Vampire's Kiss (1988) - Review

I wanted to release an extra review today to get this out of the way. As discussed later in the review, I have had a previous failed attempt at watching this movie nearly a decade ago. It is still as rough an experience even with a sharpened resolve to give such maligned movies a chand and see them completely. I'm glad to have planned some of my movies in advance to give myself respite from bleak titles such as this. I would say, "Enjoy!", but I truly don't think that it is possible.

Nicolas Cage stars in Vampire's Kiss as Peter Leow, a literary agent and an insufferable man. His lifestyle include having trysts with women, drinking alcohol, and consuming recreational drugs - all activities that one would assume to conduct in the 1980s. After being bitten in the throws of passion by a woman he had met earlier that night, Leow's reality starts to unravel, albeit after already being introduced on shaky ground. He slowly starts to become deluded into thinking that he is in fact a vampire, from which he attempts to relieve himself of at various points.

Vampire's Kiss is chock full of moments of which Nicolas Cage is famous, or rather infamous. Most of these outbursts happen at the expense of a secretary, Alva, in his office; his ego and power in the company allow him to abuse this secretary with little recourse for the poor woman. One of the more famous freakouts is  when he visits his psychiatrist, with whom we are to assume he has had a patient relationship with for quite some time, to discuss issues that are plaguing his mind regarding work. This is not the first moment where the viewer would have cause for concern for his mental state, and it would not be the last. Leow's devolving into madness and taking others with him is certainly interesting from a story perspective, but the eccentricity of his character is played by Cage in a manner that is dialed past ten, maybe resting at a twelve (bypassing the rather cliche eleven, and certainly giving more than 110%). (In fact, this is the scene where Cage is most popularly memed for the "You don't say" face). Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the movie is a sequence where Cage has donned a set of plastic vampire's teeth to "complete" his transformation into a vampire, going about his routine of clubbing and womanizing while contorting his face into his interpretation of Dracula, thirty years before he would portray the monster properly. This scene is over very quickly and the novelty of this scene wears off immediately.

While there are humorous moments throughout the movie, it can be hard in a modern sense to give a rise to the occasion and enjoy them as I might have had years prior. I can remember attempting, but failing, years prior to watch this movie in its entirety. However, with this project I am undertaking, I resolved myself to do such a thing. I understand that it is the movie's goal to make the viewer uncertain about the reality that Leow inhabits, whether it has been constructed by his delusions, or if he truly has been turned into a creature of the night. I cannot say that this movie held up particularly well, especially since his continued insistence at harassing Alva to complete the Herculean task assigned to her. I am fairly certain that this was not to be normal behavior to the audience at the time, but this has aged very poorly since corporate attitudes have shifted, at least publicly, from this type of behavior. All in all, the value that this movie has to us today is that it may have served as a precursor to what we have as American Psycho. Although the mental illnesses portrayed are drastically different, they do share a narcissistic streak and the viewer is left with trying to decipher what was real and what is delusion. Vampire's Kiss, however, does not leave it ambiguous as to the wide berth between delusion and reality, making it very plain for about the last 10 minutes or so what is going on. This last stretch of the movie is very much uncomfortable to sit through for myself; there was no tension as to what was happening anymore, but the movie still had more to say and do. It feels strange to end a review of one movie with a recommendation for another one, but here we are. If you wish to see anything from Vampire's Kiss, it is probably best to remain sated with clips from the movie, rather than the entire thing.