The Forsaken

Sean is driving a luxury car from Los Angeles to Florida for his sister's wedding when he picks up a hitchhiker, Nick. Nick turns out to be a vampire hunter, and he explains that a virus spread by a group of vampires along the desert highways turns its victims into the same creatures. When the two men take in Megan, a frightened young woman who has been bitten, Sean is attacked and infected as well. With the transformation closing in, his only hope is to find and kill the vampire leader, Kit, to break the infection. The film follows their race across the American Southwest.

This 2001 horror thriller was written and directed by J.S. Cardone, whose earlier credits include A Climate for Killing and Shadowhunter, and who went on to direct 8MM 2 and Wicked Little Things. Kerr Smith plays Sean, with Brendan Fehr as Nick, Izabella Miko as Megan and Johnathon Schaech as Kit; the credited cast runs to 28 names. Produced by Scott Einbinder and Carol Kottenbrook for Screen Gems, Sandstorm Films and Egmont Film, it had a budget of 15 million USD and returned 9 million USD worldwide.

Audience response has been modest: it holds a rating of 5.4 out of 10 on TMDB, based on 179 votes, and a film critics' rating of 3.3 out of 10 drawn from 56 reviews, a lower figure than the audience score.