User reviews

Gosh, I remember seeing this movie when it was released in the theaters, a friend from school and I both are just the biggest vampire movie fans you'll meet. You name the vampire movie, I've probably seen it or at least have heard of it. So we naturally saw the trailer for The Forsaken and didn't even hesitate to see this movie, it just looked so awesome. Ever since The Lost Boys, we haven't had a really good teenage vampire movie that could be a new classic for my generation… well, sadly this failed. Now honestly it's not a horrible movie, but it just didn't thrill me. The story isn't anything special and the cast is pretty forgettable, I'm not digging the "make up" effects they had considering these "vampires" didn't have any fangs at all, but I didn't feel like my time was totally wasted.

Sean is driving cross country to his sister's wedding when he picks up Nick, a hitchhiker who happens to be a vampire hunter hunting a group of vampires led by Kit, one of the Forsaken. The Forsaken are a group of French Knights that during the First Crusade made a pact with the demon Abbadon to live forever. Nick was bitten by a vampire but thanks to a drug cocktail the vampire virus is kept at bay. Nick is hunting this particular Forsaken: he believes him to be the one that his strain of the vampire virus is descended from and that if he kills him he will not eventually turn into a vampire. At first Sean is less than willing to indulge his new acquaintance, but then they find Megan, a girl Sean finds he is attracted to, bitten and left for dead by the vampires. Nick also proves he is telling the truth by killing a vampire, Teddy, by exposure to sunlight. When Sean is infected with the vampire virus, their only hope is to kill the vampire leader before it is too late.

The Forsaken is just alright movie, the reason I say that it didn't totally waste my time is because it did have a couple good scenes here and there. I thought that the scene where the guys and the girl go to the hotel room to find out if the girl was bitten by a vampire and get some sleep, then they see the vampires go into the room across from them was pretty intense. The vampires of the movie were pretty decent as villains, but Simon Rex as this sort of updated retarded Reinfield, it's like if Reinfield and Forrest Gump had a child, it'd be Simon Rex and he just didn't get enough character development for us to care at all about him. There are still things that need to be fixed with the script, but I wouldn't say this is a horrible movie, I would just say that you shouldn't go out of your way to see it.

5/10

You know, sometimes you'll see a B-movie horror flick where the story really grabs you and you think, man, if they just had a better budget, cast, effects, this really could have been something. Then in turn you'll see a movie with a decent cast, director and money to spend, but its obvious the script was written two days before shooting began.

I'm sorry to say that the Forsaken is more of the latter and less of the former. For us boys, there's plenty of explosions, car chases, the odd bit of nudity, but the plot is so wafer thin it falls to pieces at the first breeze.

As a 'popcorn' 'no-brainer' of a movie it's pleasant enough, the cast perform well with what little they've been given, but for me personally the ending felt like it had been 'tacked on' in a rush. That and the fact the whole thing feels like a marketing ploy to earn a sequel spoiled it for me really. Still if you're at a loose end and you like your horror flicks might be worth a watch for Johnathon Schaech (Star turn in my opinion) as the head vampire. Just don't get your expectations up.

The movie seems to take a little of "The Lost Boys" and "Near Dark" and regurgitate it all into your nowadays mundane vampire movie. Little originality shows other than in introducing drugs you can take, known as "the cocktail", to stave off vampiric infection. The story has a couple young guys driving around in the middle of nowhere. They run into an infected girl and the vampires responsible for her doomed existence. What ensues is a ridiculous game of cat-and-mouse falling on a flaccid and incredulous conclusion. Don't expect much in the way of transformations or other special effects as this film rides on a modest budget. I give the actors credit for their part in trying to support a plot with little future. 4/10

