Nine-year-old Tony (Jerry Maguire's Jonathan Lipnicki) has just moved with his parents (Tommy Hinkley and Pamela Gidley) to a small town in the Scottish Highlands, where his father is overseeing the building of a golf course for old squire Lord McAshton (John Wood). Tony is picked on by his new classmates and starts dreaming about vampires at night, until one fine evening his dreams seem to summon Rudolph (Rollo Weeks), an aristocratic, wee vampire. Rudolph is among the vegetarian variety of
vampires, but tells Tony that his diet has weakened his flying powers. After Tony guides Rudolph to some unsuspecting cows, on whose blood his new friend feasts, a friendship is born. Rudolph introduces Tony to his father (Richard E. Grant), mother (Alice Krige), and siblings, all of whom have been in hiding for three centuries as they wait for a comet to pass by that will make them human if they possess a magic amulet. Rudolph's dad, however, is missing part of the amulet, which turns out to have been stolen by Rudolph's uncle centuries ago and is now in the possession of none other than Lord McAshton. To further complicate matters, a vampire hunter (Jim Carter) is skulking around and causing no end of trouble. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Much of the film's success is down to the costume design, the novel SFX and the mildly foreboding atmosphere of the mist enshrouded Scottish countryside.
It's an occupational hazard that you actually have to try to think about movies like this, which just get weirder and weirder the more you consider them.
Evocative of Tim Burton's work, the Scottish locations appear as a kind of ghoulish theme park full of ancient stately homes and mouldering, curse-ridden crypts.
t's hard to know quite how enthusiastic to be about a family film that's occasionally pitched at the wrong crowd, but at least isn't stupid or actively offensive most of the time.
There are some decent lessons about power and when to use it and when to give it up, about accepting rather than attacking those who are different and about dealing with fear.
The costumes are gorgeous, and in a way it is pleasingly different to see a film where humans are more likely to be harmed by the vampire hunter than the vampires themselves. However, even for a children's film the dialogue is pretty awful, and the acting is just about bearable (the child actors tend to stretch this
the most, but they are children after all, so I suppose we should forgive them).
Overall, it's a children's film which an adult will likely be able to tolerate watching with them. Whether or not the adult will actually like it depends on the adult.
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