The tyranist's thoughts
I went into this one expecting Near Dark, but came out pleasantly surprised. Where I was expecting to see low production values and trailer trash vampires, it is instead a slick production that only peripherally reminded me of Near Dark and instead had a couple small, new twists to the vampire mythos that weren't all bad.
So this guy is trying to get from L.A. to his sister's wedding in Florida. Along the way he picks up a hitchhiker (something he was specifically warned not to do). A short time later he's been bitten and the fun really starts.
Kerr Smith and Brendan Fehr (who last appeared together in Final Destination do a pretty good job of carrying the show. I found Brendan's performance to be especially good while Kerr was still more of the pretty boy. The dynamic between them was nice though and when the bad guys are thrown in, they are a very believable duo. The production was pretty slick and the script very good as well. My only real complaint about the film was the overuse of the ultra-fast editing. There were several scenes that had quick edits inserted to accomplish nothing more than confuse the audience. Hallucinations the characters are having before they should have been having them and the like. Aside from that there really isn't much of a nod to the MTV generation, the rest is straight up vampire road-trip.
Now for the mythos. Pay attention to the origin of the vampires in this one. It's a nice little idea and is, of course, important to the story. The other part of the mythos that was interesting was the fact that until you turn, all the vampires give you is a virus. This is the first time that I remember someone trying to explain what is happening between the time a person gets bit and the time they turn into a vampire. Usually the person dies, but from what? And could it have been stopped? Very cool, their solution.
This movie is definitely worth a look if you are a vampire film fan, but may not hold much for the rest of you. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to and maybe you will to.

Rish's Reviews
I wasn't as impressed by this film as tyranist was, but then, I really didn't want to see it. It just happened to be showing on HBO, and I felt karma would get me if I didn't give it a try.
I like Kerr ("I'm not gay!") Smith, and keep thinking he'll probably have a career in films if he can just get a breakout role. The other guy was familiar-looking, but I couldn't place him. Was he the guy who got hung in Final Destination? [tyranist: Yes. Yes, he was.] Johnathan Schaech (or however the heck you spell it) was totally miscast in this role. He didn't have the depth to play thirty, much less a five hundred year old character. But I suppose they needed somebody with the "look." The girl-in-peril, despite the fact that she spends 60% of the film naked, was grating and frustrating. I really wanted someone to smack her and/or shut her up, and when someone finally did, I said, "It's about time!" No wonder I can't get dates.
I also didn't enjoy the new vampire mythos. These guys didn't even have pointed teeth! But it was intriguing that they had to be killed on consecrated ground, a pretty novel concept. It had a fairly good premise, I guess I just wasn't its target audience.