Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Theme Week part 3-Vampires

The Addiction

plot: While walking home from a late night class, a woman is attacked by a vampire. Over the next few days, she finds herself slowly turning into one herself, and that the need to drink blood overpowering. Her first few victims are done by sticking a needle into their arms and proceeding to shoot up their blood like a drug addict. This quickly escalates to attacking and biting her closest friends, turning them into vampires as well. She mistakes another vampire for a victim, but finds herself no longer the hunter but the hunted as he takes her to his apartment and feeds off of her. The whole time lecturing her on how to control the addiction. A few weeks afterward, while at a party, herself and her newly made vampires feed on the guests, before she has a breakdown ending up in the hospital where she tries to kill herself.

This is a 1995 drama starring Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken.

I'd like to say this was different, but it really wasn't.  Shot in black and white, this was released at the same time that  Habit and Nadja were, and has much of the same themes.

What I loved about this was, the use of vampirism as a metaphor- though in no way subtle- for addiction and the social paralysis that it can cause.  I always find vampire movies more interesting when they are metaphoric of other issues, rather then just having a vampire for the sake of it.

We see the lead character in a state of desperation and false control through out this movie. Circling back and forth blaming her victims for not being strong enough to resist her, when it's in fact her that is the weak one unable to keep her junkie at bay.  There is even a scene where they bring up the book Naked Lunch, which is all about addiction in it's many forms.


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