Nora's Best Date Ever

Nora's Best First Date Ever

Bruce Von Stiers

Nora is a content provider, a wannabe influencer and video blogger. Her brand, so to speak, is to film her dates. Pretty much all of them are failures. Nora's brother Jake does the filming for these dates. A series of failed dates leads to a chance encounter that could change Nora's life forever.

That is the cornerstone for the horror film The Night Is Young. It is a vampire film, but really a lot more than that. The film shows the remnants of relationship failure and the need to find true love. And it was done as a kind of hybrid found footage film, so I think it has a bit of uniqueness not normally seen in vampire films.

The film shows Nora's dates. First with Bianca, who apparently wants her and her husband Richard to have a threesome hook up with Nora. Then there's Angela, a bit of a stalker who wants to move really fast. And then it's Bruce Lee Dog and his owner, Jennifer. There was this woman, Paige, but it only lasted a short time. The viewer might get the sense that not only is Nora unlucky at love, she's unlucky at first dates.

Nora has a new date who will meet her at a bar. She gets stood up. But that might be a good thing as she meets someone at the bar. Her name is Emilia and she and Nora hit it off right away. But when Emilia is walking Nora to her car, a mugger attacks Nora. Then Emilia reveals her true self. She's a vampire and takes exception to someone trying to hurt her potential new girlfriend.

Unbeknownst to Nora, there is a crew of vampire hunters who are after Emilia. This crew almost captures Emilia, but she, Nora and Jake escape.

For the rest of the film, Emilia, Nora and Jake are chased by the vampire hunters, led by a woman named Max. There is a very distinct reason behind Max hunting Emilia, but it isn't revealed until near the end of the film. There are betrayals, mayhem and romance in the air as the trio try to evade Max and her crew.

Valeri Bates played Emilia. She previously starred in the thriller film, Pay No Mind and the comedy horror film The Exorcist: Parabellum. Sarah McGuire played Nora. She starred in the monster thriller film, They Wait In The Dark, the mystery thriller Below The Fold and co-starred in the thriller The Stylist. And she was one of this film's producers and co-wrote the screenplay.

Kristin Rea was Max. She was the Devil in Super Happy Fun Clown and appeared in I Am Lisa.

Jake Jackson played Jake. In addition to acting in the film, he was the director of photography, provided special effects and was one of the film's producers. He is a special effects artist and producer of films such as I Am Lisa, Exposure, Stalker Grandma and The Last Butterflies.

As for the date sequences, Nicole Hall played Bianca and Trevor Martin was her husband, Richard. The second date, Angela, was played by Jessica Whitfield. The third date, Jennifer, was played by Jennifer Seward, along with Bruce Lee the dog. And the fourth date was Paige, played by Paige Maria.

Dan Daly played a member of Max's crew. He started in Stalker Grandma, Remission and Its Moroccan. Kurt Hanover was Corbis, one of Max's crew. He starred in Blood Sisters and Dimension Z. Jason Turner played the mugger who attacked Nora. He starred in Call Me Snake and the micro short action comedy film Sexy Lady Cops in the Donut Cartel.

Jame Morrow and Andrea Dover played two women who are involved in betraying Emilia. Other actors appearing in the film were Shawn Eric Jones, Mahryn Rose, Lauren Wolff, Haley Solowy and Samuel Espinoza.

Patrick Rea was the director, co-wrote the screenplay and was one of its producers . He has directed well over eighty films, including I Am Lisa, They Wait In The Dark and Stalker Grandma. And he played a videographer that Nora attacks later in the film.

Ron Hurley did the visual effects. He did the same for I Am Lisa, Faceless and Super Happy Fun Clown.

There was some pretty cool instrumental music in the film. Ben Benefield composed the music and various groups performed it.

It was filmed on location in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas and the West Bottoms, Kansas City, Missouri.

The production companies involved in the film were CTZ Films, Wolff Herd Films, Cube and MMBN Productions.

I'd only seen one found footage film before this one, so I'm not too well versed on how they are supposed to look. But I found that the hand held camera work that was supposed to be Jake videoing everything was really good. The camera seemed pretty steady, even through some fairly fast paced running away from danger sequences. There wasn't any of that jittery camera movement that is usually associated with a found footage film.

The acting was well done. The characters seemed pretty solid and you get a sense of both dread and excitement from Nora as the film unfolds. Emilia is tough, yet vulnerable at the same time. And Max is just a hard case, badass vampire hunter. As for Jake, for the most part, he's pretty laid back. He also has a funny line here and there.

The blood and gore are there, but not overly done. One cool special effect was a stream of blood pumping out of someone's neck wound.

The Night Is Young takes vampire lore and adds modern trappings along with a found footage element to make a unique and entertaining film.

The Night Is Young is available through several streaming services. It is on Prime, ScareNetworks.tv, Shock and Docs, Chilling, FawesomeTV, The B Stream and Kings of Horror. The film's links for those services are https://bit.ly/42dc1qO

https://www.scarenetwork.tv/details/215/1/false ,

https://youtu.be/a47plewM_54?si=vnHKeoW8iCLo5pA4

https://www.chillingapp.com/content/the-night-is-young

https://fawesome.tv/movies/10677488/the-night-is-young

https://thebstream.com/programs/the-night-is-young

https://youtu.be/guTMyqsAJIY?si=c3_pKdrYAWu-Gw9b

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