20131016: Horror Review--We are the night

We Are the Night (Wir Sind die Nacht)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. German live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 99 minutes, horror, fantasy, drama; aspect
2. IMDB: 6.1/10.0 from 4,342 users. Spoken language is German; dubbed English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 62% on the meter; 51% liked it of 6,591 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 154,783 users.
5. Directed by: Dennis Gansel.  Written by Jan Berger and Dennis Gansel.
6. Starring: Karoline Herfurth as Lena Bach, Nina Hoss as Louise, Jennifer Ulrich as Charlotte, Anna Fischer as Nora, Max Riemelt as Tom, Arved Birnbaum as Lummer, Steffi Kuhnert as Lena's mother, Mrs Bach.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Louise, Charlotte, and Nora kill and drink the blood of every one on a small exclusive jet. Then they jump out before the crash; nice touch.


2. Next we get a look at Lena, a teen delinquent: pickpocketing, credit card theft and fraud, assault and battery on a policeman, evading arrest, underage drinking, vandalism.  She evades policeman Tom after stealing the credit card of a Russian mobster whom Tom was chasing.  Tom catches Lena, but she gets away from him again.  Lena's mother seems to be intimate with Lena's current parole officer, which might keep the number of arrests down.


3. The vampire women host raves to meet people who will not be missed, plus drinking and dancing.  Louise is always looking for just the right pair of eyes; she likes Lena's, and lets her into a rave. Louise bites her in the ladies' room and Lena starts to change quickly, as in sunlight sensitivity the next morning, plus hunger for blood.  She returns to Louise the next night. In passing they mention that there are only 100 vampires in the world, and all of them are female.


4. After some enjoyment with the three older vampires, Lena makes the mistake of going home.  Tom meets her when she departs from her mother.  He promises not to rat her out about stealing from the Russian pimp.  They go for a coffee date, and start getting to know each other.  Tom can tell that something big has changed in her life, and it's not the new boyfriend that Lena claims.


5. Tom starts investigating; Lena keeps learning more about the other three vampires. 


6. Tom and his boss set up an assault on the hotel where the vampires live.  Nora is lost to sunlight, but the other three escape.  Lena prevents Louise from killing Tom, which complicates things considerably.


7. Charlotte says good-bye to her almost ninety year old daughter, who recognizes Charlotte before she dies.  Then Charlotte traps Louise and Lena in order to die from the sunlight of dawn.


8. So only the triangle (Lena, Louise, Tom) remains.  How might that end?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Girl power among German vampires suffers from love triangle.
2. Four stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.  Some of the better vampire healing FX I've seen.


2. Sound: 9/10 Excellent save the dubbing, which is merely good.


3. Acting: z/10 Karoline Herfurth was fine, basically playing three roles.  I liked the performances of Nina Hoss and and Jennifer Ulrich as well.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 A foot chase starts in complete darkness, but continues in full light.  No, thank you.  One strike on continuity.  The rest of the story hung together rather well.