SHADOWZONE: UNDEAD EXPRESS

Out of the darkness, the Grim Reaper appears in a graveyard among headstones and gargoyles. Elegantly cloaked, but masked by shadows, his eyes burn yellow as he tells us we all have a little evil inside us. Take Zach Kincaid….

A lonely and intense 14-year-old horror movie junkie, Zach (Chauncey Leopardi) is a good kid but a little confused as a result of his parents’ recent break-up. Perhaps for this reason, he often tends to stretch the truth. His friends, J.T. Heffernan, a computer geek, and Gabrielle “Gabe” Lattanzi, a lovely, intelligent athlete, humor Zach, but know just how much to believe.

On the way home one weekend, Zach becomes lost on a deserted subway platform. When he stops for directions he is attacked, but rescued in the nick of time by Valentine (Ron Silver), a self-styled vegetarian vampire from the turn of the century. Finding cold comfort in Valentine’s assurance of protection, Zach runs for the first available train. Unfortunately, he steps onto the Undead Express, which is full of vampires who are not, apparently, vegetarian. It’s a close call, but with some difficulty Zach escapes.

He tells Gabe and J.T. about his adventure, but because he’s the boy who cries wolf, they laugh it off. Zach returns alone to the lost station and is confronted again by Valentine. They become awkward allies as Valentine gives Zach the grand tour of New York’s deserted subway stations, which have been closed off for decades. In exchange for the tour, Valentine asks Zach to be his guide to contemporary New York after dark. At first Zach refuses, but finally relents when Valentine assures him that he is not out for human blood, just a look at the city he hasn’t seen in almost a century.

Valentine’s reunion with Manhattan has implications that neither he nor Zach anticipated. The ensuing adventure turns vampires, of the blood-sucking variety, loose on the city, and becomes for Zach and Valentine a test of trust and friendship.

With a friend in danger, can Zach come through? Will he come to his friend’s rescue and save the many exposed throats of greater New York?