I know I am not the type to get a new post out on a daily basis, but I realize it may seem as if my general production has slowed down a bit. It actually hasn’t, not that much. I’ve been working ahead on the Stacker Challenge, and I can only watch so many movies a day. Besides, this is January, and there are few if any new movies I feel like venturing out of the house to see right this second. I may see something before the weekend is out, but for now, I can’t say I can bring myself to be all that inclined to see something immediately.
However, I did have this vampire movie on one of my watchlists.
Philosophy grad student Kathleen (Lili Taylor) is walking home after debating the morality of the Vietnam War with her friend and classmate Jean (Edie Falco) when she’s roughly grabbed by a mysterious woman (Annabelle Sciorra) and pushed into a dark alley. The woman, known as Cassanova, bites Kathleen on the neck and drinks some of her blood before letting her go. Soon, Kathleen finds herself feeling a general aversion to mirrors and sunlight, going out during the day only while wearing sunglasses, and worse, she finds herself hungering after blood.
However, Kathleen is bit more than just some new-born vampire. Her general knowledge of philosophy combines with her new condition to try to reason things out somehow. It’s more than just a case of she wants to use her intellect or something to keep herself from drinking blood. It’s more like she is using her philosophical knowledge to explain and even somewhat justify what she’s doing as she’s luring people to her apartment or just down a dark street, biting them, and then moving on, all while feeling that she was basically evil anyway, so what’s the problem with being some sort of supernatural apex predator? However, there’s a bit more going on than that, something that may make her very vampire nature a bit more questionable, but which is ultimately what director Abel Ferrara is going for.
See, Ferrara apparently was himself a longtime heroin addict, and he put that basic idea into the movie that Kathleen isn’t just hungry for blood. She’s actually addicted to it, and as a result, it’s possible that much of what’s happening in the movie is not to be taken quite so literally. Kathleen hangs curtains over mirrors, so she may or may not still have a reflection. Does she possess any sort of supernatural powers? It’s debatable. There’s one scene where she might have some sort of superhuman strength, but it’s only one scene. She likewise finds herself powerless to affect a Christian street missionary (Michael Imperioli). If anything, Christopher Walken, playing another vampire, gives more evidence of the addiction idea as he claims he has mostly come to control his bloodlust and may at last be close to returning to humanity. Does Kathleen learn from him or will she be more like the more animalistic Casanova?
And honestly, I can’t say, but that’s something I find admirable about the movie. Shot in black and white, it focused more on the concept of good and evil than it does on horror, equating things like the Holocaust to Kathleen’s new attitude and need for blood. Likewise, Kathleen is pretty much convinced just about everyone is already pretty evil, so why not just drink blood from unwilling donors? Heck, she even seems to do a bit of victim-blaming at one point. So, is this a movie where everything on screen literally happens? Maybe, but I don’t think that’s the point.
Grade: B+
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