The Addiction (1995)
Country: US
Technical: bw 82m
Director: Abel Ferrara
Cast: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken (in a cameo role as a vampire who's learnt to control his habit), Annabella Sciorra
Synopsis:
When a philosophy student is bitten by a vampire, she indulges in a mounting orgy of feasting at the expense of her friends and casual acquaintances. Eventually she overdoses and is administered the sacraments by a priest, who may or may not 'cure' her in so doing.
Review:
Glum, deterministic treatment of vampirism, setting it against a background of AIDS and drug addiction whilst positing it as a metaphor for evil: the victim is offered the chance to reject her enslavement, and the choice of whether or not to give herself up to it subsequently, but at bottom has no choice because she carries the evil of her predecessors within her. Taking the heroine's course of study as a cue for many an aphoristic quotation, this must be the most pretentious vampire movie ever made, but also a timely antidote to the vogue for glossier versions of the myth (Coppola, Landis, Jordan). Formally and tonally it is closest to the director's debut, Driller Killer, but the black and white is welcome relief.
Country: US
Technical: bw 82m
Director: Abel Ferrara
Cast: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken (in a cameo role as a vampire who's learnt to control his habit), Annabella Sciorra
Synopsis:
When a philosophy student is bitten by a vampire, she indulges in a mounting orgy of feasting at the expense of her friends and casual acquaintances. Eventually she overdoses and is administered the sacraments by a priest, who may or may not 'cure' her in so doing.
Review:
Glum, deterministic treatment of vampirism, setting it against a background of AIDS and drug addiction whilst positing it as a metaphor for evil: the victim is offered the chance to reject her enslavement, and the choice of whether or not to give herself up to it subsequently, but at bottom has no choice because she carries the evil of her predecessors within her. Taking the heroine's course of study as a cue for many an aphoristic quotation, this must be the most pretentious vampire movie ever made, but also a timely antidote to the vogue for glossier versions of the myth (Coppola, Landis, Jordan). Formally and tonally it is closest to the director's debut, Driller Killer, but the black and white is welcome relief.
Country: US
Technical: bw 82m
Director: Abel Ferrara
Cast: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken (in a cameo role as a vampire who's learnt to control his habit), Annabella Sciorra
Synopsis:
When a philosophy student is bitten by a vampire, she indulges in a mounting orgy of feasting at the expense of her friends and casual acquaintances. Eventually she overdoses and is administered the sacraments by a priest, who may or may not 'cure' her in so doing.
Review:
Glum, deterministic treatment of vampirism, setting it against a background of AIDS and drug addiction whilst positing it as a metaphor for evil: the victim is offered the chance to reject her enslavement, and the choice of whether or not to give herself up to it subsequently, but at bottom has no choice because she carries the evil of her predecessors within her. Taking the heroine's course of study as a cue for many an aphoristic quotation, this must be the most pretentious vampire movie ever made, but also a timely antidote to the vogue for glossier versions of the myth (Coppola, Landis, Jordan). Formally and tonally it is closest to the director's debut, Driller Killer, but the black and white is welcome relief.