Best Horror Movies

Caleb Colton is a young man in a small Oklahoma town who talks one night with Mae, an attractive young drifter. Shortly before sunrise, while kissing, she bites him on the neck and runs off. Caleb discovers that the rising sun causes his flesh to burn. As he suffers in the sunlight with his father and sister looking on, Mae and her group of roaming vampires pick up Caleb and sweep him away from his family’s home. Severen and Diamondback are inclined to kill him, but a romantically inclined Mae reveals she has made him a vampire. Jesse Hooker, the leader of the gang, reluctantly declares that Caleb will remain with them for a week to see if he can learn to hunt effectively and be trusted as one of the group. On one of their hunts, Caleb accompanies the gang as they harass and feed on the bartender and patrons of a roadhouse, kill them, and burn the roadhouse to the ground.

Caleb cannot bring himself to kill, even at the cost of his own survival, which alienates him from the gang of vampires. Unwilling to permit Caleb to be killed by her companions, Mae repeatedly kills for him, and allows him to drink from her wrist. Jesse and the gang are only temporarily mollified when Caleb puts himself at great risk to rescue them from a police raid on their motel during daylight hours.

Anguished at his son’s disappearance, Caleb’s father searches for the group of drifters he believes has kidnapped his son. With Caleb’s little sister Sarah in tow, he canvasses the surrounding towns for news of his son while the police conduct their own investigation. When the young vampire Homer sees Sarah at a roadside motel, a standoff develops. Homer wishes to transform the girl into a companion for himself, but Caleb demands that she be allowed to leave unharmed. While the gang argues over what to do, Caleb’s father arrives, demanding at gunpoint that Sarah be released. Jesse challenges him, and when Caleb’s father fires the gun, Jesse responds by regurgitating the bullet and wrenching the gun from his hand. In the confusion of the moment Sarah opens the door and flees, forcing the vampires to hide from the sunlight streaming into the motel room. Caleb chooses to return to his family, and jumps into his father’s truck, his skin burning and smoking in the sunlight. He suggests a transfusion to his distraught father.

In the darkness of the barn Caleb’s father transfuses his blood into Caleb’s veins, weeping in fear that his son is lost. The transfusion reverses Caleb’s transformation, and he is again human. His father’s previously gruff manner is now tempered by evident relief at Caleb’s return. That night, Mae and the rest of the vampires come looking for Caleb, knowing he can identify them and the threat they represent. Homer remains fixed on the idea of turning Sarah into his mate. While Mae distracts Caleb with conversation outside the house, the others slip inside and kidnap Sarah. When Mae ascertains that Caleb cannot be convinced to return to her, she runs away, leaving Caleb to discover the kidnapping.

Realizing that Sarah is gone, Caleb goes after her. The gang has taken the precaution of slashing the tires, so Caleb must ride one of the family’s horses into town. On the town’s main street, Caleb encounters Severen, who attacks him while decrying his lack of loyalty. When a tractor-trailer approaches, Caleb commandeers the fuel laden vehicle to run down Severen. Severen is only injured and, enraged, he begins to climbs the front of the cab toward the driver’s seat. Caleb forces the truck to jackknife before jumping clear, killing Severen in the ensuing explosion. Homer remains less than interested in Caleb and holds onto the kidnapped Sarah. Jesse and Diamondback are now intent on torturing and killing Caleb. They begin to chase him, but as dawn breaks, they return to the car and flee toward the receding dark. Mae is not only reluctant to see Caleb hurt but realizes that she cannot permit Sarah to become another child-like monster. While the vampires drive away from Caleb in the first rays of morning, Mae breaks out the back of their station wagon, pulling Sarah with her. Mae is badly burned by the sun as she runs with Sarah into Caleb’s arms, and Caleb covers her smoldering body with his coat. Homer, desperate to keep Sarah for himself, leaps out of the car to follow her and is destroyed in a fiery explosion as the sun takes its toll. With no shelter from the sun nearby, Jesse and Diamondback and beginning to blacken and burn. In a final effort they turn the car around and attempt to rundown Caleb and Sarah, but the car veers off the road and explodes as they become completely engulfed in flames.

In the final scene, Caleb open the door to the Colton family barn where Mae lies hooked up to transfusion equipment, her burns fully healed. As morning sunlight spills into the barn, Mae’s initial reaction is fear, but she has ceased to be a creature of the night and Caleb comforts her with the reassurance that she need no longer fear the sun.