Vampires and detectives don’t go well together
I like vampire movies and I like detective movies. So I thought
it was a given that I would like the new CBS series
”
Moonlight
”
about a vampire private detective. I was wrong.
Vampires and detectives don’t go well together
I like vampire movies and I like detective movies. So I thought it was a given that I would like the new CBS series “Moonlight” about a vampire private detective. I was wrong.
Mick St. John is a 90-year-old vampire who lives in Los Angeles and works as a private detective. In the premiere episode he is trying to solve the murder of a college girl who may have been killed by a vampire.
The vampire has always been a popular figure in films and literature. One of the first vampire movies was the 1922 German vampire film “Nosferatu” based on a book by Bram Stoker. There have been other TV series about vampires. There was the soap opera “Dark Shadows” that aired from 1966 to 1971; “Nick Knight;” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Kindred the Embraced” and most recently “Angel.”
In the first episode, “Moonlight” screenwriters debunk much of accepted vampire lore. St. John can’t turn into a bat. He walks around in daylight and doesn’t sleep in a coffin. He isn’t afraid of holy water or crucifixes. He can’t be killed by a wooden stake.
I used to work with a guy who claimed to be a vampire. One time after work he asked me for a ride home. I told him to turn into a bat and fly home. He said that vampires couldn’t turn into bats or fly. One girl who worked there said she saw him hovering in the air in the parking lot one night and refused to work with him ever again. Anyway, that’s for another column.
I think that if you’re going to make a show about a vampire why take away all of the things that make vampires cool?
Wouldn’t it be more exciting to see St. John flying over the city instead of standing on his roof in a long black trench coat? It would also be cool to watch him turn into a bat, or a wolf, or mist, just like the legends say. I would rather see him wake up in a coffin than the cryogenic freezer that he sleeps in.
The only cool thing he does in the premier episode is leap down a flight of stairs in slow motion and chase down a car.
St. John does drink blood even though he doesn’t hunt humans. He says that he won’t hunt women, children, or innocents, but he never said anything about men. He gets his blood from another vampire who works at the morgue. St. John likes type A-positive.
St. John also walks around during the day hiding under the shade of trees. He doesn’t even use a hat or sun block. He just wears dark sunglasses and holds his hand up to keep the sun out of his eyes. When he goes into a room he closes the blinds or curtains.
Why would a vampire live in sunny Los Angeles? Wouldn’t he be better off in Seattle, Portland, Ore. or Anchorage, Alaska?
His best friend is a 400-year-old yuppie vampire named Josef Konstantin. He lives in a big house in the hills and has a bevy of beautiful young women for him to feed on. He wants St. John to find the murderer of the young girl because he doesn’t want the public to know that vampires actually exist.
Helping him on the case is a reporter for an Internet magazine called Buzzwire. Her name is Beth Turner and it turns out that she and St. John have met before. When she was a little girl she was kidnapped by a vampire and St. John was hired to find her. The kidnapper was his wife, also a vampire, who brought Beth home to be their daughter. St. John killed his wife and took Beth back home. At the end of the episode, she realizes he is the one who saved her when she was a child.
The one thing I really like about the show is the cast. I thought that everyone was very good.
Alex O’Loughlin is an Australian actor and he is perfect in the role of St. John. He is a good-looking guy and had a likeable personality. He is good at delivering the wisecracks that go along with the detective role. I hope the scripts get better to showcase his acting talents.
I also liked Sophia Miles, who plays Beth Turner. She is sort of like a modern day Lois Lane. She was born in London and resembles a young Kate Winslet. She has earned her vampire-acting chops. She was in the movie “Underworld” and the sequel “Underworld: Evolution,” vampire movies. She also played Lucy in a TV adaptation of “Dracula.” She plays her role with an American accent and I didn’t even know she was British until I looked her up on the Internet.
Jason Dohring plays Josef. He and O’Loughlin have good chemistry together. Shannyn Sossamon plays Coraline, St. John’s ex-wife, and the vampire who tried to kidnap Beth as a child. St. John killed her with a wooden stake to the heart (which he said doesn’t work) and I guess he was right because she’s scheduled for more episodes.
Overall I didn’t like the show. I hope the future episodes have better writing and use some of the vampire myths. I would also like to see more action. The producers are going to develop a romance between St. John and Beth Turner. The ratings for the show were pretty good so it looks like it has a good chance of making it through the first season.
“Moonlight” airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. on CBS.
Mark Lemmerman has a degree in film/journalism from San Francisco State University. He can be reached at [email protected].
