A ship crashes into a dockyard in the port of Brooklyn, scaring the life out of the yard's night watchman, Silas Green, and his nephew, Julius Jones, whom promptly flees the scene. When Silas checks the ship, he finds that the entire crew has been slaughtered. The killer, seemingly an enormous wolf, escapes the ship and, as Silas watches its shadow, transforms into a man before walking off. Elsewhere, Julius is tossed out of his apartment by his woman, Eva, and as if things weren't bad enough, he's pursued by two Italian mobsters, as he runs numbers for their boss and owes him money. Not having it on him, Julius is about to get shot, when a suave, elegant-talking man with a Caribbean accent named Maximillian intervenes. After surviving being shot several times, he reveals himself to be a vampire, completely eviscerating the men and, after hunting down Julius when he runs away, infecting him with his blood, making him his ghoul. The last surviving vampire from a tribe that lived on an island in the Bermuda Triangle, Max has come to Brooklyn to find the last known offspring of his tribe in order to ensure his bloodline lives on. Said offspring is a woman who is half-vampire but completely unaware of that fact. Soon, the shipwreck comes to the attention of the police, with Detective Justice and his new partner, Rita Veder, arriving on the scene to investigate. While Justice talks to the completely freaked out Silas, Rita investigates the ship's interiors, falling down into the cargo hold, where she finds Max's coffin, which he and Julius have come to retrieve. She has a bizarre and frightening vision when she inspects the coffin, and when Max sees her, he senses that she's the one he's looking for. He quickly vanishes, and when she tries to show Justice the coffin, it's been removed by Julius. Max takes refuge in a room in an apartment building where Silas acts as the landlord and, though useful to him, Julius, who's beginning to decay and fall apart, starts to work on his nerves. Meanwhile, after having a nightmare where she catches another glimpse of her vampire side, Rita dives deeper into the case, until she finally meets Max personally. Eventually, he's able to awaken her other side, and while Justice, who has feelings for her, attempts to save her, it must be her who finally decides what path she must follow, a decision that could cost her either her life or her humanity.
Some people may think otherwise but I believe that Murphy plays the role of Max really well. He manages to be quite good at coming off as seductive and suave while also, though not exactly terrifying, threatening when the movie calls for it. Once Max has Rita in the apartment, he appeals to her longing for something more than the small, rather claustrophobic existence she has in Brooklyn and seduces her completely with a dance, promising her the life she wants, before biting her and awakening her vampire side. When she starts to feel the effects and confronts him the next night, he tells her that what he's given her is the gift of eternal life and the freedom to go and do whatever she wants. He also tells her of her vampire heritage, which is why she's always felt different from everyone else and never been sick or seriously injured her whole life, saying that her vampire father sent him to her. This seems to snare her, but Max finds that he can't get Rita to bring herself to feed on others for their blood. Regardless, he intends to return to his island with her and isn't going to let her die. He almost gets her to feed on Silas Green's blood but Justice and Dr. Zeko, an occult expert, arrive just in time. Though they're unable to kill Max themselves, Rita is the one who ultimately puts him down by staking him and freeing herself of her vampire side.
Max has quite the eclectic array of powers and abilities, most of which are not typically seen in most vampires. Besides being able to transform into a wolf (he never becomes a bat), appear and disappear to the point where he's virtually teleporting, and having enough strength to easily rip people apart, Max can also change himself into other people, provided there is potential evil within them to allow him to do so (that's why he never takes on Justice's form). While he never turns into a bat, he is shown to be able to float and fly through the air, climb along the sides of buildings, appear out of a big cloud of mist that he creates (kind of similar to one of Count Alucard's abilities in Son of Dracula), create sudden, white swirls that can damage both people and objects and allow him to disappear suddenly, launch a police dog up into the air like a rocket simply by willing it to happen, influence other people's thoughts, and can even turn a rundown pigsty of a room into a posh, fancy sitting room, as he does to Julius' apartment, in order to wine and dine Rita. Like most vampires, he has to be staked in order to be killed (or starved of blood meals), but he also can't forcibly turn someone into a vampire, which is why he has to seduce Rita so she will willingly give herself over to him. Also, being bitten by a vampire in this universe doesn't mean you will become one yourself; as Dr. Zeko says, vampires are "an exclusive race." And as with most modern movie vampires, Max can swing from looking like a normal man to a full-on, bloodthirsty, fanged demon. You see hints of his full vampire side when his eyes turn unnaturally yellow and his fangs sharpen but you don't see the whole thing until the latter part of the final act, when he becomes very ugly and monstrous-looking (his facial structure looks kind of like the Djin in Wishmaster, don't you think?)
Once she's in Max's apartment, Rita mentions how she can't help but feel a kind of connection to him, even though she feels they couldn't be any different, as he's been all over the world and had an amazing life, while she lives a rather compact, secluded one in Brooklyn. She admits that she's always wondered what lies beyond Brooklyn and Max, appealing to her unfulfilled dreams and desires, dances with her and gives her the chance to have the life she's always wanted. Caught up in the ecstasy of dancing with him, she consents, allowing him to bite her. The next evening, she wakes up back in her apartment when Justice comes to tell her that Nikki has been found dead, and that it happened just as it did in a painting she made. Despite being distraught by this news, Rita can't help but find herself suddenly hungering for Justice, and the two of them start to passionately make out on her bed. However, she gets a glimpse of what she's becoming when she sees her vampiric reflection in the mirror, which then disappears. Horrified, she runs back to Max's apartment and confronts him about what he did to her. He says that he merely granted her wish, that he gave her eternal life and the freedom to go and do whatever she desires. He also reveals to her that she's the daughter of a vampire, that her father died so her mother could live, and that's why her mother ended up in the institution and died there. Rita wants no part of this and is initially intent on going back to her old life, but Max tries to make her believe that she would be much happier and freer if she accepted her new existence as a vampire. Unsure of what to do, Rita does go along with Max when he tries to teach her how to feed on human blood but finds herself unable to take another human life and runs away when he offers her a victim. Having had a person of faith all her life, she runs to a church and prays for help, but Max fetches her and takes her back to his apartment, planning to take her back to the island they both came from. Again, he tries to get her to feed, and while she'd rather die than do it, she's unable to keep herself from going at Silas Green when Max offers her his blood. Fortunately for her, Justice and Dr. Zeko intervene, but as the battle with Max goes on, it looks as if Rita has given herself over to her vampire side when Justice is confronted by both her and Max. After a battle between Max and Justice, it looks like Rita is about ready to kill him, when she turns on Max and stabs him through the heart with Zeko's dagger, killing him and releasing her from vampirism.
