery and furiously starts digging up her grave. Before he can open it, however, the police arrive and remind him that he's engaging in an illegal activity.

A guy spotting his dead girlfriend in a club and then digging up her grave are good signs that THE THIRST is going to be one of those good, old-fashioned horror flicks like they made back in the 70s and 80s. Already it's beginning to give off the same vibe as classics like FRIGHT NIGHT, NEAR DARK, and THE LOST BOYS, but with a quirkier look and style all its own. And we haven't even gotten to the vampires yet.

That's right, Mariel's a vampire, and now Lisa's one, too. And when Maxx sneaks into the forbidden party-zone on the second floor of "The Inferno" searching for Lisa, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of an all-out, carnage-packed blood feast. The cult-like vampire "family", consisting of Mariel, Darius (Jeremy Sisto, much better here than he was in NOW YOU KNOW), the cornpone Lenny (Adam Baldwin), the foppish Duke (Neil Jackson), a couple of really freaky sisters, and now Lisa, take Maxx back to their crib where Lisa is told that she must either kill him or "turn" him. She turns him (in a stunning "love scene" that is imaginatively scored), and the initially-reluctant Maxx now begins to discover the wide, wide, wonderful world of vampirism and takes to it with a frenetic enthusiasm. But of course, things will begin to go wrong, and Maxx and Lisa will find themselves at odds with the rest of the family, with grave results.

From Duke's shocking murder of a prostitute in the opening scenes (featuring some great makeup effects and editing) to the exciting conclusion, THE THIRST is a freaky fun-filled ride for the strong-hearted horror fan. Black humor abounds, along with some well-handled dramatic scenes between Maxx and Lisa that lend unexpected depth to the story. The cast does a great job with their characters, aided by an imaginative screenplay and direction that takes some of the worst of the recent cinematic cliche's (Shaky-Cam, speed-up/slow-down photography) and uses them to surprisingly good effect. And it's all so fast-moving and dizzyingly over-the-top that you barely have a moment to catch your breath before the next giddy atrocity goes spewing across the screen.

The only thing that really bugged me, in fact, was the cat scene. But writer/producer Mark Altman, in his entertaining and informative commentary track with composer Joe Kraemer, says that as a recently-converted fellow cat-person it bothered him, too, so I don't feel so bad. I'll have to fast-forward through it, though, the next time I watch THE THIRST--which I'll definitely be doing from time to time in the future, just as I frequently revisit all those really cool old horror films among whose ranks it now stands in my estimation.

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