Scab - a vampire film which mixes a safe-sex moral message in with its monster movie sensibilities - does an admirable job with old-school creature crouched in the shadows atmosphere, and doesn't shirk away from a good gross-out tinted with twisted humor from time to time. Unfortunately, that's about all that's admirable about it. Made up of one-dimensional characters spouting silly dialog and exhibiting ridiculous behavior, Scab devolves from being just another mediocre tale of a guilt-ridden vampire, to a confusing jumble of coincidences and unnecessary and unpursued plot twists, wherein characters take actions that serve no other purpose than to vault the story careering forward towards its trainwreck of an ending. Basically, it boils down to this - Ajay is a good looking guy who likes to play the field; all the while keeping his good-hearted , lovesick and dorky buddy, Teauge, hanging on tenterhooks (not literally - although that would have been interesting). One of Ajay's dates goes badly - very badly, taking Ajay out of circulation for a few days. When Teague and their mutual, heterosexual, horndog of a friend, Floor (don't look at me, I didn't name them) stop by to check in on the errant Ajay, they discover he's been infected with something. So being good friends, they do what they can to help him.

Really - it's not unlike the 80s vampire comedy, My Best Friend is a Vampire, except that in My Best Friend is a Vampire - Jeremy Capello's pals didn't try and help him by going out to Vegas with him for a few days to perk him up with cheap, easy sex or by befriending an emotionally broken, perpetually towel-foldingwoman (Briar, played by Natalie Avital), who may be the oddest, creepiest motel manager this side of the Bates Motel

There was a point at which the plot became so convoluted that I feared my attention must have wandered during some crucial point and that I had missed a key event; but the number of people whispering "What?" "Who" and "How" around me convinced me that I wasn't alone. (Or that I had someone ended up in a Journalism 101 class). For at least the first half of the film, I felt as though I could see what writer/director Thomas Jason Davis was trying to accomplish - but I fear the production bit off more than it could chew (hardee har har) and ended as more than a mess than poor Briar, with all her towels, couldn't clean up.