Children of the Night was directed by Tony Randel who had previously made the quite decent Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988). The film has flashes of originality and style but is never more than a B-budget film. Certainly, it has its share of striking scenes. One of these comes near the opening – Peter DeLuise’s priest friend starts talking about the guilt he felt over having an affair with his brother’s wife and how he feels he is being punished for his sins and takes DeLuise upstairs to show him Karen Black and Maya McLaughlin boarded up in a room – Black in a cocoon and McLaughlin sleeping in a bathtub with a set of lungs on the outside. In these few minutes, the film gives the impression immediately of being a different type of vampire film but it is a potential that sadly remains unfulfilled. Very shortly after such a fine scene, the film descends into veritable camp in scenes with Amy Dolenz’s grandmother wearing ridiculous fruit bowls hats and gags about her false fanged teeth being knocked out. There are fine moments of writing such as when Maya McLaughlin comes to Amy Dolenz and tells her that she is sick of being a vampire because it is boring – she can’t see the same, can’t smell the same, can’t smoke because she has no lungs and that living forever is a joke, all it is is endless feasting and killing. However, this sits uneasily alongside silly scenes with vampires holding bingo games. The entire film vies between moments of inspiration and silly campiness with no clear consistency of tone.

Tony Randel’s other genre films include Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992), Ticks (1993), Fist of the North Star (1995), Rattled (1996), One Good Turn (1996) and The Double Born (2008).