Yes, Vampire’s Kiss features one of Nicolas Cage’s most outlandish performances (which is saying something), but it’s also a dismal film, ugly and misogynistic in a particularly 1980s way. Cage plays Peter Loew, a playboy literary agent in New York City with an inexplicable “fancy man” accent. (Maybe it’s supposed to be British?) His routine of one-night stands takes an alarming turn when he brings home Rachel (Jennifer Beals), who may or may not be a vampire depending on whether you take things at face value or read this as Peter’s interior guilt trip about floating through life like a predatory ghoul. Peter’s lack of commitment is, after all, the issue he discusses in the frequent sessions with his therapist (Elizabeth Ashley)—at least when he’s not reciting the alphabet with bizarre, Cage-like emphasis. In this exploratory phase of his career, Cage’s choices may not have always been “correct,” but they were usually in service of the story in some way. Here they’re just plain wrong, hijacking the movie away from anything resembling a coherent narrative and turning it into his own private actor’s laboratory. Poor Maria Conchita Alonso, as Peter’s abused secretary, bears the brunt of his experiments, while director Robert Bierman does his best to herd Cage from one scene to the next. Still, I’m not sure any actor could save this material. Screenwriter Joseph Minion rehashes much of his own script for Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, offering another Manhattan man who gets lost in the night. Only this time, it’s even more clearly the fault of the annoying, life-sucking women in his life.
(4/19/2022)
