TV Reviews : Anemic ‘Nightlife’ Needs Transfusion of Restraint

What does a refined lady vampire do after awakening from a 100-year nap in Mexico City?

Dodges her creepy vampire lover Vlad (Ben Cross), visits the local blood bank, pawns her jewelry and acquires a luxury high-rise apartment, a maid and a hematologist boyfriend, Dr. David Zuckerman (Keith Szarabajka).

It’s giggle and groan time when horror is played for laughs in the terminally silly “Nightlife,” a new comedy thriller on the USA Network at 9 tonight.

Ethereal, anemic Angelique (Maryam d’Abo of “The Living Daylights”) is diagnosed by love-struck Dr. Zuckerman as having a rare virus that requires constant blood transfusions. This is OK by Angelique--she’s too ladylike to hunt for victims. Trouble is, she’s not thriving. The transfusions are missing a vital ingredient: fear.

Zuckerman discovers this when he’s attacked by nasty Vlad, who’s determined to make the young doctor Angelique’s first kill.

Directed by Daniel Taplitz, who co-wrote with Anne Beatts, the film is strictly in the comic book vein, with cartoon gore and cartoon characters. With combustible baddies, D’Abo’s gibbering rendition of a vampire in the throes of blood lust, and Vlad’s torrid tango with Camille Saviola’s Rambo-like maid, the ending doesn’t just verge on the ludicrous, it dives in head first.