While most of the reviews were negative, this review is a positive one since I am a sucker (no pun intended) for vampire tales. THE FORSAKEN is a throwback to such 1980s classics as THE LOST BOYS, NEAR DARK, and THE HITCHER. While it's not nearly as good as those three flicks, it certainly is an interesting and occasionally intriguing picture. Unlike most teen horror films that have come out in the past five years, it is smart, original, and is actually scary at times. It's a fun horror movie that isn't perfect, yet still worth watching for its somewhat new take on the vampire tale. However, one can't help but get the feeling that THE FORSAKEN could have been so much more and it might have been had it not been heavily edited before its release due to the political climate at the time. Something tells me prior to being edited to death by the studio, THE FORSAKEN was something special. There are moments where one can see a better movie in the mix. Hopefully one day there will be a director's cut so audiences can see what J.S. Cardone originally intended the film to be like. I give it 5/10. It's not bad, though it's not great.

This movie is pure excrement. I thought I was watching a very bad episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even worse, I found myself in a movie theater which meant that I couldn't change the channel. The movie tries to redefine the vampire elements, but instead poorly churns out the same old story. No one will care for its uninspired plot or irritating characters. Pointing out all of the films logical flaws wasn't even fun. Instead, it made the experience even more excruciating. This film is definitely up there with U.S. Seals as one of the most painful movies I have ever watched. The original From Dusk Till Dawn had more vampire action in a fraction of its second half than this abomination. If you want to watch a film about vampires, pick any vampire movie except this.

Had some cool Arizona Atmosphere which is hard to pull off when doing a vampire movie, since mostly aliens and skin walkers come from AZ lol, overall, a solid little horror film...some of the actors make it a better film as well ..."We are Amercian, MTV watching fast food freaks...you gonna finish that pie? " great dialogue for early 2000s lol!

Complete waste of time. Horror movies are only good if they are well-made. This is not one of them. Bought this hunk of garbage at the store for $1.99 on a gamble. Well - I lost that one. I must have been influenced by the hot pic of the chick on the cover..but know what?? She didn't look anywhere NEAR that good in the movie. What a waste.

Traveling through the desert, a man picks up a friendly hitcher who reveals that he's a vampire hunter where they find an infected vampire who hasn't turned yet and after a series of encounters with one of the original vampires and team up to take him down.

This one wasn't that bad when it really mattered. One of the film's greatest pluses here is the strong and somewhat fleshed-out story which is rather nice in not only allowing for a slightly original take on a clichéd vampire story but also making for a natural excuse to feature a lot of action. The idea of having to hunt down a vampire of this one's scale and importance is pretty clever, especially when it could've been a Dracula clone. The fact that it doesn't is a testament that they wanted to go in a fresh new territory. As well, when it comes down to it, the action in here is pretty good as we get a complete out-of-the-norm in several car chases on the highway, and the brevity the first couple are among the more involved ones. The final one is perhaps the best, as it's two-part structure is pretty exciting to watch as the house shoot- out leading into it by itself is quite fun while letting the other action get featured quite nicely. There's also the strong storyline about the connection to the main vampire here with the telepathic victim and the flashes of their activities that causes them to track the group here which is a pretty nice and logical touch. Along with the bloody kills and nice nudity, these here are what works nicely for this one. There's a few problems here with this one that does hold it back, which starts with the rather disjointed pacing, Even though it picks up considerably in the later half, the initial introduction of everything comes pretty slowly since it takes a while before any vampires actually show up. Too much time is taken up with the exploration of the desert and getting to believe the story that the film takes a while to get going. The action scenes at the beginning of the film are pretty lackluster, and are quite a letdown when compared to what they could've been. That right there sums up the film pretty good as well: it looks good and has potential to be better if they went all out for it, but instead, they play it safe and it doesn't hold up to what it could've been. Even without all that, the film's biggest mistake is it doesn't really give the vampires anything to do. Sometimes, it seems as if they aren't really vampires at all, as they aren't bloodsuckers or anything like that. About the only reason we know they are is because it tells us they are vampires and because they die by sunlight, but otherwise we don't really know as they don't engage in any vampiric activities. Had they been given more screen-time, this might've been resolved. As it stands, there's some decent parts here though the flaws do stand out.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, a brief Rape scene and mild drug use.

