November 30, 2000
Don't ask me why, but I've been thinking vampires lately—cinematically, anyway. So I figured I'd gather up some vamp flicks from my local indie video store (thanks, I Love Video!) and give 'em a go. I decided to avoid the better-known films like Interview With the Vampire, From Dusk Til Dawn or any of the Dracula films (though Zoltan, Hound of Dracula did get consideration) for a scoop full of titles that have either been forgotten or never hit the public radar in the first place. Enjoy.
Thanks to Stomp Tokyo and The Bad Movie Report for turning me on to these films.
BLOOD AND DONUTS
Directed by Holly Daly (Daban/Live)
How's that for a weird juxtaposition of images? A most unusual vampire film, Blood and Donuts has neither the bombastic action set pieces nor the palefaced Gothic excess of most modern-day blood-drinker tales. Set in an unidentified Canadian city, this low-budget but high quality film from 1995 follows the misadventures of Boya, a vampire awakened from a self-imposed 25-year hibernation by a stray golf ball. Boya isn't the kind of vamp we're used to seeing in these days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Anne Rice. He's neither a horrific, blood-spewing animal nor a dark, angst-ridden, oh-so-sexy sophisticate. Instead he's a rumpled, gentle soul who happens to be afflicted with what he calls an addiction. He avoids drinking from humans if at all possible, partly because his conscience can't abide it, partly because he doesn't want anyone else to tread the same path as he. He doesn't brood sexily about it the way the main character of Angel does, though; he just goes about his business in his quiet, unassuming way, never attracting attention to himself.
After moving into a filthy flophouse with plenty of rats on which to feed, Boya hits a 24-hour donut shop, befriending its waitress Molly and one of its regulars, a strangely-accented cab driver named Earl. Molly finds herself, in the time-honored tradition, strangely drawn to this frumpy stranger. Meanwhile, Earl is somehow on the hook to some small time hoods, and when he botches a run with the gang's two enforcers, he becomes a target. His new friend Boya has something to say about their attempts to kill him, however, and brings his vampiric powers to the party.
The plot could easily fit into a half an hour (a subplot involving the lover Boya left behind when he went to ground 25 years before has little bearing on the main plot and could have easily been omitted). Rather than a compelling narrative, the characterizations and little touches make this movie interesting. Justin Louis as Earl gives his character a twitchy, conflicted outlook—he wants to see good in the world even though his luck is always bad, and his choppy diction and bizarre accent heighten the effect. Helene Clarkson's Molly is smart and tough, taking Boya's vampirism in stride as if it was just another condition, like shingles or a hump. Frank Moore plays the head thug with an icy professionalism laced with severe boredom—he's not suppressing violent urges but rather trying to summon up the energy to display them. Director David Cronenberg plays the thugs' boss as if he was a doctor forced to manage a convenience store, bored stiff and contemptuous of his subordinates, always eager (in a subdued way) to change the subject to something, anything, other than crime.
But the best performance is by Gordon Currie as Boya—like Kevin Spacey, he conveys as much with his eyes as with dialogue, and his Boya is given to faraway looks as he reminisces about his past lives, brooding stares as he worries about his new friends, or wild-eyed and open-mouthed glares as he struggles to control his hunger. Except, of course, when a hapless rat crosses his path, in which case his face takes on an expression well-suited to a drunken college boy who's slipped Rohypnol in his date's drink—these scenes are the only ones in the movie that are truly creepy, as Boya can finally let his carefully controlled demeanor slip. Currie rarely verbalizes any of these things, nor does he contort his face or at all mug for the camera. He moves just enough facial muscles to convey the right emotion, preferring understatement to scenery-chewing. He also moves stiffly, even clumsily, as would anyone who hadn't moved a muscle in 25 years would while rediscovering where his joints are and how they work. When he's not eating rats, bathing or making time with Molly, he obsesses over his scrapbook, reliving memories and fondling the golf ball that woke him like it was a talisman. Currie's incredibly nuanced performance gives Boya and his story an emotional weight few actors would even attempt for a low-budget horror film.
To say any more would spoil the film for an unsuspecting viewer. Suffice to say it's funny, thrilling, occasionally shocking and oddly moving. After watching this film, you won't think Blood and Donuts to be such a strange juxtaposition after all.
EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE
Directed by Anne Goursand (Ministry of Film/New Line)
My wife's comment after enduring this 1994 film? "Oh dear, dear, dear, dear..." Yes, folks, it's that kind of film. It almost doesn't seem worth the effort it takes to make comments. But in the interest of future film students who may one day sample this review, not to mention the possibility of cheap yucks, we will press on. Grudgingly.
