Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		1.5

Vampire's Kiss Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 23, 2015

Note: This film is currently available as part of the double feature Vampire's Kiss / High Spirits.

There are various kinds of overacting, and two of them are on display in the odd combination of two films from 1988 that have little other than their year of genesis in common, Vampire's Kiss and High Spirits. Nicolas Cage is the hyperbolically inclined performer of the former, while Peter O’Toole indulges in his patented brand of late career scenery chewing in the second. The difference in techniques makes for an interesting study in contrasts and, not so coincidentally, enjoyment. Cage, an actor who is an acquired taste for many, is seemingly content to eschew any semblance of realism, or at least what any rational person would describe as realism, in his portrayal of unhinged literary agent Peter Loew, a guy who only becomes more deranged once he becomes convinced he’s been “turned” into a vampire. O’Toole, who at this point in his long film career, was often content to coast on charisma and a certain winking hamminess, plays forlorn castle owner Peter Plunkett in the early Neil Jordan effort High Spirits (not to be confused with the musical version of Coward’s Blithe Spirit). Plunkett, like many landed gentry witnessing a sea change in society and economy (see Downton Abbey) decides on a scheme to save his ramshackle fortress by advertising it as haunted, hoping to bring in a lucrative tourist trade. Of course, the joke turns out to be that Plunkett’s abode really is haunted. Both Cage and O'Toole are completely self indulgent in their respective films, but while watching Cage is something like not being able to avert one's eyes from a horrific train wreck, there's a simple exuberant silliness emanating from O'Toole that at least makes his focus pulling tolerable.

It’s almost impossible to figure out what tone screenwriter Joseph Minion and director Robert Bierman were aiming for in Vampire’s Kiss, for the film seems to ping pong between hyperbolic melodrama, surrealism and supposedly ultra black comedy, while never staying in any of these categories for long enough to firmly establish them. Initially Loew just seems like kind of a heel, a guy given to womanizing and needlessly harassing a poor secretary at his office named Alva Restrepo (Maria Conchita Alonso).

But as the film progresses, it’s not just Loew’s frequent visits to his analyst (Elizabeth Ashley) that begins to reveal this is one seriously troubled dude. When Loew finally has a one night stand with a beautiful woman named Rachel (Jennifer Beals), her aggressive (and possibly imagined) predatory nature begins to convince Loew that she’s a vampire intent on turning him.

It’s fascinating to wonder what a magical realist like Birdman ’s Alejandro González Iñárritu might have done with material like this, but under Bierman’s entirely mundane direction, the material is just jaw droppingly inane most of the time. That inanity finally gives way to incredulity once Loew really goes off the deep end and Cage indulges in some of the most manic grimacing ever caught on celluloid. Finicky types might be just as concerned with the actor’s totally bizarre idiolect, one which traverses everything from Cockney to a kind of hoity toity upper crust patois with absolutely no sign of consistency or anchoring to the actual character.

Vampire's Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vampire's Kiss is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is a surprisingly solid presentation for a cult film of somewhat dubious standing among some snootier sorts. The elements do show occasional wear and tear, with small scratches, bits of dirt and minus density popping up, but colors have weathered the intervening years quite well, and black levels are solid and convincing. There are some darker sequences where detail is at minimal levels and shadow detail is negligible, but the more brightly lit moments offer good detail and a commendably organic appearance.

Vampire's Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vampire's Kiss' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track offers capable support for the film's often risible dialogue, as well as the various grunts and groans Cage emits as his character devolves into madness. The film's score, which perhaps surprisingly does not consist of ubiquitous source cues, sounds clear if dated.

Vampire's Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Robert Bierman and Nicolas Cage. Cage evidently considers (or or considered—it sounds like this commentary was recorded circa 1999) some of his finest acting. That's funnier than anything in the film as far as I'm concerned.


• Trailer (480p; 2:09)

Vampire's Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

By the time Cage's character is hallucinating on a Manhattan street, delivering a patently bizarre monologue in an equally outré accent that combines Valley Boy with high falutin' intellectual, all while holding a large wooden stake (and you can guess what's going to happen with that implement), and while apparent real New Yorkers walk by only tangentially disturbed by arrest worthy overacting, it's impossible not to kind of love this film for its absolutely wacky (and tacky) awfulness. There's actually a really interesting premise here which is just wasted by an inexperienced director and an out of control lead actor. For fans of this film (and they do exist, evidently), technical merits are generally very good to excellent.