This was the second film in which Eddie Murphy played multiple characters, something he'd already done in Coming to America and would to go do again in other movies, most notably The Nutty Professor and its sequel (in my opinion, he did it one time too many, but that's a topic for another day). The other two characters that he plays here are those who Max kills and then imitates in his attempts to get closer to Rita. One of them is Preacher Pauly, a whiskey-drinking preacher who looks and feels like a prototype for the various members of the Klump family Murphy would play, particularly Cletus Klump, as he talks in that same over-the-top, stuffed voice. Max kills Pauly in the backseat of his car before taking on his form and as Pauly, he talks to Rita about the weird things she's been experiencing and the nightmares she's been having, only to get yanked into a church in order to give a sermon. Since being on holy ground causes him to begin to smoke and steam, he promptly talks everyone into having the sermon on the front lawn and goes on this long, BS speech about how "evil is good," which he gets the others to buy into. He also uses his influence to get Rita to yell at Justice about Nikki when he shows up to talk to her. Once the sermon gets rained out, Max and Julius follow Rita and Justice to an Italian restaurant in order to meet with the mob boss whose thugs were found dead near the docks. There, they run into Guido, a foul-mouthed loser of a crook who wants to be part of the mob but is deemed too much of a wimp for it. Trying to prove himself, he makes the mistake of attempting to hold them up, only to get ripped apart by Max. Taking his form, Max holds the restaurant up and tries to make off with Rita, only for her to promptly beat the crap out of him and slap the handcuffs on him. When taken to the station, he continues to run his mouth in an attempt to make Justice look like a creep who banged Nikki in an animalistic manner, ruining the moment where he attempts to tell Rita how he feels about her. This results in Rita slapping Justice and Justice almost punches "Guido's" lights out but promptly restrains himself. As he's being taken to a cell, Max uses his influence to get a crazy religious zealot at the station to attack the cop escorting him, giving him enough of a distraction to drop his disguise and tell the cop that Guido ran out. Murphy does do that kind of Italian accent Guido has really well but, looking at him with makeup on that's trying to make him look like a white man is just off-putting and doesn't work for me (it's the same, Uncanny Valley-like effect I get from movies like White Chicks).
If you're a connoisseur of Wes Craven's films, you will notice that Zakes Mokae is not the only actor here who has worked with him before. Joanna Cassidy, who plays Capt. Dewey, the superior who isn't so sure about whether Rita is stable enough to be a detective, had appeared in Invitation to Hell. Anthony and Tony, the two mob hit-men who attempt to kill Julius, only to get ripped apart by Max, are played by Jsu Garcia (going under the name, Nick Corri), who was Rod Lane in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Mitch Pileggi, who played the very over-the-top Horace Pinker in Shocker (surprise, surprise, he plays the mob guy who's really itching to kill Julius). And Wendy Robie, who played the psychotic "Mommy" in The People Under the Stairs, pops up in one scene as a religious fanatic at the police station who Max influences to attack a cop so he can escape in the chaos. Also, I'd like to mention that, when Silas and Julius are watching Family Feud at the beginning of the movie, you can see that it's the version with Ray Combs, who killed himself the year after this film was released.
With a budget of somewhere between $14 million and $20 million, Vampire in Brooklyn was Craven's biggest movie at that point and the money is definitely right there on the screen. Just looking at the movie and how glossy it is, you can tell that there was some change behind it, and it's also something of a precursor to how polished the Scream movies would look. The big setpiece that opens the movie, the abandoned ship crashing into the Port of Brooklyn, is another indication of its scope, as are the big, wide shots of Brooklyn that you get throughout the story. Speaking of which, the film is shot very well by cinematographer Mark Irwin, who'd worked with Craven on New Nightmare, making good use of shafts of light, mist, and rich colors, particularly the deep blue moonlight used in the nighttime scenes. Some prime examples of this technical prowess are the scenes in the ship's cargo hold, notably when Rita finds Max's coffin; those set in Rita's apartment in the morning, especially when she wakes up after having a bad nightmare and you see the golden rays of the sun shining into the room; the rooftop confrontation between Rita and Max near the end, where there's an atmospheric layer of mist hanging in the air; and the really cool, rich lighting and color palette in Dr. Zeko's home and in Max's apartment during the climax. There's also a nicely atmospheric moment where you see shadows stretching across the length of Max's apartment, leading up to the point where he awakens inside his coffin.
The film's production design and location work are also very well-done. Brooklyn is depicted as a pretty rough-looking, rundown place, with lots of graffiti on the walls, trash lining the grimy, often soaked streets, steam rising from the sewer vents, and the notion of it being rather cold at night, not to mention all the crime that's afoot. There are some notable sets to be found in the movie, such as the creepy, abandoned interiors of the ship, which are filled with bizarre markings and symbols on the walls, odd carvings and masks pertaining to vampirism, and the bodies of the slaughtered crew members, not to mention the flooded cargo hold where Max's coffin is kept, all of which are lit by shafts of light coming through the portholes; the occult-themed club that Dr. Zeko runs, with all of its paintings, carvings, and even a display featuring a real cobra, which manages to break out at one point; Rita's own apartment, which is ordinary enough for the most part but is given a strange feel with the paintings she does, the old-fashioned, double-doors that both her and Nikki's bedrooms have, and the kind of odd-looking lamp in the living area; and Max's apartment, which he transforms from a rundown pigsty to a very elegant, suave pad with a big fireplace, candelabras, a shiny, spotless floor, a grand piano, a big pot of roses, a Van Gogh painting, which he put there because he got the hint at the police station that he's Rita's favorite artist, and a hidden, mausoleum-like room where his coffin is housed.
There are some sequences in the film where Craven gets really dramatic, surreal, and dreamlike with both the imagery and Patrick Lussier's editing. These often are related to the visions and nightmares that Rita has throughout the story, such as when she's down in the ship's cargo hold and sees a vision of herself inside Max's coffin, which grabs her hand and tries to bite it (that vision really confused me the first time I watched this movie). In a scene that's seemingly set later that night, Rita is shown walking to her apartment, when she gets the feeling that she's being followed. She turns around but sees a simple gust of wind blow from around a street corner. Still feeling uncomfortable, she runs through the front door of her apartment building and closes it behind her, only for something to start pounding on the other side of the door. She tries to get the elevator to work, pressing the button repeatedly, as whatever it is starts smashing through the door and the window behind her explodes. She gets tangled up in the blood-red drapes, when the elevator finally opens, only to reveal a vision of her vampire self, which reaches for her while snarling. As Rita thrashes around, it's then revealed that she's actually in her bed, having a nightmare, as she jumps out of it and bangs up against the wall across from it. Because of such surreal sequences, you could be forgiven for thinking that the moment in Dr. Zeko's club where a cobra escapes the glass it's being kept in is another such scene that's caused by Max's influence, but it turns out to not be the case. One dream-like moment that actually does take place is when Max kills Nikki after having sex with her. When Rita wakes up to the sound of their love-making and, angry and jealous, because she thinks Nikki is doing it with Justice, goes out on a balcony and does a new painting, Nikki's orgasmic yells turn to horrified screams. We then get a quickly-edited montage of close-ups of Max's evil yellow eyes, Nikki thrashing around and screaming as she's attacked, and Rita roughly plying red paint to her canvas, as the sound of a passing train rumbles through the whole scene. A quick glimpse of a snarling wolf's face and shots of Nikki dying end the scene, as blood drips through the bedroom door's keyhole and you get a close-up of the upper part of Max's face as he laughs evilly.
