Vampire Kiss

Initial Thoughts?

Vera Bradley: This was a roller coaster of a movie, I’ll say that much. Nic Cage’s classic overacting feels trite and out of place for the first half of this movie, but the twist around the halfway mark will have you wondering if it is actually genius. More on that later but I was genuinely thinking about this movie for days. I have not watched American Psycho, but with my layman's knowledge of the themes involved I have to say this movie feels very much like a proto-American Psycho, seeing as it came out before the book was even released. I think American Psycho worked better, but the genuine attempt to use vampires (and psychosis) as a metaphor for the megalomaniacal misogyny of the white collar playboy is pretty impressive, regardless of how C-tier the movie itself actually is.

Mona Bloodstick: This movie was crazyyyy. Jennifer Beals and Nick Cage in a movie together?? I will say, I was extremely comfortable sitting in my chair and I did sleep through some large parts of it. But not Nicholas Cage’s amazing acting. 

1: How did this movie handle classic vampire tropes?

VB: Yes to bats, bloodsucking, and vampire’s thrall: all very run of the mill. However, the other vampire tropes used in this movie are a bit different to those in other vampire movies due to the plot twist revealed midway. SPOILER THIS IS A BIG SPOILER SO IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE TWIST RUINED LOOK AWAY: Nic Cage’s character is under the psychotic delusion that he has been made a vampire, leading to increasingly erratic behavior and hallucinations throughout the film. Suddenly the strange overacting and egotistical explosions make SO much more sense: he doesn’t seem strange just to the viewer, but also to those around him! He is not doing a bad job of acting like he’s been turned into a vampire in the movie, he is doing a bad job of acting like he’s been turned into a vampire to his coworkers! It is as if he read the classic WikiHow article “How To Make Your Friends Think You Are a Vampire” at the tender age of 30 something. SO: considering this, the tropes are a bit different, as he is not really a vampire. I think the best inversion of tropes here is when he looks in the bathroom at work and hallucinates that he is not there. The viewer can see him, but this does not stop him from crying out “Oh! I’ve become one 😫 a vampire 😭” , annoying his coworker shitting in the stall over. Another good inversion of vampire tropes here is when he goes to the Chinese Medicine shop (??) to buy fangs, but he cannot afford the nice quality realistic ones so he buys the cheap plastic ones people give out on Halloween, and then he somehow eats a whole live pigeon with them in.

MB: Nicholas Cage is a piece of work. He is a classic dickhead vampire. It is like he is going through My Chemical Romance’s song Vampires Will Never Hurt You except he is not really a vampire and is actually tweaking tf out. There are scenes where he goes to see a therapist except it’s likely just happening in his head. Nicholas Cage WISHES he was Tony Soprano. 

2: Any good kills?

VB: The ending was pretty crazy: Mona and I were both jaw-dropped at the final kill. Nic Cage’s abused subordinate’s brother goes to his apartment to beat him up/kill him, but instead of using a gun (which he has), he takes a splintered 2 by 4 and jams it straight into Cage’s chest. The special effects here were cool because that board went in like he was made of cake. I will say though, while shocking in a supremely effective way, I was a little unsatisfied with this kill thematically. I wish the kill had been done by the female subordinate Cage had abused (trigger warning: rape), thus solidifying his metaphorical destruction by his complex about women. Having her brother do it just felt a little disjointed.

MB: Yeah, like Vera said; the only really good kill was the final “vampire” kill. Nic Cage does kill someone towards the end of the movie but it’s actually kind of unbelievable. He uses his human teeth to bite a woman’s neck. I really doubt this as only my expert vampire teeth can properly penetrate the delicate skin of a human’s throat to render them dead. 

3: How does this movie deal with the curse of eternal existence?

MB: The least of worries for Nicholas Cage.

VB: It does not really come up.

4: Sex appeal?

VB: This movie is HORNY. In one of the first scenes you see Nic Cage fully licking a woman’s nipple. Just a few minutes later he gets super turned on by this bat that bites him. As opposed to the repressed sexual frustration of Twilight, however, this movie deals with sex as part of the basis for our protagonist’s psychological disbalance. 

MB: Yes at least Nicholas Cage has excellent taste in women. 

5: Would I want to be a vampire in this universe?

MB: Satan almighty no.

VB: No lol

Final thoughts?

