The success of “Sinners” (2025) has spawned films that cannot replicate the success of Ryan Coogler’s latest triumph, so they settle for Black people versus vampires. The title, “Night Patrol” (2025), refers to vampire LAPD cops who feed on Black people and blame gang violence between the Pirou (spelling?) Funk Master Bloods and the Zulu Block Gangster Crips for the bloodshed. Can they be stopped? The road to mid movies is paved with good intentions, and this one is the middest of them all.
Director and cowriter Ryan Prows, cowriters Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson and Shaye Ogbonna never met a good idea that they did not smother to death with bad or mediocre ones. “Night Patrol” sports an ensemble cast, but more is less. The result is having too many potential protagonists, but no one to truly get invested in. Justin Long is the biggest name in the bunch, and his character’s arc is the most complete. Ethan Hawkins is a war hero who wants revenge for his father, Sarge (Dermot Mulroney), a cop whom he believed died under suspicious circumstances, has a Black partner/best friend, Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler) and believes in being a good cop, but has not deconstructed his upbringing and finds himself unable to escape the gravity of his heritage. Because Long is a horror icon, the film spends too much time gassing up Ethan and framing him as a potential Great White Hope for most of the film while simultaneously showing him do wicked things. With all due respect to Long, he does not have the juice to pull off any aspect of his character even when he levels up. He seems more related to his partner than Mulroney.
Xavier is a self-hating Black man who is introduced singling out and terrorizing the only Black kid at a high school presentation. Obviously, the filmmakers intend for audiences to understand that Xavier is not a good guy, and if he is Ethan’s Black friend, then Ethan cannot be that great either, but they both get so much screen time that it leaves little room for anyone else. They both share similar childhood wounds, and their misunderstanding of the situation leads them to take the wrong path in life. The tension lies in the fact that Ethan is treated better than Xavier, who believes that he is better without any onscreen evidence. He even wants to join the special unit. Cue playing the smallest violin. Eventually Xavier gets paired with Rivette (Jon Oswald), and all momentum screeches to a halt. It goes from buddy cop comedy to a charisma void. It is deliberate because Rivette is repulsive as if he is a racist adolescent.
Wazi Carr (RJ Cyler), the Crips’ Romeo, encounters the bad guys while courting his Blood Juliet, Primo (Zuri Reed). “Night Patrol” features layers of star-crossed relationships that get touched on before moving on but are underdeveloped. It is not enough to have themes. They need to be developed and interwoven into the plot to create meaning within the horror. Wazi reaches out to Blood leader and Primo’s big brother, Bornelius (Freddie Gibbs), to face off against the vampires. Of course, Wazi is Xavier’s little brother and not setting the world on fire though he is supposed to be the hero even though Bornelius gets the best kills and is most effective at finding weapons. What a missed opportunity. That spot belongs to Wazi because his mom, Ayanda (Nicki Micheaux), knows how to defend them though moviegoers would not know it when watching them fight the vampires. Wazi is supposed to be a Buffy/T’Challa figure, but it is too little, too late.
The story waits too long to develop the mythology and does so in a sloppy way. It is all over the place. There is a little comedy around Ayanda giving out pamphlets, and it is kind of hilarious, but is not leveraged enough. The vampires are called Obayifo, but the onscreen vampires do not share the same characteristics of those creatures. The Obayifo are part of the Dahomey people’s culture, which originates in Western Africa, not Zulus, which originate in Southern Africa. Zulu is not a clear reference to hip hop culture though it may have been an inspiration for the writers. The vampire mythology felt more like sci-fi than horror with a dash of “Black Panther” (2018). There is even a “Predator” (1987) shout out. These vampires are barely distinguishable from ordinary bad guys without supernatural qualities. Someone needs to talk to Mulroney’s agent. He gives so many monotonous speeches that it felt as if it was his actual power to bore people to death. Only one vampire seems to be superpowered. They actually have to wear silver-colored fangs, which feels pathetic, but could be a culture vulture nod. It gets frustrating when people keep trying to kill the vampires in the same way even when it does not work.
The filmmakers want to have their cake and eat it too. In the twenty-first century, if Black people dominate the numbers in a horror movie cast and are supposed to be the heroes, then the characters should not be wearing the metaphorical (and in “Night Patrol,” literal) red shirts and get killed first. Instead “Night Patrol” is firmly stuck in the twentieth century. The writers play it coy, so the vampire thing is supposed to be a secret, but someone forgot to tell the PR department. At the beginning of his story arc, Ethan does not know about the supernatural element, so he looks like the good guy. The Black characters seem delusional and violent and are initially depicted as violent gang members and human cop killers. Anyone with horror movie common sense will not believe this set up, but it is supposed to be a twist that the gang members are actually the good guys. Apparently, the writers have not watched the “Purge” franchise because it is regressive to even entertain that storyline. It only helps that none of the characters are likable or easy to cheer on so it does not feel as if there is a huge disparity despite societal assumptions.
“Night Patrol” feels like a lose-lose situation in which the horror fans cannot have anything: not memorable vampire attacks or satisfying vampire kills. When the vamp cops go on a rampage, the scene flips to black and white. Prows is torn. He wants to revel in the massacre mayhem but also does not want people to enjoy watching Black people getting killed; however, when they do get killed, it is mostly Black women and has no lingering and grounded emotional effect on the viewer because they make such brief appearances. Because of the lack of character development, when Black characters die, and a lot of Black people die, it takes eighty-one minutes of a one hundred forty-four-minute run time for the tables to turn. It is not well worth the wait. When Black people start effectively fighting back against the vampires, the kills are minimal and anti-climactic. There is no catharsis. It is as if the filmmakers are tentative about killing vampires because they are also cops. Listen, y’all are the ones who made the premise. It feels like they want to be provocative, but they pull punches. It makes for an unsatisfying, uneven viewing experience. The film is trying to make a statement about systematic racism that is simultaneously heavy-handed and tepid. Worst of all
“Night Patrol” makes vampires boring. It obeys the January movie rule and is not good enough to compete with stronger movies that come out at later dates. While better than “Resurrection Road” (2025), “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” (2012) is more satisfying.