The dream-like, surreal imagery and sequences continue into the third act, when Max dances with Rita and unleashes her vampire side. The dance starts out very slow and romantic, with strong sensual overtones, but after Max removes the crucifix Rita wears around her neck and begins seducing her more and more, offering her the life that she's always wanted, the camera gets in close on them, as the room behind them whirls around faster and faster, building up to the moment where he bites her. Later, when Justice goes to tell Rita about Nikki's death and comforts her as she's upset, the scene suddenly turns sensual, as they start to passionately make out on her bed. The longer it goes on, the more animalistic and rough it becomes, until Rita's vampire self emerges and starts making love to Justice in that form, licking his neck and nibbling it. She then sees her reflection in the mirror and realizes what she's become, horrified when her reflection disappears. And when Rita refuses to feed on a woman's blood, she runs to a church and opens the doors, where she's blasted back by a stream of white, holy light and a big gust of wind from inside, which knocks her amongst the nearby tombstones, as she frantically begs for divine help.
While not extremely gory, considering some of Craven's other movies, the film does feature some fairly good gore and makeup effects by KNB. Most of Max's attacks on his victims occur offscreen or are partially obscured, like when he rips Anthony to pieces behind a parked car, but you do see some close-ups of ripped open throats and disemboweled innards on the victims found aboard the boat, a close-up of Tony's still beating heart when Max rips it out of his chest, Max spitting out some body part that once belonged to Anthony, a woman's badly bitten throat when Max is trying to get Rita to feed, and other instances of slight bloodletting, such as blood leaking out of the keyhole when Max kills Nikki in her bedroom and when you see her crucified body later on. Aside from Max's full vampire form, which I've already talked about (Rita's vampire form is much less overt, as she mainly sports some wild hair, claws, fangs, and yellow eyes when she's fully vamped), the most notable bit of makeup work in the movie is Julius' gradual deterioration, similar to what happens to Jack Goodman in An American Werewolf in London after he becomes one of the undead. After Max makes him his ghoul, Julius initially still looks the same, but his skin becomes discolored and he starts to look more and more decomposed, to the point where he's lost almost all of his hair and his skin is dried and cracked like that of a mummy. Speaking of his hair, that's far from the only thing he loses, as body parts, such as his ear, hand, eyeball, and his entire right arm, come off one by one. There's also a moment where Max pulls his tongue out of his mouth, stretching it in a cartoonish manner, and threatens to hang him with it if it causes him any more trouble. By the end of the movie, Julius is a complete, sickening mess... that is, until he puts on Max's ring, becoming a full-fledged vampire with a completely restored body.
Visual effects-wise, the film makes use of some early CGI for a couple of instances of morphing, such as when you see the shadow of Max's wolf form change into that of a man and when he turns into Preacher Pauly (the latter, again, being akin to the morphs between Sherman Klump and Buddy Love in The Nutty Professor), as well as for other effects like the streams of white air that Max sometimes creates, the bullet-holes that Tony puts into him healing instantly, the shot of Rita's vampire reflection disappearing in the mirror, and a ghostly image of a bat that flies out of a destroyed window after Max is staked and killed. There are also some well-done physical effects, like when Max floats and soars through the air (the wires holding him up aren't visible at all); the violent shaking and shattering of objects in Max's apartment that occurs after he's been killed; and the big opening setpiece with the boat crashing into the docks. I don't know if the latter was done will full-scale elements or with miniatures but, however it was achieved, it looks really good. And I think there's one instance of a matte painting when Rita first runs on the roof of the building housing Max's apartment and you see her on the edge of it, overlooking the street below.
So, after all of this praising, you may be wondering where the problems with Vampire in Brooklyn lie. The answer to that question is a simple one: as a horror-comedy, it doesn't work either way. It's never scary and it's not all that funny, either. There are some mild chuckles I got here and there but nothing that had me howling. That mainly may have to do with the fact that I don't find this kind of over-the-top, black (as in African American) comedy to be all that funny. I'm not into movies like the Friday films or anything like that, so seeing loudmouthed, exaggerated caricatures of black people like Silas Green, Julius, and Eva doesn't really tickle my funny-bone. And while I'll admit that I do enjoy The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy's penchant for playing multiple characters and being so cartoonish about it has never come off as anything that remarkable to me (again, that could be because I think he did it one time too many). But, the bigger issue, more than the comedy itself, is that it doesn't jive with the horror. At one point, the movie will come off as a typical 90's horror film, but then, it'll switch to comedy that's so broad that it feels like you're now watching something completely different. Even the more ghoulish humor, like Julius losing his body parts, doesn't gel with the other parts, and it tends to undermine the more horror-driven and dramatic scenes, such as the confrontation between Max and Rita on the rooftop, where he reveals her heritage to her. In fact, by the time you get into the latter part of the third act, where the race is on to kill Max before he succeeds in forcing Rita to become a vampire, Silas' antics and Julius' slapstick moments, where he tries to ward off Justice and Dr. Zeko with kung-fu and then chases his missing eyeball across the floor, are more of an unwanted distraction than comedy relief. It's not as bad as the cops in The Last House on the Left, mind you, but still unnecessary and intrusive. They really should have tried harder to balance the comedy out with the horror or have everybody on the same page when filming began, which was apparently not the case between Craven and Murphy.
Another reason why the movie doesn't quite work, at least for me, is the simple fact that it's an Eddie Murphy vampire movie. Murphy is as good an actor as he is a comedian and, like I said before, he does play the part of Max well but, let's face it: it's still Eddie Murphy. As good as he is, it's hard to take him seriously as a deadly, supernatural villain (which is why it's a good thing he wasn't cast as Candyman, a role he vied for), especially in an unbalanced horror-comedy like this. Plus, Murphy is said not to have wanted any comedy at Max's expense and yet, he has those scenes where Max changes himself into the out-and-out caricatures that are Preacher Pauly and Guido and spends a long time coming off really silly. I know he's trying to act the part of those people but, nevertheless, it's ridiculous. Also, Max or not, we can tell that it's Murphy underneath heavy makeup regardless, so those scenes feel like the movie just stopped so he could have some character moments, akin to how some of Robin Williams' movies tended to stop so he could improvise and ad-lib for long stretches. I'm specifically thinking of the moment in Mrs. Doubtfire when Williams does a barrage of voices while talking to Mrs. Sellner. But, as pointless as that was, I found Williams' impressions to be funny, which I can't really say for what Murphy does here. (Also, if you didn't know, Murphy has said that the reason why the film wasn't successful was solely due to the wig he wears here. Question: has a bad wig ever been a total deal-breaker for you?)