Martin Kemp (ex-bassist for Spandau Ballet) plays an unnamed vampire who was once a British nobleman; before we're even 30 seconds in he's inflicting his origin story on us. Doesn't he know that the bad guy isn't supposed to regale us with the tale of How He Came To Be unless he's got the hero trapped and about to be shoved into the jaws of death? Who wrote his Villain Manual? Cliffs Notes? Anyway, right away he wants us to feel sorry for him. Apparently he loved a virgin while a mortal, but was cruelly ripped from his idyllic life of smooching and abstinence by a trio of buxom young vampiresses who seem to have forgotten their garments on the way to suck the blood of ex-rock stars (they look like models from Penthouse magazine—and since Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione is thanked in the credits, they probably are). His voice-over tells us that (a) he's been terribly lonely the past couple hundred years and misses his virgin and (b) he has three days to feed on a more contemporary virgin or he'll go to his "eternal sleep."
And here, when we're maybe 10 minutes in, we find one of the fatal flaws that cripples this entire film At no point is it explained why the vamp will expire in three days' time. It's not part of any vampire myths I'm familiar with, and the filmmakers don't bother to supply any myths of their own. It would be one thing if the writer had supplied some cliched story about vampires needing the blood of virgins to stay eternally youthful or something, but s/he doesn't even go to that little effort. Maybe that silly tattoo is a sell-by date in an ancient language. Worse, it's never explained precisely why the vamp wouldn't welcome his eternal rest in the first place—after all, he spent his entire origin story pissing and moaning about how unhappy he is. You'd think he'd be about ready for eternal peace after a couple of centuries of constant moping, not to mention having to spend the 80s in Spandau Ballet. But no, he mumbles something about his survival instinct (the all-purpose excuse for the vampire/cannibal/werewolf/what have you), and off we go into the heart of darkness with a villain armed with a set of motivations so vague they've got less definition than a chalk outline.
So, does Fangface have his sights set on a new, unspoiled victim? Of course he does, and thus enters our star, Alyssa Milano, formerly of Who's the Boss, currently of Charmed, at the time in need of a paycheck. She plays Charlotte, a college freshman raised by nuns who hits this unnamed Midwestern university armed with cross and hymen. She's about to turn 18, though it's never made clear what this had to do with anything. We also meet her boyfriend Chris, a good-looking young man who drops hints about getting into her pants but is much too sensitive and considerate to press the issue. Still, the lack of carnal action is putting a strain on their relationship, a strain our vamp quickly moves to take advantage of.
Which brings us to crippling flaw #2. According to Fangface, not only must he have a virgin's blood, said virgin must want to come to him. OK, nothing new there, most vampires seem to get their jollies off of stirring up their intended victims' desire. But rather than be satisfied with simply mesmerizing his way into her fantasies, Fangface insists that she must fall out of love with Chris first. Say what? Since when did a vamp worry about his victim's feelings for her significant other? Count Dracula didn't give two shits about Mina's feelings for Jonathan Harker, I assure you: vampire mojo beats skinny white boy mojo any day, regardless of commitment issues. Who cares if the victim still loves the S.O. as long as she wants to get chomped? This is just another example of a thin plot device being stretched beyond endurance, another conceptual hole the filmmakers didn't feel like plugging.
You can probably guess where it goes from there: Fangface spends the rest of the film seducing Charlotte through dreams and hallucinations so she will forget Chris and offer her lovely throat up for sacrifice, all the while becoming progressively more slutty (for no apparent reason other than to show Milano in various states of undress). Woven—I say "woven," but that infers directorial skill, which ain't much in evidence here, so let's say "shoved in like square pegs in round holes" instead—into this trifling storyline are scenes of Charlotte going to a party that leads to a date-rape situation (don't worry, Fangface defends her virtue by making a midnight snack of her assailant), Charlotte going to the stark white dorm room of her photographer/nympho neighbor (who looks at least 10 years too old to be a college freshman) for some light lesbian petting, Charlotte taking up smoking, Charlotte getting dosed with Ecstasy at another party, Charlotte dreaming about Chris, Charlotte dreaming about Fangface, and Charlotte getting naked a lot. You know, the usual college freshman experience.
