“You need to remember your place, Victor. You’re middle management.”

Drake’s rating: Count Chocula was more threatening

Drake’s review: I think we can all agree that Blade hit a home run in 1998, merging martial arts, secret societies, and stylish undead cliques into an adrenaline-filled flick that set the standard for vampire action movies going forward. Underworld followed a few years later, adding werewolves to the mix as well as a lawsuit involving the White Wolf gaming company, known for their role-playing games featuring various denizens of the night. But Blade and Blade II* were head and shoulders above the competition, and remain so to this day.

But that doesn’t mean filmmakers aren’t still out there, giving it the ol’ college try and turning out their own take on very similar material.

Like Night Teeth, for instance. And this movie really, really wants to be Blade. It has secret vampire communities living their best unlives in the greater Los Angeles area, all spending their nights in whatever section of the metropolis their faction controls. There are spiffy photographic tricks and chic fashion choices, as well as a normal human who’s inadvertently caught up in it all. There’s also a baddie causing conflict because he wants to rule the night all by his lonesome and not have to share with the other vampire lords.

And, man, does Night Teeth just run into a brick wall here. Because Blade had Stephen Dorff as the wonderfully-named Deacon Frost, right?** And Deacon Frost was handsome and ruthless, a danger to human and vampire alike, a villain quite capable of throwing a little girl into traffic without a second thought. He was just pure villainy.

Plus his sidekick was Donal Logue, who just wanted to be a naughty vampire god.

Here the role of Deacon Frost is filled by a vampire simply named Victor. Just… Victor. No fancy surname, no title, just Victor. Yawn.

But it gets worse! So, look, who here has watched Game of Thrones, the HBO series adapted from the George R.R. Martin books? OK, I’m seeing a few hands here. Right, who here has watched Game of Thrones but really, really doesn’t want to admit it since the final two seasons are so incredibly bad that you’re embarrassed that you invested so much time in it to begin with? Yeah, that’s a lot more hands. I get it, I feel the same. We should form a support group or something.

So if you’ve seen Game of Thrones, then you’ve seen the work of Alfie Allen, who played Theon Greyjoy. And if you’ve seen Theon, then you probably know that he becomes that poor, pathetic pile of humanity known as Reek. And, although I try not to judge an actor by a single performance or character, it’s really, really hard to separate Allen from Reek. Worse, it’s hard to make Allen in any way a threatening character of any type because, well… he’s Reek!

Yet Night Teeth gives us Victor, the would-be king of the vampires, and we’re supposed to buy into the fact that this cat is a merciless lord of the undead capable of destroying his ancient foes with ruthless abandon, and he’s played by Alfie Allen. So you see him and instantly think to yourself, “Reek? We’re supposed to be in awe of Reek?!”

And that brings Night Teeth to a crashing halt because there’s only so much disbelief that can be suspended, and Reek showing up as the major villain cuts that thread and brings the whole flick crashing down like a cinematic blimp filled with hydrogen.

Still, Allen’s not the only knock that Night Teeth has against it. Even if Victor hadn’t been played by Reek, this is still very much Blade Lite but lacking the cool martial arts, the well-choreographed action scenes, and the Wesley Snipes. Jorge Lendeborg, Jr. (Alita: Battle Angel) does a good job as the unwitting mortal caught up in a vampiric gang war, but his bloodsucking captors/allies are never fully fleshed out. They run around L.A. doing Reek’s, er… Victor’s bidding and somehow killing scores of other bloodsuckers even though they’re never believably portrayed as especially competent or dangerous.

Maybe that’s why so much of the action takes place off-screen.

The other vampires are given even shorter shrift, acting primarily as dopey minions who come across less as terrifying creatures of the night and more as plaintive club kids who just crashed a goth party. Except for Sydney Sweeney and Megan Fox, who make a cameo that has you really hoping that the pair will stuff Reek in a tanning bed and then take over the movie.

That never happens, because Night Teeth doesn’t want us to have nice things.

I like vampire movies, and I like action flicks. Melding the two genres can work, but it takes some elbow grease that Night Teeth was sorely lacking in. I wanted to like this one, but there’s just not enough originality here, and the borrowed bits that are so prevalent are just worn-down reminders that Blade exists and it’s sitting on my movie shelf.

And now it’s off my movie shelf and getting put into my Blu-ray player, so I’ll see you all later.

*Repeat after me: “There is no Blade III. There is no Blade III.”

**And we can thank the also wonderfully-named comics scribe Marv Wolfman for that.

Intermission!

• Benny (Lendeborg) gets to drive the big, fancy SUV! I’m sure it will come out of this movie without a scratch on it.
• Underworld had a vampire assassin by the name of Selene, a name with mythological connotations and a connection to the moon. Here we have Blaire and Zoe. Like I said, club kids.
• Benny’s brother Jay is also involved in the shenanigans, acting as some sort of intermediary between vampires and humans. I think. None of the details here are particularly well defined.
• Ooh! Fiery crossbow bolts! They don’t really do much, but they look kind of cool. Which is pretty much the mantra of this movie.
• So tell me again how Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney’s characters were overcome by a lone Reek? Because, like too much of this flick, it’s never shown, just talked about.
• Yeah, that SUV is going to need a new paint job. And some bodywork. Maybe a new frame. Probably a new engine, too. Best to just write it off.