The movie opens with Maximillian telling his backstory as the credits roll, before you get your first look at Brooklyn, as a ship heads towards it. While Silas Green and Julius Jones watch Family Feud on the TV in the former's office, making bets about whether or not the contestant will make the correct decision, the ship plows through everything in its path, including other boats and a walkway, as it heads right for the office. Neither of them have any idea about it until it smashes through the wall behind them, sending them running for cover. Once the shaking settles down and they see what's happened, Silas grabs a flashlight and the two of them climb up the front of the ship's bow. Seeing how old, ugly, and downright creepy-looking the apparently abandoned ship is, Julius decides to beat it, leaving his uncle to investigate the ship himself. More angry than scared, Silas climbs up onto the deck, yelling for whoever is piloting the ship to show themselves but getting no response. He moves on to the wheelhouse and walks inside, shining his flashlight into the dark. As he looks in a back room, a hand slumps down in front of him and when he looks, he sees that it belongs to a dead man whose throat has been torn out. Screaming and panicking, he blunders into some more of the ship's quarters and finds another corpse. He then runs out onto the deck and finds it littered with more dead bodies. He attempts to climb up a ladder leading to the top of the wheelhouse, when a large, black wolf jumps over him and lands on the deck with him. After snarling at him, it runs down the deck and off the ship. Silas looks over the side of the boat and sees the wolf's shadow on the wall. As he watches, the shadow morphs into that of a man, causing him to exclaim, "Jesus, Mary, and Jo-Jo!", twice in a row in horror.
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, after getting through out of his girl's apartment for snoring when he was supposed to be otherwise preoccupied, Julius finds himself being chased by two Italian mobsters, as he owns their boss money. They chase him in their car into an alley, knocking him onto their hood and then flinging him off onto the ground. The two of them, Anthony and Tony, interrogate Julius for the money and, when he doesn't have it, they prepare to kill him. None of them notice the huge cloud of mist forming down the alley and, just as Tony is about to shoot Julius, a man's voice stops him, advising him that he might miss the heart from where he was pointing and that going through the head guarantees, "A nice, even spray." He introduces himself as Maximillian when asked, describing himself as, "A connoisseur of death." Tony warns him to get lost, lest he end up like Julius, but when this doesn't dissuade Max, Tony shoots him five times in the torso, causing him to plummet to the ground instantly. Having apparently dealt with that little distraction, the two of them are about to get back to killing Julius, when Max suddenly rises back up, commenting, "Interesting. I've been stabbed, and I've been hanged, and I've been burned, even broken on the rack once, but I've never been shot before." Fiddling with the still smoking bullet-holes in his torso, he adds, "It kind of itches a little." The holes then instantly heal and Max, ripping his hand into Tony's chest and pulling out his still-beating heart, comments, "But next time, put a little heart into it," in a deeper, demonic voice, his eyes now an inhuman yellow and his teeth sporting fangs. Tony collapses to the ground, while Anthony runs in terror behind their car, frantically trying to reload his gun. Max tells Julius not to go away, before flying through the air and landing on top of Anthony behind the car. Julius watches as Anthony is literally ripped apart and he takes off down the nearby street, screaming like a girl.
Running into a warehouse, closing and blocking the door behind him, Julius hides in a nearby, fumbling for a cigarette in order to calm his nerves. Suddenly, Max crashes through the window above him and creates a flame in his hand, offering to light his cigarette. Again, Julius tries to run, going around the side of a junked heap, but Max is right there in front of him. Babbling, Julius tries to tell Max that he didn't see anything, even trying to pass himself off as blind at one point, but Max, instead, says that he likes his dishonest ways, having seen him at the docks (I would question how he could have, since his ship hadn't arrived yet, but since he's a powerful vampire, I'm just going to let it go). For a moment, Julius makes the mistake of trying to pass himself off as the honest one in the family, prompting Max to go back into vampire mode and threaten to eviscerate him. Julius makes a comment about running down to KFC and getting him a two-piece, to which Max fiddles with his teeth and spits out a body part, commenting, "I already had Italian." Horrified, Julius, again, attempts to run but Max cuts him off again and grabs him by his throat. Pricking his finger with his fang, he drips some of his blood onto Julius' tongue. Julius is instantly hit with a strong sensation of pain, which Max says is his specialty and that he now belongs to him. Once Julius gets over the sensation of pain, Max tells him he needs his eyes during the day and his services at night. He walks out of the warehouse, saying he needs his coffin and telling Julius to follow him. When he catches up with him, Max tells him that he's now his ghoul and that he's looking for a woman in Brooklyn who's half-vampire.
Detectives Justice and Rita Veder arrive at the site of the ship and, after learning everything there is to know from Captain Dewey, Rita heads onto the ship to check it out. She walks into the crew's quarters as the bodies are being removed and, after borrowing an officer's flashlight, shines it down the hallway containing the crew's bunks, illuminating a number of corpses that haven't been touched. Outside, as Justice takes the hysterical Silas' statement, the police are trying to keep a big group of bystanders behind the yellow line. Among them are Max and Julius, who have a problem in that Max's coffin is onboard the ship. Deciding to create a diversion, Max uses his powers to launch one officer's dog up into the air like a rocket, sending it crashing back down in the bay. Back on the ship, Rita is still investigating the ship's quarters, which are full of strange markings on the walls, ancient tribal carvings, and other such objects, when the wooden planks she's standing on give way and she falls down into the half-flooded cargo hold. Just as she composes herself, she hears a voice say, "Hello," and backs up against the wall, asking if someone's there. She doesn't get an answer, and then notices the coffin lying across from her. Approaching it, she studies the carved face on the lid before opening it. Inside, she sees a vision of herself lying in the coffin and is startled when the image appears to grab her hand, attempting to bite it. She jumps back and plants herself up against the wall again, when Max enters the room and sees her. He's about to attack, when he senses something about her and whispers, "It's you." Rita then spots him but Max quickly vanishes in a flash of blinding light. Rita chases after him, up the flights of steps and scaffolding in the ship's engine room, and then out onto the deck. There, she runs into Justice and reflexively pulls her gun on him, as he has to talk her down. He says he didn't see anyone but Rita is sure that someone's there and has Justice follow her back down into the cargo hold to see the coffin... only for it to no longer be there. Frustrated since she can tell that Justice doesn't believe her, she's about to storm out, when she spots something on the floor. Picking it up with a pen and looking at it, Justice finds that it's a rotted off human ear.
