Abel Ferrara's 1995 horror/suspense experiment blends urban vampire adventure with philosophical analysis to create a smart, idiosyncratic, and undeniably odd take on the genre.
Abel Ferrara's 1995 horror/suspense experiment blends urban vampire adventure with philosophical analysis to create a smart, idiosyncratic, and undeniably odd take on the genre.
Director Abel Ferrara applies his eccentric vision to the vampire genre with this cerebral "Art" film about graduate philosophy student Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor), who is bitten by an aggressive female vampire (Annabella Sciorra) and soon spirals into a nightmarish world of blood addiction and existential angst. Driven by her merciless condition, she attacks several of her pretentious friends and classmates (even her professor) and mainlines their blood like heroin. Just as she becomes more
bold in seeking prey on the streets of New York, she is waylaid by a potential victim -- actually a sophisticated vampire himself named Peina (Christopher Walken), who chooses to control his own blood addiction through fasting and meditation. Seeming to regain her self-control, she eventually completes her graduate thesis (helped by a bit of vampire nepotism) and holds a party to celebrate, inviting the entire faculty as well as members of her new "family" to join in the festivities. Although the parallels to heroin addiction are in plain view, this is also a study in the essential evil of humankind -- a theme evident in much of Ferrara's work. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
Abel Ferrara, working from a rabidly ambitious script by Nicholas St. John, gives the genre a provocative and perversely funny snap that Anne Rice might envy.
Reflecting Ferrara's obsession with guilt and redemption, the film acknowledges the capacity for evil, urging viewers to take responsibility for their actions, or else there won't be a way to arrest evil's diffusion from one generation to the next.
Appropriately down 'n' dirty flick from marverick director Abel Ferrara. The Addiction deals with vampirism sans mythology, placing such an affliction as a parallel with drug addiction, a topic Ferrara has addressed before several times, most notably in the seminal Bad Lieutenant. Walken has a small but highly worthy
part, playing a world-weary existential child of the night, using torturous methods to validate his claims that the world is uncompromisingly dog-eat-dog ("The entire world's a graveyard, and we, the birds of prey picking at the bones"). The cinematography (in glorious black and white) is stark, adding to the urban nightmarish feel that Ferrara is so accustomed to. This is the perfect antidote to any claims that he is nothing more than a Scorsese imitator.
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