Bloodsucking Summit

Vampire Hunters Summit

Two Boots Pioneer Theater

155 E. 3rd St. (betw. Aves. A & B)

Friday Oct. 28

7 p.m.-dawn, $20 (or $6.50 per film)

(212) 591-0434

For this past month, the Pioneer has established itself as a home away from home for horror movie buffs, screening a mix of old and new, straightforward and screwy, classic and unknown fright films every single night. It's all been a lot of fun.

But this Friday, they're taking a turn for the serious, as they play United Nations in an effort to finally foment a lasting peace between those two warring factions who've so often been misunderstood these past several hundred years.

Yes, I'm talking about vampires and vampire hunters. For centuries it's been nothing but bloodsucking and stake-pounding, soul stealing and crucifix-wielding, back and forth and on and on. Will it never end? Can't we all just get along?

This is where the Pioneer comes in. For one night, all night, they're inviting vampires and vampire-hunters together into the same room with a promise of security in order to discuss the pertinent issues and watch an entire night's worth of back to back vampire movies. The hope is that all those movies will help both sides understand the other just a little bit better, perhaps even pointing the way toward some middle ground.

The rules laid down by the Pioneer are strict-no neck biting is allowed that night, and all tools of vampiric vanquishment must be checked at the door. After that, it's just ten hours of some of the more offbeat vampire piciures made of the past 30 years.

There's no Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or even Frank Langella in any of the six films. Instead, there's Coppola's Dracula from 1992, which will leave vampires and vampire hunters alike paralyzed with fear as Keanu Reeves attempts to speak with a British accent. Larry Fessenden's 1997 film Habit draws parallels between vampirism and heroin addiction, with lots and lots of nasty sex thrown in. Both sides at the summit might care to take a nap during Dracula: Pages from a Virgion's Diary. Guy Madden's 2002 movie is actually a film version of a ballet based on Bram Stoker's original novel. And that's followed by, well, the Nicholas Cage comedy, Vampire's Kiss.

Yes, things slow down there considerably in the wee hours-but they pick up considerably with the boobs aplenty lesbian vampire antics in 1974's Vampyres.

The sunrise should be just a few minutes away by the time Vampyres ends. So The Pioneer intends to take a short break at that point to allow all the vampires in the theater to get while the getting's good. Those others who care to stick around, however, will be, um, "treated" to Greg Lamberson's 1991 New York Vampire, which concerns a would-be suicide who finds salvation in vampirism.

It should be an exhausting, but productive evening, and not without certain, built-in rewards. Anyone who presents an authentic certificate of blood donation at the snack bar, for instance, will receive a free popcorn.

-Jim Knipfel