Summaries

Synopsis

Tooling along the open road in a restored vintage Mercedesconvertible would be the ultimate vacation, don't you think? That's justwhat Sean [Kerr Smith] is doing, with only a few caveats. One is that the car isn'this. He's merely been hired to drive the Mercedes from California toFlorida. The second is that he has strict instructions not to pick up anyhitchhikers. No problem. Sean can handle it...that is, until he gets aflat tire in Arizona, is forced to spend the night in a motel roomadjacent to some very noisy neighbors, loses his wallet, and picks up ahitchhiker to help pay for gas. Nick [Brendan Fehr] seems like a nice guy, not a psychoor anything. What Sean doesn't know is that Nick is a vampire hunter andthat Sean is about to get caught in his worst nightmare.

Sean and Nick make a pitstop at a roadside rest area. As they aregetting back in their car, they are asked to help jumpstart the deadbattery on a red Charger, which Sean recognizes as belonging to his noisyneighbors from the night before. Nick also recognizes them as the vampiresKit [Johnathon Schaech], Cym [Phina Oruche], and Teddy [Alexis Thorpe] and their renfield day-driver, Pen [Simon Rex]. Cym recognizesNick as a vampire hunter but Kit decides to bide time before killing him.

Later that evening, after securing a room at the Palms Inn Motel,Sean and Nick get a bite to eat. While leaving the restaurant, theyencounter a sick girl whom Nick takes back to the motel room andtosses in an icebath. When Megan [Izabella Miko] starts screaming, Nick holds her down whileSean gives her a shot of morphine, explaining that he knows what ishappening to her...she has a blood disorder caused by a virus and the onlyway to cure it is to kill the original source of the infection.Unfortunately, while covering her mouth with his hand to stifle herscreams, Sean gets bitten. The next morning, when Nick tells Sean thathe's been bitten by a vampire, Sean doesn't believe it. Nick waltzes Seanout to the motel parking area where they find the red Charger with Pensleeping on the hood. Nick knocks out Pen by hitting him with a shovel,finds his car keys, and tells Sean to open the trunk, whereupon Sean isimmediately attacked by Teddy. After Nick whacks Teddy a few times with ashovel, Teddy bursts into flames in the sun.

Beginning to believe, Sean asks Nick how he knows about vampires or"the Forsaken and their feeders", as Nick refers to them. Nick shows thebite on his own arm, incurred about a year ago by a feeder at a party.Since then, he has been searching for the Forsaken who turned her.Meanwhile, he's been keeping himself from turning by gulping pills(antigens, amino acids, and proteins), developed to slow the HIV virus butalso effective against the vampire virus...for a while. Nick makes Seanstart taking them, too.

When they stop for some fried lizard at a diner in Texas, Sean asksabout the Forsaken. What are they? The Forsaken are the first vampires,Nick explains, created during the seige at Antioch during the GreatCrusade when the Turks slaughtered over 200 French knights. Only ninesurvived. The nine were visited that night by a demon who lurks aroundbattlefields looking for souls to steal. He made a deal with eight of theknights, giving them life eternal. To seal the deal, the eight killed anddrank the blood of the ninth. The next morning, however, they were soashamed that they hid from the sun in a cave; the next night, they wenttheir separate ways. And so, the Forsaken spread across the world. About300 years later, one was killed during the Spanish Inquisition. Sincethen, three more have been destroyed, leaving four remaining. One is inAfrica, one in Eastern Europe, and two in the U.S., including the vampireKit. The virus is telegenetic, so those bitten remain in touch with theirprogenating Forsaken. When the progenator is destroyed, so is the link andthe whole strain dies out. The problem is that the Forsaken can only bekilled on hallowed ground, so Nick suggests that they head for this oldSpanish mission some 60 miles away and wait there for Kit to find them.

Unfortunately, they never make it. That night, as Nick and Seandrive, the vampires catch up with them, ramming the back of the Mercedeswith their Charger, taking potshots at the fenders and gas tank, andsideswiping the car doors. Each time Nick and Sean manage to elude them,the vampires catch up. Eventually, the Mercedes runs out of gas, and thevampire hunters are forced to stop at a house along the road. There is nogas to be had, but the owner, an elderly lady named Ina Hamm [Carrie Snodgrass], invites themin so that Megan can rest. During the night, Ina's house is attacked byKit and Cym. Nick is happy to learn that Ina's house was built over an oldgraveyard. They're on hallowed ground, the best place to make a stand. Inthe melee that follows, Nick is shot and Sean's leg is broken, but theymanage to shoot off Cym's head. Just as it looks like Kit is going to getSean, the rising sun streams through the window, frying Kit. Sean andMegan are cured, but not Nick. It turns out that Kit wasn't the progenatorof the feeder who bit him. Nick's search goes on.

Epilogue: It is three months later. Nick is hitching in Colorado when a redCharger stops for him. It is Sean, headed for Denver and hot on the trailof the other Forsaken. As the two drive off together, Nick wonders if theowner of the Mercedes was pissed about the car. "Oh, yeah!" Sean exclaims. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]