The Forsaken has a guy who cuts trailers going across the country to go to his sister's wedding. But in Texas (oh, of all places) he runs into a hitch-hiker who gets him into trouble when vampires start hunting them down. Some things in the movie not seen before (like a naked woman in a shower not being arousing, of course considering the blood) and some good action and stunts, but the plot seems like it's done before; this film was done better when John Carpenter did vampires (think about the similarites). Time waster deluxe. C

You better fancy either Brandon Fehr or Kerr Smith, to enjoy this Vampire-Road-Movie. Nice to watch, but not very inspired. A nice advantage for director J.S.Cardone to blow up cars, houses and people, but even the special effects are slightly preposterous. And so is the plot. Not even the actors seem to take it serious, so it appears to be some kind of college-theatre on screen.

The Forsaken opened here (the UK) yesterday with very little fanfare or publicity. Not being a big vampire movie fan, I went to see the film more out of curiosity than anything else. I was pleasantly surprised. The picture, written and directed by J S Cardone, attempts to drag the vampire film kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. Of course, this in itself is nothing new. Over the past few years we have endured a number of films that mix the standard bloodsucking fare with the more modern way of life, so much so the collective movies have spawned their own sub-genre. Cardone's film stands out, though. More subtle than 'From Dusk Till Dawn' and a hell of a lot more convincing than last year's 'Dracula 2000', The Forsaken unfolds with a po-faced seriousness often lacking in the modern horror film. So much so that Cardone's film emerges as a dirty, dark, grubby little feature which mercifully eschews ironic, post-modern banter and throw-away comedy lines in favor of a sustained and bleak atmosphere. The film has many strong points. Despite both leading men coming from successful teen-oriantated television shows (Kerr Smith from 'Dawson's Creek' and Brendan Fehr from 'Roswell'), The Forsaken never feels like a teen horror movie. It is rough and unpolished, dark and mean.The cast are solid. Smith makes for a sympathetic hero and Fehr convinces as a man with a mission. Schaech steals the picture, though, as the head honcho. Looking a lot older than I suspect he actually is, complete with a grey wisp in his hair, Schaech wanders through the film with an air of quiet menace that serves the picture well. His jagged, sculptured face tells a thousand stories and he restrains himself from overplaying. One interesting fact about the movie is that, as far as I am aware, there are no shots of glaring fangs in the movie, no sharp teeth. The only 'vampirism' I can recall seeing were Schaech's elongated finger nails. Fresh.

Of course the film is not perfect. It is littered with sudden outbursts of loud, obnoxious songs obviously placed to market the soundtrack album. Which is a shame, because the score, when heard, is really rather good. Schaech is under-used, and the gimmick editing employed to signify his murderous rampaging is confusing and redundant. The film will not be to everyone's taste. Too off-the-beaten-track for mainstream audiences and not enough splatter for the gore-hounds, the film is left stuck somewhere in between. The film also contains a number of misjudged scenes that border on being needlessly nasty and vile. The killing of a state trooper is particularly grim. But these are minor gripes.

The Forsaken is a good film that, I suspect, will be loved or loathed by anyone who takes the time to watch it. I loved it.

Best write a review before this movie escapes my memory and dissolves with the passing time. Sean (Kerr Smith) works in Hollywood as film editor (mainly preparing trailers) and as such isn't exactly overflowing with cash. Hence when he lacks funds to attend his sister's wedding in Florida he decides to take up an offer by a repo office to drive a classic Mercedes to Miami. Main two rules - no hitchhikers and no reckless driving. In movie logic - those are the two rules that will definitely be broken during the course of the movie. Even more so that along the way he picks up a bum vampire killer called Nick (Brendan Fehr) and a catatonic chick Megan (Izabella Miko). Which only puts him high on the feeding list of a gang of bloodthirsty vampires led by Kit (Johnathon Schaech)...

