To Sleep with a Vampire tells the tale of a Vampire named Jacob (Scott Valentine) living in present day Los Angeles who prowls the night & feeds on human blood. A stripper named Nina (Charlie Spradling) is about to go home when Jacob ask's if they can spend the night together & talk, after a bit of persuasion Nina agrees, like a woman on her own would. Jacob takes Nina back to his house where he reveals that he is a Vampire, a Vampire who feeds on the blood of suicidal people so in a strange way he thinks he isn't doing anything wrong. Since Nina has a load of personal problems & had tried to commit suicide earlier in the night she realises why he chose her. As dawn fast approaches Nina knows that either herself or Jacob will be dead soon, as they talk & discuss things it seems all Jacob wants to know is what the sunlight feels like as it is fatal to his kind & he has never felt it on his skin...
Directed by Adam Friedman I have to admit, contrary to the popular opinion it seems, I rather liked To Sleep with a Vampire. I was going to say that it's a pretty original film but apparently To Sleep with a Vampire is a remake of a film called Dance of the Damned (1988) which I have to say I've never seen or even heard of before so I can't compare the two. The script by Patricia Harrington is a little slow & is basically a two character story, no-one else really matters. I liked the concept, I though the dialogue was good good at times but bland & stiff at other's. Forget about any tradition Vampire film-lore, there are no crosses, no coffins, no bats, no neck biting, no garlic, no Vampire hunters, no legions of the undead & the only two Vampire characteristics that make it into To Sleep with a Vampire are fangs & that sunlight kills them. I found it quite entertaining, I liked both Jacob & Nina, I thought it was unusual & did just about enough to stop me from getting bored. I also liked the ending, it comes as no great surprise but I thought it was well done & I actually felt for Jacob & Nina, don't get me wrong you won't be crying into your popcorn or anything like that but I felt for them on a basic level.
Director Friedman has a strange set of credits to his name, most of his work previous & since seems to be comprised of Playboy porno videos & a made-for-TV John Travolta biography! Anyway, he does a good job here considering, it's competent & has some nice lighting although why on Earth did he feel the need to have Jacob 'see' in black and white? Is there a sensible reason as to why a Vampire would see in black and white? Forget about any gore as not one drop of blood is spilt until the very end where someone gets a cut arm. To Sleep with a Vampire would have been a PG rated film all day long if not for the sex & nudity including some cool strip dance routines.
Technically the film is good & has a nice feel about it, it's well made throughout & probably looks better than it's low budget suggests. The acting is variable, sometimes it's good while at other's it's not so good. Leading lady Spradling does a pretty good job overall & I thought she was quite sexy in it.
To Sleep with a Vampire surprised me, I liked it. Thinking about it I probably shouldn't have, it's slow, it has no blood or gore & is almost entirely dialogue & character driven but there was something there that I just found likable & watchable. It's certainly a bit different which helps a lot & I liked the whole concept & what the film was trying to do. I think it's well worth a watch & you could do a lot worse, low budget maestro Roger Corman acted as executive producer.