May 8, 1996

Page D1

Sexy Vampires Seek `Kindred’ Viewers
Make-out scenes and cool clothes target MTV crowd

SYLVIA RUBIN

Television criminals are no longer your run-of-the-mill creeps. At least not on Fox. There’s Jim Profit, the evil hero of the new show “Profit.” He was raised in a cardboard box and has a darn good reason for being a murderer. The villains of the “X-Files” come from who-knows-what galaxy, possessing powers that defy explanation. And then there is the cast of “Kindred: The Embraced,” TV’s best- dressed group of vampire gangsters, who spend each week turning their hot-white eyes at unsuspecting humans.

With Aaron Spelling (“Melrose Place” and “90210”) in charge of production, you can expect a great-looking cast, slick scenery and lots of sex. You might also expect good ratings. But the show, which airs at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on Channel 2, is looking anemic at the moment, and fighting to make it to the fall lineup. It was 79th out of 102 prime time programs in the Nielsen ratings for the week ending April 28. (“Profit” fared worse at 86; “X-Files” came in at 39).

Vampires are not new to TV (remember Nick Knight of “Forever Knight” and Barnabus Collins of “Dark Shadows”?), but never have there been so many on one program. Their mission in San Francisco is to control it all, from the unions to the cabarets. If this sounds as though it is based on the “Godfather” saga, that’s because it is.

John Leekley, the show’s creator and executive producer, has invented a new vampire mythology with so many characters, even the cast had to resort to crib sheets at first. “We carried around these “Kindred” bibles for the first couple of weeks, because we were all lost — it was like learning how to speak Spanish,” says cast member C. Thomas Howell, who plays detective Frank Kohanek, the vampire-chasing cop. An actor with a good job at the moment, he is optimistic that the show will stay alive. “I know that people will catch on eventually,” he says.

“Whenever you come in and try something new, when you flex a little, it’s frightening. We’re still throwing a few jabs. Our show is for the MTV generation. The Matlock group isn’t going to be the ones digging our show.” So to speak. Leekley elaborates on the psychological motivation for his cast of characters.

“In our show, the Kindred live their lives with their ids and passions set free,” he says. That would explain the frequent make-out scenes. The vampires also freely express themselves in their wardrobes.

Instead of capes and fright makeup, they wear haute couture. No coffins. No bats, though they can turn into wolves if they want to.

They look and act human, and feed on blood only occasionally to enhance their supernatural powers. They can be out in daylight for short periods of time. They sleep in real beds and eat real food.

“The whole idea of vampires sleeping in dirt, screaming at the sight of garlic and talking in funny accents has become so cartoony,” Leekley says.

Think of gangland New York in the 1930s and you may understand what Leekley is trying to do. “The five clans are very much like the five families of New York, with each pursuing its own field of power and warring with one another.” Each has a strange name, but a familiar Mafia-like purpose.

One clan controls gambling, the docks and prostitution. Another runs the music, film and nightclub industry; another controls the gangs on the streets and one clan is made up of aristocrats. “They are the old-money clan. They control business, politics and society. The last clan, the Nosferatu, live underground, they don’t interact with humans, but they are the most sophisticated, the most intelligent and the most feared. I see them as the
consigliere of all the families.”

San Francisco is the only city in America, according to Leekley, where five clans of vampires could exist. “This show could never be set in L.A., because L.A. is not really a place; it’s a state of mind,” he says, “but San Francisco is the most elegant, most evocative, most sophisticated city in America.”

Also the foggiest. During shootings here for the pilot episode, the cast — particularly the women, who were wearing skimpy cocktail dresses — practically froze while shooting scenes at the Golden Gate Bridge. “We had to stop shooting a couple of times because everyone was so cold,” Leekley says.

Actress Brigid Walsh plays Sasha, the newest member of the Brujah clan, the Mafia-like family that controls gambling and prostitution in the city. Walsh, who grew up in San Francisco, plays a wild, tempestuous vampirette who is in love with a vampire from a rival clan. “After playing white trash, hookers, angels, I’ve never played anything with as much range,” she says. “I can be wild and free, much wilder and freer than I really am. I get to wear leather pants, ride a motorcycle, do things I would never do in real life.”

What isn’t that much fun, she admits, is the taste of the fake blood in her mouth. “It’s really thick and sweet, but not sweet enough. I couldn’t brush it away.”