CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT by Tony Randel

Cindy, a beautiful young blonde, spends the weekend with her friend Lucy in the peaceful village of Allburg. Hillary Barrett, Lucy’s somewhat crazy grandmother, keeps a watchful eye on things. The two teenagers are intrigued by the strange collection of crosses and the numerous candles that light up the old lady’s house. But they have no intention of letting all this excessive devotion keep their youthful hormones in check. They hurry to their secret swimming pool, which is in the flooded basement of the village church. The two men dive into the deep, dark waters carelessly amidst shouts and gurgling noises. Suddenly Cindy is swallowed up in a bubbling whirlpool of foam and blood. Lucy is unable to prevent the kidnapping of her friend by an amphibious vampire, disturbed in his slumber by all that adolescent splashing. A few miles away, in the tiny village of River Junction, a priest is trying to drown a terrible secret in gallons of alcohol…

Tony Randel is one of the many talented directors who have crawled out from under Roger Corman’s wings to go their own way. He earned his spurs with special effects work on films such as Battle Beyond the Stars, Escape from New York, and Galaxy of Terror. In 1988, he gave birth to his first celluloid baby: Hellraiser II: Hellbound. This was followed by Amityville 1992 and Ticks. Children of the Night was originally intended for the video market but deserved a big screen treatment. Tony Randel provides a clever cocktail of myths and delusion, with the main ingredients being vampirism, exorcism, priests with chastity problems and freakish mutations. The special effects are provided by KNB (Army of Darkness, Darkman, Tales from the Darkside).