The scriptwriter tried to input some new life into the whole vampire genre by introducing a new myth concerning their creation (connected with the crusades) as well as giving it a great backdrop for prospective sequels (with three more 'original' vampires waiting to be vanquished. Trouble is that the movie itself is so cliché ridden that the freshness just isn't there. Actingwise all the people in this movie do a decent job and have a cool enough feel to them that it makes the flick enjoyable. But the dialogue and direction of "The Forsaken" is very traditional horror filmmaking (with no real atmosphere behind it) and that in itself makes it a competently done, but forgettable experience. Additionally they are no real action or horror scenes which really stand out and in general you feel more like you are being served a pilot of a television series than a movie itself.

The biggest fault I can find in this movie is the character of Megan, who gets involved in the plot for no real purpose, sits around catatonic for most of the movie and doesn't even have a romance with the hero. After all this she just walks away in the penultimate scene never to be heard of again. Totally pointless character played by a passable Izabella Miko (not too pretty and does nothing with her character to make her memorable - given she was supposed to lie around motionless for the majority of this movie). Much more eye-catching was the vampire Cym (Phina Oruche) who must have one of the most sensual lips I have ever seen in cinema...

The sexy girl gets a lot of face (and other body parts) time, and the sweet virginal girl bats her eyes at our heroes, but neither one has very many lines. This is a testosterone-driven flick for boys only. The Fearless Vampire Hunters take a break from Dawson's Creek to drive a Mercedes around in the desert outside of Texas. Johnathon Schaech looks mighty sexy with those feral cheekbones and silver-streaked hair. I just went because I had a free pass. Wait for cable. Better yet, rent Kathryn Bigelow's desert undead classic NEAR DARK.

I first saw bits n pieces of this movie in the early 2k on Sony Pix channel.

Revisited it recently. This one aint related to the John Carpenter's Vampires series but is definitely better than Vampires The Turning.

This one is basically a copied version of Carpenter's Vampires starring James Woods.

This one also copied bits from The Hitcher to make it look more like a road movie.

It has one of the best head exploding like a watermelon scene.

Another good aspect is the nudity of Julia Schultz with her delicious assets.

Some scenes are shot in flickering lights n with shaky cam stuff. The sex scene is very lousy.

"The Forsaken" follows a young film editor who takes a cross-country trip from Los Angeles to Florida for his sister's wedding. Along the way, he picks up a hitchhiker on his way to Texas for unknown reasons—but he gets more than he bargained for when the two come across a disoriented woman at a truckstop. Turns out the hitchhiker is a vampire hunter, the girl is infected, and there's a cult of desert vamps seeking them out.

I saw this film years ago back in 2001 when it was released, and recently revisited it almost fifteen years later. Often ranked among film buffs as one of the worst post-millennial vampire movies ever, "The Forsaken" is a hodgepodge of traditional vampire elements with revisionist intentions that don't quite work. The film's greatest idiosyncrasy is that the vampires here are fangless—instead, they were more of a cult of blood drinkers who carry a virus that "turns" those who come into contact with it. The fact that the vampires in the film are not really "vampires" in the traditional sense seemed to have elicited extreme reactions from genre fans. I'm not what I'd consider a hardcore vampire film lover, so I was able to accept this on its own merits, as unusual as it is.

While the script is a bit clunky and the character relationships seem arbitrary and at times underdeveloped (this is most apparent in the film's denouement), it does evoke a dusty, creepy desert atmosphere. As beautiful as the desert is, let's be honest: deserts are creepy. They are no man's land—desolate, expansive, and dangerous—and that is something this film gets right. The vast landscapes, long two-lane highways, and dingy desert truckstops are captured fantastically. It largely cribs this atmosphere in co-opting the tradition of road movies, and many have compared it to "The Hitcher," although I think it aesthetically looks more like John Carpenter's "Vampires" (also set in the desert), from which it borrows liberally.

