Billed as The comedy that takes a bite out of crime, Innocent Blood tells the story of Marie, a female vampire played by Parillaud. In an opening (no pun intended) that grabs the attention as Marie wanders naked around her flat we are introduced to the world of the female vampire. She apparently lives to please the senses, mainly for two things: sex and food, thus giving some early insight into the depths of the script. She muses on what to have next and scans the Pittsburgh newspapers reading about a gang war that leads her to decide to eat Italian.
We then get introduced to Sal Macelli, played by Loggia, who is one of the mob bosses caught up in the war. He uses a toaster oven to bash a disloyal mob member to death after Joe Gennaro, played by LaPaglia, refuses to shoot him. We find out that Joe is actually an undercover cop, thus explaining his reluctance to shoot when asked to, who has infiltrated the Macelli mob for the past three years in an attempt to get enough evidence to convict the mob boss. As Joe leaves the scene of the toaster oven bashing he bumps into Marie but she decides he is a sad looking one who she shouldnt have anything to do with, a good choice for Joe given her real intentions.
But she does take up with one of the other mob boys, including joining him for a trip up to the lovers lane lookout where she proceeds to give him the love bite to end all love bites. She drains him of blood before shotgunning his head off to conceal the crime. Now which female vampire that you know about wouldnt do something as clever as that? Joe arrives at the scene and has his cover blown so he becomes a target for the mob.
Meanwhile, Marie hooks up with Sal and gets to go back to his hideout for what Sal tells his driver will only take an hour. Soft lights and music set the scene but the garlic in the food Sal offers Marie puts her off before Sal gets more that he bargained for as Marie goes the bite again. Sal has the presence of mind to pull a gun and shoot Marie, which forces her to back off before she has completely finished. The cops turn up and reckon Sal is dead, but he has only crossed over to the world of vampires. His resurrection stuns everyone associated with the case and forces Joe and Marie to join forces to try to finish Sal off.
But Sal seems to like being a vampire and soon has a go at his faithful lawyer Manny Bergman, played by Rickles. Manny joins the vampire club too but ends up dying a horrible death when the daylight fries his skin to nothing. Meanwhile, Sal goes to the warehouse he owns to sleep during the day in the freezer. His mob boys rush over to see him and Sal gets to give them the big bite so they become vampires too. The vampire GROUP gets bigger and bigger in successive scenes as more mob boys loyal to Sal get bitten. Sal can see that the incredible powers vampires have would certainly win him the mob war.
Marie and Joe arrive on the scene to try to kill Sal and they use unusual methods as far as I am aware by shooting the mob boys in the head. I say unusual because there was no mention of silver or garlic-tipped bullets or stakes through the heart, the methods I had seen in other vampire movies. Sal gets to go up in flames when Joe sets fire to the leaking petrol at the scene of a bus, cab and vampire crash. Just when it looks like Sal will really live Joe puts a bullet into his head and finishes him off. We finish the movie with Joe declaring his love for Marie and stopping her from running off to see a sunset. She decides he makes her feel alive and why not?
Now I know the movie is just a story and I am not so sure about whether vampires as portrayed in the movie really exist but I really thought this was weak. The actors are a succession of could have beens who struggle with a poor script and plot. As a comedy I didnt get a laugh out of any of it. I wasnt frightened by the vampire (maybe naked female vampires just dont frighten me enough?) at any stage and they methods of getting rid of the ever-growing band of male vampires dont fit with past stories. The script is claimed by the director John Landis to have many possibilities to be outrageous. About the only outrageous bit was that the movie ever got made at all. I noticed that the cover proudly proclaimed that it was only $12.00. Methinks they ask too much.

THE EXTRAS

Apart from scene and language selection there are no extras, in keeping with the overall quality of the production. I therefore gave the extras no stars.

CONCLUSION

A female vampire goes out to eat Italian and lands in the middle of a mob war in Pittsburgh. But when she fails to finish the job on the mob boss she opens a Pandoras box when the mob get to go vampire too as the mob boss puts the bite on his buddies. Can the town survive and will the female vampire be able to save the day?