Trilogies are perhaps the most unusual presence in filmmaking because there’s rarely ever a chance that all three films within the triangle will be good. Take for example the “Vampires” trilogy which I can imagine that the producers asked to add the moniker of “Vampires” to the film to make it a trilogy. But in any case it’s a trilogy and a sad one at that. “The Turning” ends up becoming more stupid than actually awful, and I’ve always thought series were supposed to lengthen the story, and not shy away from it. “Vampires” originally made by Carpenter was a very strong vampire film, then there was “Los Muertos” which was a really bad (A vampire munching on a man’s genitals? Please) but enjoyable bit of vampire fodder, and then there’s… this.
“The Turning” this time takes the arc of the story in to Thailand, for some odd reason. Never before, have I seen such a disconnected sequel. The story here has no connection to any of the previous films other than there are vampires in it, and very lame ones as well. The story is centered on a young American man named Connor who packs no enthusiasm or charisma as the hero, but breaks up with his girlfriend who dumps him. Because, he likes kickboxing. Either way, she’s led away by some smooth talking vampire who bites her and is intent on turning her simply because he has the hot’s for her, that’s possibly the most simple plot drive I’ve seen in years. Meredith Munroe, a poor victim of the “Dawson’s Creek” series, is hot but barely has a role to call her own here being reduced to screaming and whimpering a lot.
After some forced drama, and basic self-explanatory character set-up, we finally get to the basic plot of Connor looking for his girlfriend, most of which is spent actually looking. He finds nests so easily as where James Woods’ character from the first film had to spend months looking for one nest, and he was an experienced vampire hunter! Our character Connor just has to walk around and he stumbles in to one. This makes for immense padding where he walks around, and walks around and talks to other vampire hunters whom seem to have ulterior motives.
And there’s padding and padding and padding, and in one very drawn out scene he goes through the entire blood colored hide out of the master vampire for at least twenty minutes. We’re then given explanations about them, all of which is never fascinating or engrossing. And then there are the vampires, and we know they’re vampires, since the director makes it painfully obvious through their… very small fangs. Anyway, we’re shown many redundant plot devices with these fanged foes that are turned in to odd plot holes and head scratcher’s. If they’re powerful vampires–what’s with the theatrical martial arts? And these powerful vampires need–weapons, and fight martial arts, and… ride motorcycles as means of transportation.
Okay, then. What an incredible redundancy. What made the first films so true to the core was that these vampires were barbaric, and menacing, these are just ridiculous. And it’s explained that in order to become a vampire, it takes a few days and acceptance, but for Connor it takes a little under an hour, which gives him time to fight martial arts–which is what he was doing throughout this film–except he does it in a vampiric way. Well, like most DTV films, it just ends. With a giant plot hole. Too frustrating to ask about. Or make sense of. So, I just moved on. Well, it’s like a wise man once said “Trilogies suck”, and it’s true in this case. “The Turning” further proves that the third film of a trilogy is usually the worst, and while it’s never really awful, it’s just utterly stupid with an array of plot holes that never add up. Bargain bin, ahoy.