In a year when horror has been ascendant, especially in multipronged vampire stories, a film like Night Patrol should have been right up my alley. Vampires are cool when appropriately used in a story. Here, they’re dangled in favor of less interesting story threads; it all feels rather pointless. And this is the problem with the film. It boasts an interesting hook: a ring of corrupt LAPD cops who are actually vampires, targeting residents of a housing project. And yet, this crucial and exciting story prospect arrives too late for us to care. Forget putting a stake in it, this film is already DOA.
On the surface, the idea of Night Patrol as a mystery should work. Regrettably, the film ends up tangling itself in knots. There are a multitude of story threads and characters, which prevent me from caring about the overall trajectory. Undoubtedly, this film will be compared to Sinners. Both tackle themes of racial discrimination and corruption, mixed with vampire lore. The difference is that Sinners spends its first half introducing the main characters and the situation Smoke and Stack face. By the time vampires arrive, we care about our main characters, and the threat adds a new layer of danger.
Now, I’ll concede that it is unfair to evoke Sinners. This film is not aiming to reach those heights, but at the same time, it is no excuse for a story that ties itself into knots and tosses the vampire element as almost a last hurrah. Sinners is committed to telling a single story, and its aims are clear. Night Patrol wants to be a social commentary, a redemption, and a vampire movie all wrapped in one bloody bow.
In the film, we find Officer Ethan Hawkins (Justin Long), a recent inductee into the secretly corrupt PD’s night patrol task force. He shows himself to be bendable to the higher-ups, and this comes into play when Dermot Mulroney’s character enters the picture. At the same time, Officer Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler) finds himself investigating a brewing crisis at the housing project where he grew up. There, his mother and brother still live. Carr’s younger brother, Wazi (RJ Cyler), works with his older brother and their mother to defend their home and neighbors as the night patrol converges on the community for a bloody and grisly showdown.
A note of praise is worthy of the film’s chaotic energy. When the vampire turns up in the final half of the movie, the story remembers its aims. It commits fully to being a bloody spectacle. Now, conversely, this runs counter to the otherwise semi-serious commentary on corrupt cops and racial policing that dominates the film’s first parts. Yet, through the gritty cinematography and carnivorous vampire action, there is at least something to enjoy.
There is a story somewhere in all this chaos, particularly one that speaks to police corruption and racial discrimination. The travesty is that the film never realizes its identity. Is this a straightforward monster movie? Some elements suggest it is embracing that mantra. Or is it a social commentary, a la elevated horror, because the film wears those markers as well? Going back to Sinners one more time, several elements are at play in that story; however, the focus is on the characters and their respective arcs. Here, we get a band of survivors in a housing project community fighting off advancing vampire cops, yet the stakes never feel high enough to make us care about the characters or the overall story.
Night Patrol wants to embody the same spirit as Sinners, but it plays more like a poor man’s Do the Right Thing remake with the cringy camp of Leprechaun in the Hood.
Night Patrol boasts a handful of main characters. Yet there is an impossibility, at least for me, to find anyone with an arc worth caring about. Even the revelation that vampires are the forces behind the corrupt cops comes across as passive. It reads almost like a to-do list. Characters explain vampire lore because the script calls for it. If you’re going to be a vampire movie, then be a vampire movie. If you’re going to make corrupt cops, actually vampires, then commit fully to the idea, rather than waxing poetic in the final act.
Night Patrol will debut exclusively in theaters on January 16, 2026, courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder.
There is a story somewhere in all this chaos, particularly one that speaks to police corruption and racial discrimination. The travesty is that the film never realizes its identity.
Writing & podcasting, for the love of movies.
His Letterboxd Favorites: The Dark Knight, Halloween, Jaws & A Christmas Story.
