If you're unfamiliar with the Byzantine history of the Night Watch fantasy film series -- the actual films, their amazingly sophisticated special effects done on non-existent budgets, their massive popularity in Russia where they've outperformed Lord of the Rings, the who's-who of Russian pop culture that do cameos throughout the films reflecting the nearly iconic status of the series at home -- then there's no room in this review to get into all that. I'm only here to talk about Day Watch, the middle entry in the planned trilogy, which was preceded by Night Watch in 2004 and will conclude soon with Dusk Watch. Day Watch continues the story of the Light Others and Dark Others, two opposing groups comprised of random supernatural beings -- vampires, witches, shape-shifters, sorcerers, etc. -- who live amongst normal folks in modern day Russia and adhere to a peace treaty, in effect since medieval times, that aims to keep everyone's powder dry. The Night Watch is the KGB of the good guys -- they keep tabs on the Dark Others. The Day Watch does the opposite.

Various things can upset the peace, but chief among them is -- hold for laughter -- a mystical piece of chalk. Yeah, like blackboard chalk. The Chalk of Fate, as its called, has its own backstory prologue in Day Watch, which I find to be off-putting and superfluous -- the bottom line is that with the chalk, you can write your own fate and it will come true. You'll have to take my word that it's not nearly as lame on-screen as it sounds. The chalk is sort of a MacGuffin, because if any rogue Light Other or Dark Other gets their hands on it, they can upset the balance of power that keeps the peace and everyone has their own reason for wanting to do that, of course. Whereas Night Watch dropped us into all of this in media res, and was massively confusing, Day Watch has internalized that criticism and taken strides towards making a movie that's understandable, if still Tolstoy-like in its character roster and just very Russian in general with its story-underpinnings of bureaucracy and rule-making.

Fox Searchlight sent over their summer preview today; there are stills for several of their upcoming films, including Day Watch, the highly-anticipated follow-up to the 2004 Russian horror film Night Watch and Waitress, the Keri Russell-starring romantic comedy that's most known so far for being the last project of filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, who was, sadly, murdered late last year. There are also some pics from Once, an Irish musical that made waves at Sundance 2007 and Joshua, a psychological thriller starring Vera Farmiga and Sam Rockwell. Fox threw in a couple of pics and notes from Sunshine as well, but they were so well known that I didn't bother including them. When Sunshine is finally released in this country, how are they going to market it to U.S. moviephiles that have already seen all the promotional material and read the reviews of the film in British and Aussie pubs? They better put their thinking caps on. After the pics, you can read some press notes for each film.

I'm a big fan of somewhat obscure horror films -- especially ones as interesting and well done as Timur Bekmambetov's supernatural vampire thriller Night Watch. The film, produced in the former Soviet Union and scripted by Laeta Kalogridis and the director, was the first part of a planned trilogy. When it was initially released in its own country, it became one of the highest grossing films in history there. Then, when it came to our shores in 2006, it wasn't as successful as it had been at home but still managed to generate enough interest that Fox Searchlight picked up the rights to the film and its eventual sequels.

The second part of the trilogy, Day Watch, is now scheduled to be released by Fox Searchlight on June 1st. Even though that's almost three months away, we don't have to wait that long to get a glimpse of Day Watch -- thanks to the folks over at Fox Searchlight who recently posted the newly-released trailer for the film. Even if I can't quite figure out exactly what's going on in some parts of the trailer -- apparently chalk is really important -- I have to say it still looks pretty cool to me.

Granted, the first film wasn't without its share of issues and this new one probably won't be either. That said, Night Watch did have a certain style and quality to it that made it worth seeing. Judging by the trailer, Day Watch looks to carry on with the elements established in the first film and also manages to kick things up a notch or two in the spectacle and action departments. I especially like the bit where the car drives along the side of a building and then crashes inside the building through a window. It looks really cool. But kids, please don't try that at home.