The film is nicely shot, with direction from J.S. Cardone, who began his career with the bizarro '80s slasher film "The Slayer," and would go on to script and direct the atrocious remakes of "Prom Night" and "The Stepfather" after "The Forsaken." For all intents and purposes, the direction here is decent, and there are some great images and scenes interspersed throughout. Kerr Smith and Brendan Fehr ground the film as the two male leads, while Izabella Miko is fantastically weird as the mute, traumatized victim of the vampire gang. Jonathan Schaech seems miscast here in my opinion—the role of the vampire leader seems to call for someone who is legitimately intimidating on screen, and he's just not—he's ridiculously sexy in this, but he isn't scary. China Oruche plays his mad sidekick nicely, and Carrie Snodgress probably turns in the most notable performance as a gun-toting desert redneck.

Overall, "The Forsaken" is probably not as bad as you've heard it is. It's an entertaining and atmospheric road flick that is legitimately fun. The truth is that it's an average revision of traditional vampire territory, and the amount of flack it's gotten over the years is largely due to the disgruntled vampire fans who want their vampires served a certain way. All in all, it's a decent, bloody desert romp from the early 2000s. 6/10.

This movie was a complete waste of my time and money. Throughout the whole movie these "Vampires" use a weapon to kill people. Not once Do you see them bite anyone to kill them, as do the more traditional vampires. They display no signs of super strength. If the hippie looking fellow didn't tell us they were "Vampires", we would never know what they are. To me they are just a bunch of free loading weirdo's, which is another thing, I have never seen a movie, where the vampires are poor. They don't even have a decent car to get around in. If you are on this site trying to find a movie to see, I strongly urge you to skip this one, or you can just kick yourself afterwards.

this film has nothing good going for it!! the most creative scene and the most interesting of the whole film was in teh first 5 minutes when sean goes to pick up the car and from there it was all down hill. i had to force myself to not switch it off, i dont like quitting films half way through but i really really really wanted to on this one. the direction was atrociously bad, the camera work was mostly ok but the direction of the actors was terribly. it was a giant pile of w**k. the plot was dumb, and kept dragging out when it should have finished. if you cant make 87minutes with your plot, you change the plot to make it work for 87 minutes, you dont keep dragging it on and on by having someones car die or just have them conveniently wander off. it was a dumb dumb dumb film and i am glad it is over and i never have to watch it again.

... but then what do you expect? It's a Vampire movie, it's about killing, eating and having fun. And quite frankly I had more fun with this movie than with most other movies I have seen lately.

Not Oscar Material, but hey, it is definitely way better than other movies like Driven.

Plot - I won't get too much into the plot of this movie, because it's really just a flimsy skeleton-of-a-story to bring together a handful of hip and gorgeous actors and actresses. Really, the story is about a couple young fellas in the desert who end up becoming involved in a plot to kill a gang of outlaw marauding vampires. That's the sum of it, and I won't tell ya how it ends up.

Impressions/observations - What I will discuss is the "meat" of the movie and why this movie falls extremely short of a good solid vampire movie. First off, I was very disappointed in the way the vampires are portrayed in this movie. There is absolutely nothing supernatural about them - they don't have superhuman strength, don't fly, don't really have anything about them that makes me believe that they are supernatural predators. They are about as ordinary as a gang of unruly youths, except that they have to be killed only under certain conditions. But I don't recall ever seeing them do anything in the movie that would suggest that they are, in fact, vampires. Not only do they carry guns to kill people with, they need cars to get around. I mean, this movie really gave the vampires a very "mortal" feel to them. They got lots of attitude and desire for blood-letting, but then again so do the thugs in a Charles Bronson movie. If you want supernatural thrills and chills - this movie falls flat on its face. It's just a reason to get a couple young hunks and an attractive girl together in a plot to kill some rather boring vampires.