Said ear once belonged to Julius, who's currently trying to haul Max's coffin up to his apartment in his uncle's building and complaining about it to his master. Max assures him that there are more benefits to being a ghoul than drawbacks but grows impatient with his complaining, although Julius assures him that staying there is quite a bargain. Silas then shows up and, seeing Julius, threatens to whoop him for deserting him earlier, saying that he wouldn't believe what he's seen; Max then looks out the window and notices that dawn is breaking. Silas notices him and Julius introduces him as his boss, saying that he's got plenty of money. Hearing that, Silas doubles and then triples the rent, much to Julius' frustration. But, it's no problem for Max, who tosses Silas a small bag of gold coins. Ecstatic at this, Silas welcomes Max to the neighborhood before heading back into his room. Julius then proceeds to place the coffin in the middle of the apartment, going on to Max about how he should get something a lot more comfortable to sleep on. He then makes the mistake of sitting on the coffin, prompting Max to stomp towards him and pick him up by the collar of his shirt. He tells Julius to never sit on the coffin, that he wants to find Rita that night, and that he hates mirrors, driving the point home by tossing him into the one that's on the wall. Following that, we see that freakish encounter Rita has while on her way back to the apartment, where it seems like she's being followed by some kind of monster that tries to break down the front door to her building, before she sees another horrific vision of her vampire self waiting in the elevator for her. Then, it's revealed that she was simply having a nightmare (a tip-off was that, as she walking home, it looked like it was still the middle of the night, even though dawn was shown to be breaking in the previous scene). As she tries to calm herself, she grabs a laminated newspaper clipping that shows a photo of her mother, with the headline, "Pioneer of Caribbean Supernatural Studies Dies in Brooklyn Asylum," and asks, "Mama, what's happening to me?"
The next day, at the police station, Rita and Justice learn from Dewey that two other bodies were found on Bates Street, which isn't far from the docks, and that the ship's log, which was written in a strange language, was sent to a man named Dr. Zeko for a translation. Rita decides to go see Zeko at his establishment and Justice joins her; unbeknownst to them, the ever-decaying Julius, disguised as a janitor, has overheard them saying where they're going. Before he leaves, he makes a meal of a big, black cockroach he sees crawling across the desk next to him. That evening, as darkness falls, Max slowly awakens, while outside on the street, Julius pulls up driving a black limousine, gets out, and polishes the hood, only for his right hand to break off while he does so. Freaked out, he grabs the hand and turns around, to see Silas sitting there, watching him. Though he tries to play it off like it's nothing, Silas isn't fooled, telling Julius he seems to have a case of the "dropsies." Max then comes out of the building and is quite impressed with the limo, especially when Julius tells him it was meant for a funeral. He gets into the back and Julius, after taking a "dick check," per Silas' suggestion and finds that it is there, gets into the driver's seat and heads down the street. While they drive, Max explains that Rita has to give herself over to him willingly and that he has the upper-hand in that he knows about her than she does, adding that she'll be his after one dance. Julius, impressed by this, figures Max would woo Rita with some MC Hammer and turns his song, Pray, on the radio. He keeps on running his mouth too, which pushes Max to his breaking point and he uses his powers to zap the radio and burn the back of Julius' neck. He snarls, "I'm warning you to drive the limo and shut your fucking mouth. Shut up!" Julius still yammers on, telling Max he can't do that while he's driving, and Max yells, "Shut the fuck up! Goddamn it!" He hammers his point home further by shattering the rear-view mirror in the same way.
Rita and Justice arrive at the neighborhood where Dr. Zeko's place is and they find that he runs a club that appears to have an occult theme to it. Inside, they meet Zeko, who looks at Rita strangely when he sees her, before telling them that, after studying the language of the ship's log, it originated from one of the hundred islands in the Sargasso Sea, specifically the Bermuda Triangle area. He goes on to tell them that, during the voyage, the crew believed there was an evil onboard the ship with them, specifically a vampire, which he believes is now in Brooklyn. Not believing it at all, despite how much Zeko tries to convince him, Justice leaves to go call in, while Zeko warns Rita that she'd best keep her faith, as she's going to need it. He then walks away as, unbeknownst to Rita, a cobra that's kept in a nearby display case has managed to smash a hole in the glass by banging against it and slithers through it, moving across the table, towards her. Max then appears to her left, staring at her, and when Rita asks if he has some sort of problem he tells her, "There's a killer on the loose... He's very smart and very quick and quite deadly." She asks if he knows where said killer is and he answers, "He's right behind you." Rita then turns around, not expecting to see anything, only to be terrified when she sees the cobra rearing up and hissing, threatening to bite her. She freezes in terror, whimpering in fear, but Max tells her to remain calm, as he uses his power to manipulate the cobra to where he can quickly reach around and grab it from behind its head. Its handler finally sees what's happened and takes the snake away, apologizing. Relieved, Rita thanks Max and the two of them formally introduce themselves. She mentions that she thinks she's seen him somewhere before and Max talks about having a dream about her and setting her free. He's about to show her how he set her free with a dance, but then, Justice shows up, motioning for her to come on. Rita explains that she's on duty, and that's when Julius comes in, trying to help, and yammers about how Max is, "Trying to get his fuck on. He want to get it on with you, see?" This completely destroys any chance Max has of dancing with her and Rita and Justice promptly leave, though Max is confident he'll see her again. Once they're gone, Max takes his anger out on Julius, pushing him against the wall, stretching his tongue out of his mouth, and tells him he'd better not mess things up again. Snapping it back, Max says that he now must take more drastic measures.
Rita and Justice head back to the former's apartment, where Justice meets her roommate, Nikki, who is clearly very happy to meet Justice. As they talk, Rita thinks she hears something outside the kitchen window but doesn't see anything when she looks. Justice attempts to leave, turning down Rita's offer of coffee, while Max, climbing along the side of the building, looks in on them through the window. He retreats as Rita heads off to the bed, while Nikki offers to make Justice some coffee herself. Again, he's about to leave, when he notices a painting in the room next to the kitchen, one of a woman who seems to be crucified. Nikki tells him that Rita did it, as she paints what she sees in her nightmares, before once again trying to move in on him. He still isn't having it and manages to walk out the door, heading down to the street where his car is parked. Nikki follows him down there, as he forgot his keys, and suggests that it could mean he doesn't actually want to leave. She goes in for a kiss, leaving a smear of lipstick on his shirt collar, but he pushes her off, takes his keys, and drives away. Nikki is left there, aghast at the idea that he would reject her, when she hears someone say, "Now, he's obviously a man of poor taste." Turning around, she sees Max standing in the misty street, and as he approaches, she's taken with how good-looking and exotic he is. She immediately invites him up to her apartment and he accepts. Later that night, Rita awakens to the sound of Nikki yelling and moaning in absolute pleasure. Walking out into the living room and up to her bedroom door, she hears how intense the lovemaking is in there and becomes angry and jealous, thinking that she's doing it with Justice. She grabs her canvas, brushes, and paints and marches out onto the balcony, just missing Nikki's moans turning into screams, as she's brutally attacked, the double-doors to her bedroom shaking. At the same time, out on the balcony, Rita is angrily painting something new on the canvas, as the sound of a passing train adds more chaos to the scene. Once it's over, blood oozes out of the door's keyhole and Max laughs evilly, as the scene transitions to the next morning. Waking up, Rita walks into the living room and finds the doors to Nikki's bedroom ajar. Going in, she finds that the room is completely empty and that there's a note on the bare mattress, presumably from Nikki, that tells Rita that she's moved out; some quick cuts reveal that it was actually Max who wrote the note. She angrily crumples the note and tosses it aside, before seeing an image of her previous painting in one of the windows.
