Prisoner of the Dawn – review

Director: Michael Lazar

Release date: 2023

Contains spoilers

Despite appearing on Amazon VoD (and on Tubi also), this was definitely a film that snuck out – IMDb showing it as still in post-production when I wrote this review. It codes itself as a Los Vegas film from the opening city shot but despite an earnestness it struggled as a coherent film. I think it also made a mistake by stripping the vampirism right back in this (as I’ll explain).

It starts with a view of Nick (Michael Lazar) in a room and then cuts to him running to a car, he’s chased and shot at and runs off. The two pursuers chase after him. He shoots one and, as the other approaches, he seems to move at superhuman speed to get behind him and then shoots him also.

Michael Lazar as Nick

This all gives us a bit of a measure of the man, who seems to be an assassin at first but later reveals himself to be into a bit of everything, apparently. It also marks him as more than human. Of course, he is a vampire and, as well as moving really quickly, he avoids the sun as it makes him weak and ill and uses blood. I say uses because he seems to be injected with it for the most part, rather than drink it and its only a small syringe worth. This is what I mean about stripping the vampirism back, there are no fangs, no bloodbaths and no other lore (though there is a backstory that I’ll get to).

Nick and Jet

We see him pick up several jobs, but not necessarily him completing them. We see his blossoming romance with waitress Jet (Daniela Prado Cota) and his friendship (and perhaps relationship) with Cara (Persia Sound). Jet doesn’t know what he is – he tells her later in the film – Cara does and he goes to her when he needs blood. The CIA also seem to be involved, wanting his blood so they can make super soldiers over at Area 51. He is employing a doctor to look for a way to end the curse (specifically around the sunlight aspect).

SS Officer

The backstory was interesting even if the execution of the scenes left a little to be desired. Nick was a criminal in New York in 1943. He ended up in a concentration camp. If the film said I missed it, so one assumes he was drafted and ended up captured as a POW and then separated from the other POWs. He has a camp tattoo and later says he was in Buchenwald. In real life 350 American POWs were placed in the Berga slave labour camp, close to Buchenwald, on suspicion of being Jewish and so the plot point had a voracity to it.

the witch

An intertitle tells us that “After the loss of key battles by the German military in world war two, Hitler dispatched his dark arts division of the SS. Their mission was to seek out mystic powers. Hitler sent an envoy to the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. The SS obtained intel of a witch with the blood of Vlad the Impaler, also known as the Vampire Dracula". They essentially use this experimentally on Nick and turn him.

Nick and Cara

I said the scenes left a little to be desired. The briefly seen sets were quite generic. The SS captain had a hat and black shirt rather than a uniform. The witch has a plague doctor mask. It does lead to a side scene of Nick selling a luger and medal taken from the SS chap to a neo-Nazi and then returning and killing him. As well as the 1943 scenes, the film seems a little fractured and the dialogue struggles to support things leaving the plot with an incoherence. Michael Lazar clearly had a vision but, he just didn’t bring it across well enough. His performance, I’m afraid, brought Neil Breen to mind (who hails from Vegas himself) – not that Lazar’s performance was anywhere near as bad as Breen (if you’ve not seen any of his films, lucky you) but that almost naïve delivery was reminiscent.

I tried, I really did, but struggled with this one and yet I can appreciate the earnestness. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK