When is a vampire movie not a vampire movie? When it’s set in the American Pacific Northwest but filmed in Ireland and it’s about a local monster myth called The Red Coat. But when you likely have to rename the movie to Sunrise because most Americans would think The American Revolution when they hear Red Coat…. and then you try to manipulate the folklore into a vampire story even though the vampire never drinks anyone’s blood and has no problem with sunlight except in exactly one scene. Voila… a “vampire” movie. Called Sunrise. Which doesn’t’ feature a sunrise or a sun that bothers vampires.

The film stars Alex Pettyfer has a vampire cop (but not in a cool way) who… ummm… hangs out with an Asian family who are being harassed by a white supremacist Guy Pearce. The “vampire” has a history with Pearce which is revisited through fits and starts flashbacks… and he’s back for… revenge? Annoyance? Blood maybe? Something something racism?

I want to give this flick credit for atmosphere… going for that cold, damp, gloomy Pacific Northwest thing. But the film mistakes atmosphere for plodding, dreary, uneventful tedium. Nothing happens in this movie… it’s 90 minutes of setup for about a minute of actual revenge. It’s, I guess, well intentioned… setting up a damp neo noir with folklore elements… but they either didn’t have enough script or filmmaking talent to make any of it interesting.

And, yeah, don’t believe the lies… there is a blood drinking folklore monster out in them there woods… but it’s about the most ambling, distracted, non-eventful vampire that ever bumped its head getting out of a coffin. It feels like someone said, “Hey, isn’t Forks in the Pacific Northwest? So… maybe vampires? Sure, let’s go with vampires. Especially ones that don’t burn up in the sun and drink chicken blood. Or something. I dunno. This movie’s gotta be about something, amiright?”

Yeah, this movie’s about revenge in the most longform, ambling, tedious of ways. It’s not worth your time unless you want to stare at old growth forest for a long time. Which might actually be more interesting than the rest of this flick….

Score: 64