Gore - Not nearly enough to satisfy horror movie die-hards. The gore really comes down to maybe a few buckets of fake blood, but nothing to pop your eyes out or lose a kidney over. The killings are very non-traditional killings for a vampire movie - relatively tame with minimal blood. Too many scenes that cut away to another scene just as you'd expect so see some guts flying out. Again, compared to vampire movies like the very bloody and gruesome Underworld trilogy, this movie is very very tame.

Nudity - A few scenes involving the attractive lead actress. I particularly found these scenes rather annoying - nonsensical nudity tossed into a movie, and from a girl who's entire character is nearly comatose and sickly. Although she is pretty to look at, the lead actress's character is so paper-thin and shallow that all she really is in the movie is a silent and underdeveloped persona that, through some odd and contrived arrangement of the plot details, needs to be in the movie. I don't mind actresses baring their skin when the role calls for it, but please folks, put it into context of a movie that makes sense. The first images of the movie showing her in the shower washing off the blood from her body was, in all honesty, nearly the point I wanted to throw the remote at the television and give the movie no further viewing. But I held back my inclination and decided to give the movie an entire watch.

Action - Lots of it. Car chases, explosions, all the stuff of low-budget movies. There is nothing in this movie we haven't seen on a single episode of McGuiver. Again, the action is plenty but nothing remarkable. All pretty standard here.

Overall - I gave this movie 2 points out of ten, and primarily because, for a vampire movie, it is a step backwards. This movie adds absolutely nothing to the vampire genre and actually "mortalizes" the vampires. For most of the movie, I was thinking OK this is a joke - we're all going to be told at the end of the movie that they really weren't vampires all along. But they were vampires in the end, just extremely boring vampires that were way to human for my tastes. No fangs, no special powers, nothing supernatural about them. And please, hip does not equal scary.

SUMMARY: B-movie. Men under 30 who consider themselves outsiders will dig this road trip to Hell. Others, pick another film.

WHY I SAW IT: I'm too old for this film, but the young ladies in my local "Roswell" fan club wanted to see Brenden Fehr ("Roswell", "Final Destination") and Kerr Smith ("Dawson's Creek", "Final Destination"). WB fans, watch for the cameo by Sara Downing ("Courtney Banks" on "Roswell" and star of the upcoming TV series "Dead Last").

THE STORY: Ambitious, dutiful Sean is paid to drive a Mercedes sports car from L.A. to Miami. In this road movie, he encounters quirky characters in the deserts, canyons and plains of the Southwest. The pace picks up when he meets cynical slacker Nick and they rescue traumatized beauty Megan. The reluctant alliance of these mismatched people anchors the story as events go from disturbing to terrifying.

IDEA CONTENT: None of the common Hollywood refusal to recognize evil as writer/director J.S.Cardone pits ordinary guys against vampires who once were human cowards who "saved their lives" by becoming demons. Even more loathsome are the human criminals who serve the vampires and disguise their crimes as those of serial killers. News-junkies will be reminded of American and Russian politicians who pose as friends of the common people. With their organized-crime partners, they trash the economy and society while putting the blame on "selfish consumers" and "greedy businessmen". Those who know mythology will recognize the classic sequence of Ominous Foreshadowing, Leaving Home, Wilderness Journey, Crisis of Decision, the Mighty Action, and Personal Transformation.

ESTHETICS: Slightly-flawed, down-to-earth script skillfully alternates horror with humor, terror with sexiness. Well-chosen music. Several beautiful actresses.

DIRECTION: Downplays charisma in favor of realistic performances from well-cast actors.

EDITING: Muffled sound in one scene. Well-paced, well-cut action. The night chase by two carloads of vampires stands out.

WHY IT'S RATED "R": Four-letter words. Topless and nude starlets. Merciless bloody violence, not graphic enough for the splatterfans.

MY VOTE: For this subgenre and intended audience, 8 on a scale of 10.