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Innocent Blood poster

Innocent Blood (also known in some regions as A French Vampire in America) is a 1992 American black comedy horror film directed by John Landis and written by Michael Wolk. The film stars Anne Parillaud as a beautiful French vampire who finds herself pitted against a gang of mobsters led by Salvatore Macelli (Robert Loggia) who eventually becomes a vampire and schemes to build a criminal syndicate of vampires.

The film is set in and was filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Actors Tony Sirico and David Proval have supporting parts as gangsters, foreshadowing their roles in The Sopranos. It also features early appearances by Anthony LaPaglia, Angela Bassett, and Chazz Palminteri. The film is notable for being a mixture of the vampire, gangster and buddy cop genres. The film was a box-office bomb, earning only $5 million over its $20 million budget.

Plot[]

Marie is a vampire in modern Pittsburgh, with a moral code that limits her bloodsucking to the criminal elements of society. After feasting on mafioso Tony Silva, she shoots him in the head with a shotgun to cover up the bite marks on his neck and to prevent him from coming back as a vampire. Undercover cop Joseph Gennaro visits the crime scene but is taken off his assignment of infiltrating the crime family of Salvatore "Sal the Shark" Macelli and put into protective custody by District Attorney Sinclair for being seen at the crime scene by the media.

The next night, Marie seduces Sal, who takes her back to his mansion for "dinner". She is warded off when Sal serves garlic mussels, and she tries to escape through the bathroom window but finds it barred up. Sal attempts to rape her but Marie overpowers him and drains his blood. Before she can finish him off, Sal's limousine driver, Lenny intervenes and she is forced to flee. Gennaro investigates the scene and follows a trail of blood to a nearby church, where he finds and chases Marie. When Gennaro gets back to his car, Marie finds him and demands that he drive her to the morgue where Sal was taken. Sal, now a vampire, awakens in the morgue and steals a car to drive to the home of his attorney, Manny Bergman, being seen by police and reporters in his escape.

Outside the morgue, Gennaro leaves Marie with his colleagues Detectives Dave Finton and Steve Morales and goes to Bergman's house to pursue Sal. Marie escapes from custody and follows him. At Bergman's home, Sal drinks Bergman's blood and Gennaro is captured by Lenny and Jacko. The three mobsters take Gennaro to the docks and attempt to kill him using the compactor of a garbage truck. Marie arrives, saves him and kills Sal's men but Sal manages to escape. Gennaro and Marie attempt to pursue him but the sun rises and Marie has to retreat into a motel. Sal hides in a meat factory that he owns. Bergman is transferred to a hospital but after becoming a vampire, he is burned alive when a nurse opens the window and lets the sunlight in. In the motel, Gennaro and Marie confess their feelings for each other and have sex.

The next night, Sal travels to a strip club that he owns and begins turning his men into vampires like him. Gennaro and Marie begin searching Mafia hangouts for Sal. Finton and Morales track him down to the strip club but Sal's men kill Finton. Marie and Gennaro arrive in time to save Morales and kill Sal's men by shooting them in the head. They chase Sal out onto the street, where he causes a collision between a taxi and a bus. Gennaro kills him by igniting him with the leaking gas tank of the bus and then shooting him in the head. Marie can no longer handle being the monster she is, and attempts to commit suicide by the sunlight, stating that she "died a long time ago". Gennaro talks her out of it, telling her that he loves her. Gennaro books her into a nearby hotel and Marie states in a voiceover that he "made [her] feel alive" and decides to make him a vampire.

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