Despite the popularity of zombies, that hasn’t slowed down the blood sucking vampires from still holding onto their stake in the horror film world. Now Speakeasy Pictures and IMPULSE-FX are bringing their own twist to the genre with the film Bloodrunners starring Michael McFadden and Ice-T, but does it bring something fresh to the table or will it be drained of life to fast?

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Bloodrunners follows 1933 Prohibition that has proven a booming enterprise, where average citizens break the law, hide in the shadows and operate at night. The new world order has even lined the pockets of corrupt cops like Jack Malone. He collects a 'luxury tax' from every bootlegger and scofflaw in the small town he has sworn to protect. While shaking down the newest speakeasy in the local underground, Jack and his men uncover a clan of vampires hell bent on taking over the town. Now Chesterfield, an ancient vampire, and his horde must hide their secret at any cost. The bloody result leaves several bodies and innocent townsfolk taken as lambs to await the slaughter. With nowhere else to turn, Jack joins forces with a busboy and a crazy preacher to save the town and make a final stand against Chesterfield and his vampires. After seeing the trailer for this I kind of new the kind of film that it was going to be, but I still hoped for something that might be a lot of fun, but sadly that wasn’t the case.

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​I understand this is a lower budget feature so you have to give it a bit of leeway, but it just doesn’t offer up all that much. They use a lot of green screen style shots with the driving scenes that just don’t look real at all and the gun shots all look added in later. I know it is sometimes cost effective to do it this way, but the look and often silly performances of the actors trying to act it out just looks bad. The acting was silly and over the top most of the time as they try to capture the clichéd nature of the time that has been showcased in every mob movie you can think of including a Betty Boop style voice from one of the actresses.

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Not even Ice-T can save this film from falling into a realm of silly and often times really slow. It takes so long for anything of interest to happen that it is really hard to stick with it for very long. Those hardcore fans of vampires might have a better time of it if you go in with the understanding of the lower budget nature of it all.