In these scenes lie the film's raison d'être: seeing Alyssa Milano nekkid. Really, there's no other reason to see this film. If you've ever fantasized about seeing her bare-assed/boobed, here's your movie. (Interestingly, she looks very comfortable unclothed.) Otherwise, don't waste the 90 minutes of your life this movie will suck from you. (Pun intended.) The so-called plot is wafer-thin and the editing choppy (strange how three days can pass so quickly and so slowly at the same time). Kemp and Milano both possess real acting chops and do as well as they can, given the script, but their characters are so thinly sketched Tracy and Hepburn would've looked like idiots trying to make these people believable. The script seems to have lost a few pages on the way to the set, so the narrative makes conceptual leaps over what should have been important plot points, and characters and ideas appear and disappear for no reason. One could make the argument that this film tries to compare vampirism with sexual awakening (a theme worth exploring), but that's giving the filmmakers much more credit than they deserve, not to mention giving the movie more thought than they put into it.
In addition, our vamp has picked up a couple of traits I've never come across before in vampire mythology, such as the ability to shift shape into a beautiful slut woman (a bizarre cameo by Jennifer Tilly—she must've really needed the rent money that week) and the ability to shoot little lightning bolts from his fingers, which he displays during the decidedly anti-climactic climax. When it comes to the vampires a storyteller deals with, s/he has every right to cherrypick whichever traits suit the story's purposes, or even make shit up if needed, but without giving the vamp a context (something Fangface must've left in the shirt he never wears), a story like this feels like the tellers are making it up as they go along. Which is a sure sign of shoddy, exploitive filmmaking.
To sum up: Alyssa Milano naked: good (if she's your cup of nectar, that is). Rest of movie: bad. Unless you're really hard up for bloodsucking fantasy material, scorn this Embrace.
NEAR DARK
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (FM/DEG/HBO)
Adrian Pasdar, current frontman for the cable show Mysterious Ways and Mr. Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, stars in this 1987 flick as Caleb, a young Oklahoma cowboy who falls in with a traveling gang of vampires after being bitten by Mae, the group's comely wench. Led by Civil War vet Jesse (Lance Henriksen), the quintet—which also includes Jesse's moll Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), old-man-in-a-child's-body Homer (Joshua Miller) and exuberant psychopath Severin (Bill Paxton)—travels the Southwest in a succession of stolen vehicles, committing murder and mayhem as it goes. Caleb, at Mae's insistence, is grudgingly accepted into his new family, but things become complicated when his old one (dad Tim Thomerson and little sister Marcie Leeds) comes looking for him, with predictably confrontational results.
Pasdar is convincing as the young buck led by his gonads into a situation with which he's ill prepared to deal, and Henriksen exudes cool menace as the head vampire (it would've been nice to spend more time with his character), but the rest of the cast has to wrestle with thinly drawn characters more like cardboard cutouts than people. Paxton brings buckets of enthusiasm to his one-dimensional role, but young Miller struggles mightily to give some substance to a character easily forgotten until he suddenly becomes a bigger player in the final reel. Veteran B-movie vet Thomerson is wasted in the tiny role of Caleb's dad—too bad, as this is the kind of role that could have broken him out of the cycle of straight-to-video dreck for which he's best known.
While there are a few thrilling set pieces and Bigelow (who would go on to direct the underrated gem Strange Days and a few episodes of Homicide) makes good use of the flat, arid Southwest location, the elements never quite add up to a completely satisfying whole. The film seems to be building up to something big, but that something never shows itself—the final showdown between Caleb and the vampires feels underdeveloped. It doesn't help that the most exciting scene—a bloodsucking rampage in a roadhouse that leads to a face-off with police in a bungalow—occurs midway through. The film never rises to that level of excitement again.
The most interesting aspect of Near Dark is its treatment of the vampires themselves. This movie came out the same year as The Lost Boys, the film that took the vampire milieu from the subtle, trendsetting horror of the Dracula films to the flamboyant, action-oriented productions like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The bloodsuckers in Near Dark are caught in the transition between low-key and bombastic—they may carry shotguns and gleefully set ablaze the cars 'n' carnage they leave behind, but they never change shape, have glowing eyes or even sport fangs. Hell, the word "vampire" is never used. Outside of their immortality and aversion to sunlight, they could be any band of free-range serial killers. These vamps are given little background, but unlike Embrace of the Vampire, which asks you to accept the usual conventions then tosses in random elements cribbed from fantasy novels, Near Dark adopts only the vampiric aspects useful to the plot and ignores the rest. The film doesn't worry about history or origins, and the viewer won't either. (Though the scene in which Caleb is converted back to human with a transfusion of what looks like about a pint of human blood just doesn't wash.)
Ultimately this film is about the conflicts between the family you choose and the one you're born into, and what you're willing to do to protect both. Despite its inability to bring a simmer to a boil, it's this theme that makes Near Dark worth watching.