The vampire movie has proven strangely resilient, surviving two World Wars, countless changes in fashion and taste, and listless bloodsucking epics like last year's Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000. Add to that list The Forsaken, a derivative schlockfest that drains the lifeblood from superior vampire films like The Lost Boys and Near Dark. In a performance that runs the gamut from bland to mildly irritating, Kerr Smith stars as a film-trailer editor who makes an unscheduled stop in the badlands en route to his sister's wedding in Texas. Hobbled by a flat tire, Smith encounters hitchhiker Brendan Fehr, who soon reveals himself to be a vampire hunter with an encyclopedic knowledge of vampire history and a number of irritating points to make about the emptiness of popular culture. After being bitten by a vampire, Smith teams up with Fehr to hunt down a roving gang of hip, sexy young vampires, led by Johnathon Schaech, a young actor who bears a ghoulish resemblance to the fright-tastic Peter Gallagher. Borrowing its country-and-western vampires from Near Dark and its notion of vampirism as an AIDS-like disease from countless films in the '80s and '90s, The Forsaken is bottom-feeding, thoroughly suspense-free trash. Which isn't to say that it contributes nothing new to the understanding of vampirism. Just as Dracula 2000 revealed vampires' hitherto-unknown fondness for Monster Magnet, The Forsaken suggests that they might also be partial to Metallica's heavy-metal stylings. Smith makes for a dull hero, while Fehr is stuck with nearly all of the worst slang-damaged dialogue. But both men make out like bandits compared to The Forsaken's women, who are generally bloody, unconscious, naked, or some combination of the three. The only truly frightening element of The Forsaken is its ending, which hints—in time-honored horror-film fashion, with a characteristic absence of subtlety—that sequels may be forthcoming.