Review

Director Craven brings a seductive and eerie style to this shadowy vampire tale, and Murphy gives an unusually restrained performance, but Vampire in Brooklyn ultimately succumbs to its unimaginative screenplay which is not nearly funny enough to be comedy or scary enough to be horror. Murphy is a vampire who comes to Brooklyn (in an impressively mounted opening) searching for a lost soul mate. He immediately finds her in the person of policewoman Bassett, and begins to court her while dining on Brooklyn's not-so-finest denizens. Bassett takes a no-nothing role and brings dimension to it. Murphy abandons his usual winking at the audience, and even plays two additional characters rather well. But neither star is serviced by a thoroughly flat and undeveloped story and dialogue.