That night, as he watches Rita from inside his limo, Max is frustrated when he sees her going towards a church. But, it gives him the idea to get to her through her faith. In the next scene, he goes up to Preach Pauly, who's standing outside his van, drinking some whiskey, and jumps him, attacking him viciously inside the van. Once he's done with him, Max steps outside and changes himself into Pauly, quickly learning to imitate his voice as well. Wanting to talk to him about the strange feelings she's been having about the case, Rita goes up to "Pauly" and the two of them take a walk, as she tells him everything. The two of them walk up the steps to the church, when Pauly is dragged inside to give a sermon. The minute he's inside the holy place, surrounded by stained glass windows and crosses, his head starts to smoke uncontrollably. It gets so painful that he yells, "Goddamn!", causing everyone in the church to turn around in shock, prompting him to backpedal and say, "God damn... anybody who doesn't glorify in his work!", adding, "It's a hell of a night outside! Come on! Let's do the sermon on the lawn!" After he gets everybody outside and gets them to hush up from their singing, he goes on this long tangent about "necessary evil," how evil is as needed as good, and ultimately sums it up with the phrase, "Evil is good," getting everyone else to buy into it. He then mentions that one of the deacons, Brother Brown, was with a $2.00 whore the night before when he told his wife that he was going to visit his mother. But, he also adds that Brother Brown had a "good time" with that whore, so it works out. That's when Justice shows up to tell Rita that Captain Dewey found some info on the two men who were found dead near the docks the other night. Max then uses his influence to make Rita explode at Justice over Nikki, accusing him of having sex with her, and Max is only too happy to add to his grief. Pointing out Nikki's lipstick on Justice's collar, Rita storms off, as Justice follows her, trying to explain himself. Pauly goes on, saying that he shouldn't be ashamed for getting a little ass, as, "Ass is good... Evil is good, and ass is good. And if you get you a piece of evil ass, whoo!" Meanwhile, Justice catches up with Rita at her car, telling her that he left after she went to bed and was at the station all night long. After a bit of an argument, he tells her that Dewey learned that the two dead men from before work for a mob boss named Kitty Caprisi. The two of them then get into their respective cars to go speak to Caprisi at his restaurant, while back at the church, everyone is singing, "Evil is good," and clapping their hands. Pauly jumps down to the lawn below, as it begins pouring rain and the crowd disperses.
Rita and Justice arrive at Kitty Caprisi's restaurant right as Guido, a lowlife crook, is tossed out of the place, being told that he doesn't have the balls to be a mobster. Max and Julius arrive shortly thereafter, Max explaining to his ghoul that only a master vampire can transform himself the way he did into Preacher Pauly and that someone must have a "doorway of evil" in order for him to do so, which is why he can't disguise himself as Justice. He plans to seduce Rita inside and dispose of Justice after they go for a little ride, when Guido jumps Julius from behind, pulling a gun on him. He forces him behind Max, whom he then tries to hold up. Declaring that he loves Brooklyn, Max goes into vampire mode and attacks Guido, ripping him up offscreen as Julius watches. Inside, Rita and Justice talk to Kitty Caprisi and learns from him Julius' identity and where his ex-girlfriend lives. That's when Max, now turned into Guido, walks in, punches the guy who tossed him out earlier, and pulls a gun, demanding that everyone in the room drop their weapons on the floor. They comply, creating a large pile of weapons in the middle of the floor, and he then takes Rita hostage, telling her she's going to be his new girlfriend. He also rips cloves of garlic off of the walls and pushes a waiter who comes in with a tray containing garlic bread, threatening to shoot the next person who comes in with anything garlic. Caprisi's cat hisses at him and threatens to kill him as well if Caprisi doesn't keep him under control. Guido then demands some takeout for him and Rita, ordering the waiter he pushed down to hop to it, and after smashing the radio that's playing classical Italian music, demands some red wine too. The cat growls and jumps at him, prompting him to shoot it in midair, much to Caprisi's horror. While he's distracted, Rita takes the opportunity to smash the gun out of his hand with a bottle and flip him over, crashing him into a table. Justice then joins her in subduing Guido and, after they've cuffed him, escort him out of the restaurant, as he continues to talk smack to the furious Italians.
After they bring Guido to the station, Rita and Justice argue about her taking him down so recklessly, her being angry that he won't admit that she did it well and him saying that she should have waited for him. All the while, Max continuously tries to stir the pot by claiming that he saw Justice at a titty bar the night before and saying that she doesn't need him. The three of them are then distracted by a religious zealot who's brought in, raving about how Brooklyn shall be judged, and Max also notices a copy of a Van Gogh on Rita's desk. Justice then admits to Rita that he cares about her, but Max takes the opportunity to ruin the building moment between them, saying that he knows Justice because of Nikki, who he claims came by the restaurant and bragged about a cop who "beast-fucked her." This draws disgust from both Rita and their co-workers, who can't help but overhear everything, and she slaps him across the face when he tries to say he doesn't know what Guido is talking about. Captain Dewey then calls Rita into her office, while Justice comes close to laying Guido out but manages to restrain himself long enough to give him over to a cop to be taken away. Max, overhearing Dewey tell Rita that she's going to be suspended for two days, decides that he knows everything he needs and, as he's being taken away, he influences the zealot to kill the cop escorting him. She grabs a letter opener from a desk and attacks the cop, with everyone else having to hold her back. Once he gets back on his feet, the cop sees Max standing by the door, telling him that Guido escaped. The cop goes to pursue the perp, as Max surreptitiously unlocks his handcuffs.
On her way home, Rita again gets the feeling that she's not alone, faintly hearing a voice whispering her name. Like her nightmare before, she stops and looks behind her, only to see nothing. Suddenly, an out of control taxi cab comes out of nowhere and heads right for her. Just as she's about to get hit, Max flies through the air and grabs her out of the way. The two of them hit the concrete hard, as the cab screeches around the corner up ahead, and then, they get back up on their feet. Assuring her savior that she's okay, she then looks up and recognizes him from the night before. Showing that he does remember who she is, Max notices that she's bleeding on her right hand and she promptly sucks the blood up. This seems to cause Max's stomach to growl, and after she giggles, the two of them make small-talk, squaring away everything that happened between them before. Rita then prepares to go get something to eat, when Max asks her if she likes Italian, adding that he makes an excellent "fusilli," which she had told "Guido" was her favorite type of pasta. Initially, she turns him down, but he manages to draw her in when he asks if there's someone else and she figures there really isn't. She warns him that she's a cop and she'll shoot him if he tries anything funny, to which he responds, "Do I look like I would bite you?" They then make plans for him to send his car by in an hour to pick her up. She goes up to her apartment to get ready, while he heads back to his own apartment. An hour later, Justice pulls up across from Rita's apartment, rehearsing a speech that he's planning to give her about his feelings, when she comes out, dressed up and looking even lovelier than usual. Impressed by how she looks and the fact that she's going to dinner like that, he offers to give her a ride, when Julius pulls up in the limo. He gets out and opens the door for her, while Justice very demurely decides not to give Rita his speech. After closing the door, Julius mocks him, saying, "Thought you was gonna get some ass tonight, didn't you? Take your ass to Blockbuster, get a video." With that, Julius drives off, leaving Justice behind to feel very low.
