Vampires: The Turning (R)
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This is a direct-to-video sort of sequel... no, I can't really say that, even. It's supposedly the third movie in the franchise that started with Vampires and continued with Vampires: Los Muertos. But while the second movie had at least a tenuous connection to the first, this one really doesn't. And unlike the first two movies, John Carpenter had nothing to do with it. And... I'm a bit torn about the rating. For most of the movie, I kind of thought I might like it slightly better than the first movie, maybe nearly as much as the second. But ultimately... I have to say it's the weakest of the three movies. And this one is more like a martial arts movie, than anything else.

Anyway, there's this American couple named Connor and Amanda, who are on vacation in Thailand. At the start of the movie, they're watching a kickboxing match (or technically, a Muay Thai match). Connor, who is a student of Muay Thai himself, really enjoys the show, but Amanda doesn't. And I'm definitely with her, this was just way too brutal. And she decides to leave him (which seemed like a good idea, to me). She says she loves him, but... what they want out of life is just too different. He follows her through the crowded streets, but loses track of her. Then she meets a local guy who offers to guide her back to her hotel. And of course the guy turns out to be a vampire biker, and his gang (or nest) kidnaps her. Connor confronts one of the vampires, and he seems skilled enough to hold his own, if his opponent didn't happen to have supernatural strength. So... he was gonna lose the fight, but then some Shaolin-looking guy comes along and kills the vampire. He then warns Connor not to get involved. But Connor does so anyway, because he's not willing to give up on Amanda.

We also learn that the guy who helped him, Kiko, is a member of a group of good vampires, who are led by a woman named Sang. Her people had vowed never to take a human life, but 800 years ago, she killed someone who had killed her family. Or rather... she turned him into a vampire. His name is Niran, and in the centuries since he was sired, he's sired a lot of evil vampires, himself. But there's a special eclipse coming up soon, which apparently only happens once every 800 years. Sang has been waiting all this time to sacrifice herself immediately after the eclipse, because doing so would turn all the vampires sired by Niran back into humans. So of course Connor wants to help with that. Meanwhile, there's also a group of vampire slayers, led by a man named Raines (who's played by Patrick Bauchau, and because of his role in The Pretender, I find his name in this movie kind of ironic). The slayers have made a deal with Sang's group to help eliminate Niran's group. And... that's all I want to say about the plot.