VB: I’d be lying if I said this movie was one of the best out there; it is weird and at times a bit boring, and none of the characters are especially interesting. However the plot structure is quite unique, and once you make it through the first half you are in for a WILD ride: some truly insane shit goes down in the second half, weird enough to make it totally worth it. Some truly stellar moments from Nic Cage as his psychosis devolves into a full raving homicidal meltdown. I genuinely don’t know how much credit to give this movie; whether it is purposely meta in the way it feels like a run of the mill bad movie in the beginning before the reveal of what is really happening reorients all that bad acting and cliche set-up, or if they just stumbled into something that worked by throwing enough batshit insanity at the wall. Either way, I’d say this is worth a watch.

MB: After my little nap I woke up and was shocked by the direction this movie took. I did not think the cast had it in them. And really the ending scene was especially amazing.

"You’re breaking up with me after I sucked that broad bone-dry??"

~xoxo, vera + mona

 Let the Right One In

Initial Thoughts?

Vera Bradley: Mona and I were ready to watch a critically acclaimed vampire film after the many middling movies we’ve watched, and this one received a solid recommendation from my film-bro brother in blood, Solomon Vampire (for more from him, check out our review of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust). It was a good film, the acting was great, some good vampire stuff in there, but it did just lack that special something that makes me love a vampire movie.

Mona Bloodstick: This is a FILM. This is not a “movie”. It was good. I would read a great newspaper article about it. Would I watch it again? Probably not. But yes, it was critical.

1: How did this movie handle classic vampire tropes?

MB: This movie had a very interesting interpretation of vampire tropes. I really liked how the vampire child was an immortal child. That is a nice trope we often see. Apparently there’s a book which delves more into specific tropes which were not as visible in the film, as it would otherwise have become very long. 

VB: I loved the insight this movie gave to the “no coming in without an invite” trope; our protagonist asks the vampire to show him what happens if she comes in without an invite, leading to one of the cooler scenes in the movie, where she begins to spout blood from every orifice. Nice. There is also a good scene where a recent convert kills herself by opening the windows, and goes up in a very impressive bout of flames.

2: Any good kills?

VB: It’s hard being a vampire in the suburbs! This movie takes an interesting angle to the routine murder vampires need for survival, showing us how hard it actually is to kill so many people. Neighbors are nosy, and teenagers are harder to lure to their death than you might imagine. One thing that kind of perplexed me throughout the movie, however, was how careless and incompetent both our vampire and her familiar are when it comes to murder. I was actually convinced until very late in the movie that this must be a brand-new vampire who hadn’t gotten the hang of things yet, but this was not the case! Her familiar is hanging victims up to bleed out on commonly used jogging paths and tying high schoolers up in the gym while their friends wait outside?? Just baffling.

MB: I kinda did like the kills, I thought they were alright. One of the dead bodies was found in the ice weeks later which was cool. The deaths that happened felt very real in a way other vampire movies don’t truly achieve, and their full impact is felt as it plays out in the community over time. Also very gruesome. 

3: How does this movie deal with the curse of eternal existence?

VB: With a nuanced complexity that someone a little more invested in this movie than I would no doubt have many thoughts on.

MB: I really liked the ending scene, where both child characters go on a train together. On one hand, you could see it as “true friendship/love” as they escape into the world together, but on the other hand, it seems as though the main vampire has just recruited this human boy to become her new familiar, resigning him to the same fate as the older familiar she had in the beginning of the movie.

4: Sex appeal?

MB: There was a very uncomfortable scene in this movie which did not necessarily need to be in it in order to further the plot. 

VB: The main characters are kids (“kid” in the case of our vampire), but apparently in the book this movie was based on, the child-sized vampire was in a sexual relationship with her pedophilic older familiar. I really wish Mona hadn’t looked that one up.

5: Would I want to be a vampire in this universe?

MB: Meh… probably not. I really need a vampire community to be happy, and that does not seem like it is really happening here.

VB: As mentioned earlier, this movie really serves to show how much it sucks (ha) to be a vampire in the suburbs. No thank you also I don’t want to live in Sweden.

Final thoughts?

MB: That scene where the father has a man show up with some vodka and his son got really sad, and American audiences assumed the boy was homophobic and his dad was gay but in Sweden it just read as run of the mill alcoholism….. Lol. Also we had a real Swedish man give us his thoughts here and confirm that yes it was absolutely meant to indicate his dad was an alcoholic. Just thinking about that.

VB: It’s objectively a good film. And it is about vampires. But idk, there was nothing about this that I LOVED.