When she first arrives at the building, Rita is unsure, given how rundown and unkempt the inside of it is, but she follows Julius' directions and finds herself in a very posh, fancy apartment, thanks to Max's spells. Max is sitting at a piano, playing, when she walks in. After greeting her and telling her how lovely she looks, he offers her some red wine, knowing it's her favorite, as she sees a full-sized version of the Van Gogh painting at her office on the wall. They talk about how he's their favorite painter and the beauty of it, while elsewhere, Justice goes to see Eva and initially gets a shotgun in his face when she answers the door. But, once she hears that it's about Julius possibly being in trouble, she happily invites him in. Back at Max's apartment, the two of them talk about how he, somehow, appears to know her, before she laments about how small her world is and how she wishes she could learn what's beyond Brooklyn. Telling her that she has unfulfilled dreams, Max suggests that she dance with him to the reggae music he has playing on the stereo. Reluctant, saying that she's a lousy dancer, he manages to pull her into it. They start dancing and Rita quickly gets into it, even though she's never danced in such a way before. Max assures her that she'll never stop, and as the dance becomes more sensual, he removes the small crucifix she wears around her neck. Asking her if she would love to feel this good every night, he tells her that he can bring her to a world where she will be completely free and not judged. He says, "All you have to do is just... say it. Say the word. Say it." Finally, she answers yes and, as the room spins around them, he bares his fangs and sinks them into her neck, as she moans passionately and yells, "Yes!"
The next morning, Justice drives out to the apartment building to speak with Julius, only to learn from Silas that Rita was there before and that she apparently had a very nice night with a new, suave tenant in the building. Justice then hears someone trying to contact him over his car's radio and when he responds, he's told that a young woman in her 20's has been found dead at the city hall. Arriving at the site, he climbs up onto a walkway where another officer is waiting for him. He uses her camera's long lens to get a closer look at the body, which is hanging near the top of the building, and is shocked to see that it's Nikki and that she's hanging in the very fashion that Rita painted her. He then rushes to Rita's apartment, which he finds blacked out, with only a few candles here and there, and when he finds her lying on her bed, she's so out of it that he has to shake her awake. Opening the curtains on the window to let in some lights from outside (it's now nighttime), he breaks the news about Nikki to her and that she looked exactly the way she did in her painting. Horrified at this, Rita hugs Justice tightly, as he tries to comfort her and tell her that they'll figure out what's going on. Her mouth brushes against his neck and this prompts her to begin kissing him there. Surprised by this, Justice asks her if she knows what's she doing and she simply says that she's making it up as she goes. They start kissing on the lips and while Justice feels this may not be the best time, given the circumstances, when she rips his shirt open, he decides to just go with it, as it becomes more passionate. She leaves big scratches on the back of his left shoulder but he still goes with it, as her vampire side fully surfaces for the first time. He doesn't notice that her eyes have turned an inhuman yellow and she now has fangs, as he's too busy relishing in her licking his neck. But, she then sees her reflection in a nearby mirror and watches as it disappears before her eyes. Terrified, she screams, jumps off of Justice, and runs out of her apartment, down to the streets. She pushes past a bystander and runs across a road, causing two cars to stop dead to avoid hitting her.
She bursts into Max's apartment, as Julius is sprucing it up, and yells for him. Julius tells her that now isn't a good time but Rita backhands him and sends him smashing into a large vase on the floor. Max appears, telling Julius he'll handle it, and Julius staggers to go to his chores in the kitchen. Rita confronts Max about what he's done to her and he says that he only did what she asked. She realizes that he's the one behind the murders and he says that it's a gift that she's always had as well; he just unwrapped it for her. Telling her that it's a gift of eternal life, he drags her to the window, where they look out at the full moon, and tells her to listen to the sounds of the night, saying that they're calling her. She breaks away from him and runs out the door, leaving him standing there, growling, "Women." She goes to the rooftop, only to find that she has nowhere to go up there, either. Max appears to her again, telling her that the idea of complete freedom is scary at first and that there's a reason why she's always felt different from everybody else. Though he says he'll perish without her, Rita tells Max that she's going to go back to her old life and that he can't stop her, but he talks about how her old life was nothing and that she now has nothing left but him. He also tells her that she's the daughter of a vampire and that her father, whose death at the hands of humans drove her mother insane, sent him to her. She asks, "But, what if I don't want this?", and he answers by stepping up onto the ledge of the rooftop and answering, "What if you do?", before floating backwards through the air and landing on another rooftop across from them, mesmerizing Rita.
While Justice visits with Dr. Zeko, telling him of Rita, showing him a painting that she just did of her kissing the vampiric Max, and then learning from Zeko what's happening, Max takes to Rita to a park to teach her to feed on human blood, choosing a woman of easy virtue as their victim. As Zeko tells Justice that he must kill Max before he gets Rita to abandon her humanity and feed, Max appears before the woman, asking, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" She threatens him with pepper spray, but then, goes into this spiel: "I want you to know I understand the negro people. I understand how you've been chained down by the oppression of white capitalist society." Max, peering at Rita, who's standing nearby, says, "Yes, well, then you'll understand this!" He goes into vampire mode, lunges at the woman, grabs her, and bites into her neck. Horrified, Rita tries to run for it, but Max appears before her, saying that it's her turn to quench her hunger. As pained by it as she is, Rita, despite nearly succumbing at one point, can't bring herself to do it and runs away, yelling that she's not going forward. As she runs, Max yells, "You can't run from your hunger, Rita! There's no place you can hide!" Running to a nearby church, as lightning flashes and thunder rumbles, she tries to open the doors but gets blasted back by a powerful gust of air, as she's enveloped in a bright, holy light. Fumbling down next to a gravestone, Rita says the lord's prayer to herself and begs God for help. She collapses from her grief and is scooped up by Max, who carries her over to the waiting limo. He tells her they have a long journey ahead of them, as they're going back to Max's island and plan to leave at dawn.
