Nella Notte – review

Directors: Lorenzo Onorati & Giovanni Pianigiani

Release date: 2004

Contains spoilers

So, I stumbled upon this film on You Tube under the English title of Into the Night and whilst I can absolutely see why it is floating around for a free watch I am still, several days after watching, reeling from the crazy plot that twisted and turned like a twisty turny thing – not with plot twists as much as absolute tangents.

Indeed, the day after watching I met up with a friend for a bit of a catch-up and tried to explain the plot to him. Every so often, as I paused for breath, he’d make a comment expressing his incredulity and I had to say that there was more to go through. If a film’s goal is to make you talk about it, then this film is a success. As a piece of cinema… well, probably not so much!

Giorgi can't cook

So, it starts with a man held by thugs who cut off his fingers (in a really poor sfx) and then cut his throat. It then cuts to an unrelated man, Giorgi, preparing a chicken in the kitchen but struggling. His girlfriend, Marina, says he should learn to cook and makes an exit from the room. He struggles for a moment, picks up a knife and follows after her. He then says it isn’t working and leaves. At home there is a message from a mutual friend, Marina is besides herself with upset. He unhooks the phone, puts a dial-up on his computer and goes to a chatboard where he reveals his misogyny. Another user, the Count, suggests he goes to the Russian Hearts website – he declines.

the Count

At Russian Hearts a man walks in and declares himself the new owner – revealing the fingers of the man at the head of the film to prove this fact. One of the girls (Iuliana Ierugan) is ill and needs medicine. He agrees to get it depending on how she is with the client he has lined up for her. She is dropped off with the Count (a film producer) who has Giorgi with him (who clearly changed his mind about Russian Hearts). The Count starts manhandling her and reveals that he is a killer and has Giorgi film as he beats and hunts her, and then has Giorgi join in. Russian Hearts supply girls for “special clients” (read serial killers) we later find out.

eating Giorgi's heart

The girl vamps out – she is never named in film and the credits on IMDb have her as La vampira – and rips out Giorgi’s heart and then chases down the Count and digs through his back. The next day, at the Agency, the new owner is shocked to see her beaten. The truth of the business outs and he gets a list of clients. She then kills him, reveals the medicine is to prevent her craving for blood and takes the list. Ok, so we have a revenge against the men on the list film? You’d think so. However, the next we see her she is living rough with the city’s homeless.

with sleeping Sandra

Nearby there is street racing on motorbikes going on. The triumphant winner is a woman, Sandra (Linda Di Pietro), who takes her winnings and has essentially enraged the mobster who runs the betting and wants her gone. Nearby the police raid the homeless, sadistic in their treatment of them. The vampire runs from the police and is spotted by Sandra who picks her up and takes her home, promptly taking a sleeping pill and going to sleep. The vampire vamps out, legs it from the flat and gets to a pharmacy – we then see her shooting up the medicine (we are never told what this medicine is).

the vampire girl

The next day Sandra goes to work – she’s a cop. She has a go at a wheelchair bound inspector who ordered the homeless purge and sets to go out when she is grabbed off the street and driven off. The mobsters also have the vampire woman, rendered insensible. This is spotted by a fellow cop who chases after them. They get the women to a hideout and the mobster sets to work, cutting Sandra’s back up, snorting cocaine off the bloody wounds and then stabbing her (she dies). They turn their attention to the vampire girl but they are interrupted.

demonic avatar

We have seen some bad sfx, imposed eyes occasionally and these seem to belong to a creature that appears in dry ice. At first we only see the eyes and hear the voice. The mobster complains – the deal was they get it victims and the entity take care of cops and yet Sandra had infiltrated the racing ring. The entity reveals itself to be a demonic looking thing that feeds on adrenaline and pain and kills the mobster by sucking out these things with a tentacle sucker that emerges from roughly the mouth area. It then becomes apparent that the entity is an avatar for the wheelchair bound cop. It starts to feed on the vampire but it is too much and, back at the station, the cop’s head explodes!

chicken drinker

So, she gets away but is seen by the cop that followed Sandra and her vampiric face is published in the papers. She starts enjoying herself, getting a new outfit and then meeting a guy on a tram who draws her – but draws the vampiric side. At first he says it was accidental (it was a caricature that just looked like the vampire side) and they have sex. Later he seems to be missing and she finds him drinking a chicken’s blood. He reveals he is a muli – a son of a vampire and a mortal, and so not the muli described in Bane, which is the female form of the Serbian Mullo and is very much undead. He agrees to help her track down the men on the list.

Russian agent

Whilst the muli section occurs we have been cutting to Russia, where the vampire’s aunt is picked up by the secret police as they decide to search for her. The vampires were the result of genetic manipulation and they have most of them captive but she is loose and they need to find her, for plausible deniability reasons. There is a strange moment with remote control killers and the film eventually ends with the Russians ready to hunt her down in Italy and the muli ready to track down the men from the list for her – from what I can tell a sequel was never made.

adrenaline draining appendage

So, phew… twisting and turning all over. There is little coherence in the way the plot is presented and the acting is blooming poor as are a lot of the sfx. That said, all the twisting and turning is a route to it being at least a tad amusing and it never becomes boring as there is always something new going on. Half-vampires and adrenaline draining physical avatars are interesting parts. Is it good? No. Is it terrible? Probably, but it is at least entertaining in its terribleness. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.