Getting back to the apartment, Max puts Rita down so she can rest, while Julius goes to prepare the coffin. Max tells her that she's going to die if she doesn't feed and Rita says that she wants to die. However, he isn't going to allow it, saying he'll find a victim for her. At that very moment, Silas comes in, bragging that the Knicks won and Julius owes him $50. Remarking about how amazing the place looks, he notices Rita and that she looks like she's sick. He asks her what she needs and Max grabs Silas from behind, saying that she needs some fresh blood. He jabs Silas in the neck with his claws, causing him to bleed, and tells Rita not to resist. This time, Rita moves in to suck the blood, while Silas babbles about her not wanting his blood. She almost gets there, when Justice and Zeko burst in, stopping her. Silas takes the opportunity to run out the door, yelling for the police, when Julius comes in, telling Max that his coffin is ready. Max tells him to take care of the intruders and Julius, despite the sorry shape he's in, takes Justice on, making a bunch of lame kung-fu gestures and ignoring his warning to back off. He rushes at him, attempting a kick, but Justice moves aside, causing Julius to bounce off the wall and fall backwards over a rim filled with candles. When he hits the floor, his left eyeball pops out and he starts chasing it across the floor, much to Max's irritation. Justice then attempts to take Max on, punching him in the face, but it does nothing, and Max retaliates by backhanding him hard enough to send him flying across the room. Before he can move in to finish Justice off, Zeko charges at Max and stabs him in the stomach, but as Max points out, that does nothing to him. Ripping the spear out, he knocks Zeko off his feet with it and is about to impale him with it but Rita stops him. He picks her up in his arms and, before the recovered Justice can attack him again, he blows some mist out of his mouth, giving him the opportunity to disappear with her and blow out all the candles. He checks on Zeko, who says that he thinks his leg is broke, while Julius is still chasing his eye. Justice tries to help him search for it but accidentally steps on it, squishing it. With the coast clear, Silas comes back into the room and Justice tells him and Julius to get out and get Zeko to a hospital. Zeko warns him that he will be Rita's first victim if she becomes a vampire and gives him a dagger to kill Max with. Silas then helps Zeko out the door and manages to get Julius to come too, convincing him that serving Max has been far from beneficial, especially when his right arm breaks off when it's barely pulled on.
Poking around a wall, Justice finds a secret door and pushes his way through it, tumbling into a hidden room containing Max's coffin. His dagger ready, he approaches the coffin, and prepares to plunge the blade through Max's heart as soon as he opens the lid, but when he does open it, he finds Rita lying inside of it. She tells him that he shouldn't have come, that it's too late for her, and the room's door shuts behind him. When he turns back around after looking, he sees that Rita is now in full vampire form and she tells him, "Now, it's too late for you." Max then appears and Justice tells him that he's taking Rita, but he has to jump to avoid being bitten by her. He charges at Max but he disappears and he turns to see him cradling Rita's head in his hands, acting like he's going to kiss her. Justice charges at them but they both disappear. Max's voice asks him why he would deny letting her have everything she ever could and he says she doesn't belong in her world, that she's not a killer like him. Again, he's confronted by them, and Max smacks him and sends him flying through some shutters into a small alcove. Max wrenches him out of it and Justice punches him repeatedly while in his grip, managing to knock himself loose and give Max some roundhouse kicks that send him into a mirror on the other side of the room. He charges at Max but he disappears again, causing him to slam into the wall. When he falls to the floor, Max grabs him, pulls him up, and tosses him across the room, towards Rita. Justice reaches for his dagger but Max kicks it away and picks him up, holding him by the throat. He tells Justice to ask Rita what she is and Rita, in response, says, "I'm hungry." With that, Max tosses Justice to the floor, asking Rita if his blood will do. Rita says it will do just fine and bends down to feed on Justice, grabbing the dagger away from his hand and smacking him repeatedly across the face. It looks as if Justice is done for and Rita's soul is lost, as she seems like she's prepared to embrace her destiny with Max. She tells, "A part of me loves you so much," and kisses him, just like the image on the painting.
But then, Rita takes the dagger and stabs Max through the heart with it. She then tells the shocked vampire, "But that part of me must die." Looking down at the dagger sticking out of him, Max lets out a horrific, pained scream, as flashes of lightning illuminate the room around him. Then, with his dying breath, and as Rita allows him to touch her cheek, he says, "I told you... that you were... a killer," before falling backwards into his coffin. Once he closes his eyes, his form turns back to that of a normal human being before his body completely disappears, while smoke billows out of the coffin. Justice grabs Rita and drags her, telling her to come on, as the place begins to shake as if it's an earthquake. They rush back out to the main room, taking cover, while a huge plume of smoke, accompanied by a blue glow, envelops the entire apartment, blowing out the windows and raining pieces of glass down on Silas and Julius below. The coffin slams shut, as the ghostly image of a bat flies out of the window and shoots off into the night sky. Max's ring falls on what looks like the floor inside the apartment, while Justice and Rita watch as the place instantly goes back to being the rundown sty that it was before. Rita sees her crucifix that Max ripped off the previous night lying on the floor and picks it up; when Justice asks her if she's okay, she answers, "Cross my heart, and hope to die." With that, the two of them share a kiss.
Down on the street, Silas tells Julius he's going to find himself a safer job, "Like the motherfucking bomb squad!", when they spot the limo Julius was chauffeuring Max around in. They hop in, Silas taking the driver's seat while Julius takes the back, proclaiming that he's not driving anymore. They admire their sweet ride, when Julius opens the sunroof and Max's ring falls back there with him. Realizing what it is, Julius decides Max isn't going to need it anymore and puts it on his left hand. Almost instantly, Julius appears to be hit with an electric sensation and shakes violent from it, until a big explosion of smoke fills the backseat. Once the smoke clears, Julius is revealed to have a restored body and is wearing some new, fancy clothes akin to Max's, as well as some cool sunglasses, lots of jewels, and very nice shoes, as well as some other "large" perks when he feels his crotch. Speaking in a voice and accent similar to Max's, Julius tells Silas, "Welcome to the party, unc. Now, let's get this show on the road... There's a new vampire in Brooklyn, and his name is Julius Jones." While a bit weirded out by this, Silas puts the limo in gear and he and Julius drive off into the night, Julius telling to just shut up and drive the limo as he's yammering on about things.
J. Peter Robinson, who did the excellent score for Wes Craven's New Nightmare, returned to work with Craven a second time here, albeit with more mixed results. Don't get me wrong, the score is good for the most part, with a very memorable title theme that you hear played many times throughout and some nicely atmospheric flourishes, especially the subtle theme that you hear during the rooftop scene between Max and Rita. But, that said, it's not as wholly memorable as the music he did for New Nightmare, often being appropriate for the scenes it's played to but not something you're likely to find yourself humming afterward. Also, the score goes back and forth from a nicely Gothic aesthetic to a more hip-hop kind of mentality and with some really silly music for the more comedic moments, which don't mesh well and feel like they were made for three different movies. The film has some timely songs on the soundtrack: Whatta Man by Salt-N-Pepa, which you hear when you first see the limo; Pray by M.C. Hammer, which Julius turns on the limo's radio; No Woman, No Cry, a reggae song by Hugh Masekela that plays during Max and Rita's date (actually, one of the better songs on the soundtrack, to me); If That's Your Boyfriend, He Wasn't Last Night, by Meshell Ndegeocello, a song you hear when Justice goes to Silas' building the morning after Rita's encounter with Max; and two covers of Stevie Wonder's Superstition. One of them you hear being sung by a band in Dr. Zeko's club, while the other is by UB40 and plays over the ending credits. Both are fair, but the original is still the best.
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