Vampire’s Kiss (1989)

Starring: Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Beals
Grade: A+

Along with Ghostbusters, I can confidently say that Vampire’s Kiss should be required annual viewing during Halloween season.

Summary

Literary agent Peter Loew (Cage) speaks with his therapist Dr. Glaser (Elizabeth Ashley) about how he just wanted the newest girl he slept with to get the hell out of his place. That night, Peter is at a club and picks up another girl named Jackie (Kasi Lemmons), the Director of Personnel at some phone company. Since his apartment is only a couple of blocks away, they walk back to his place. As they start taking their clothes off and making out on the couch, a bat flies in through the window and scares Jackie right out of the door. Though she doesn’t put them on yet, she grabs her clothes and sits in a panic at the doorstep. Meanwhile, Peter tries to shoo away the bat. Jackie starts to laugh when the neighbor kid stares at her from the upper level. Peter puts his clothes back on just as she does, and he walks her out because the bat is still inside the apartment. They take a taxi back to her place.

The next day at work, Peter calls in his assistant Alva (María Conchita Alonso) to his office to tell her that Frank Heatherton wants a copy of the first contract he had for the sale of his short story, Rattlesnake Hills to Der Spiegel. It’s the first foreign sale Frank has had, so he wanted to frame the agreement. Even though the story was sold in 1963, Peter says there is no reason as to why the agency shouldn’t have a copy of it. He searched under the file for Heatherton, and Rattlesnake Hills, but he wants her to look through the Der Spiegel one because it’s massive and will take a while. He knows it will be in there somewhere. Ignoring a call from his secretary about Joel Reznick being on the line for him, Peter peers out the window to see a couple on the street. During another therapy session, Peter looks a bit uninterested and tries to call their meeting a few minutes early, which Glaser notes he’s been doing a lot more lately. She wants to keep going until the time is up, so he talks about bringing Jackie back to his apartment a few nights before and how the bat came in. He can’t figure out whether he dreamt about it or not, but he recalls being turned on from fighting the bat. Glaser thinks it’s because he was just with Jackie, but he remembers specifically coming back when in “mortal combat” with this bat and how he started to get aroused from it. On that note, he ends their session, and she reminds him that Tuesday is their next meeting. At work, Peter asks Alva if she found the Heatherton contract. She has not. She looked under Heatherton and Rattlesnake Hills, but she couldn’t find it, so she knows she will have to look in the Der Spiegel one next. Peter tries not to lose it, but he reminds her that he already looked through those files and she was supposed to go through the Der Spiegel one only. She apologizes over the misunderstanding, and he leaves. That night, he goes to a bar and strikes up a conversation with Rachel (Beals). Not long after, they’re back at Peter’s apartment having sex.

In the middle of it however, Rachel shows fangs and bites Peter in the neck. He freaks out at first but enjoys it and asks who she is. She calms him down and says, “It’s all right. It’s all right. You chose me”. After cutting himself shaving on the Sunday morning afterwards, he makes some coffee for the two of them and serves it to her in bed. He hands it over to her, but the problem is that she’s not actually there. Holding the coffee in his outstretched hand, Peter starts to shake the cup and drops some of it on the bed. Sometime after, Peter attends an art museum with Jackie. When she asks if he likes it, the disinterested Peter responds by saying he has to take a piss. He sneaks out the exit door, takes a taxi, and gets the hell out of there. Back at his apartment, he lays on the couch and listens to Jackie cuss him out from his answering machine while telling him to never call again. He stares at the ceiling uncaring. At his next therapy session, Peter has a band aide over his neck bite. When Glaser asks what it is, he says it was from shaving and downplays his weekend. She wants to pick up where they left off last week, and how could you not, right? She asks about his feelings in relation to the appearance of the bat, and he doesn’t recall the story at all. She has to press him a bit until he finally does remember, though he chalks things up to being drunk and horny to Glaser’s disappointment. He also tells her he’s not seeing Jackie again. At work, Frank Heatherton is on the line, so Peter has Alva sent into his office. Once she enters, he reams her for not finding the contract yet. She has been looking but she brings up how she has so many other things to do, which only pisses him off more. He tells her to stand there, as he takes the phone call from Heatherton, so she can see the song and dance he has to do to cover for her not doing her job. On the phone, Heatherton is actually really calm and understanding. He even tells Peter there is no rush on anything because he knows it’s an old contract, as he is aware it will take some digging to find it. Plus, he’s in the middle of moving, so he’s busy as well.

Despite this, Peter stares holes through Alva the entire time to maintain the illusion that Heatherton is angry, which couldn’t be further from the truth. After he hangs up, he tells Alva that Heatherton was furious and has implied that if he doesn’t get the copy within a week, he will terminate his agreement with their agency and sign up with a more efficient one, prompting her to get right on it. Later, Peter goes to a diner and is quick to flip out at the worker over his lack of a waiter. After overhearing some girl tell her friend about how her boyfriend proposed, he yells, “Fucking grease hole!” loud enough to quiet everyone in the diner and he leaves. As soon as he walks out the door, he gets a sharp pain from where the bite was, and he runs away when some random guy tries to check on him. Peter runs to a nearby building and uses a phone in the lobby to call Glaser’s office. Since he gets her machine, he calls Jackie instead to apologize. He blames his leaving the other day on feeling sick, and he wants to meet up to explain himself. She can’t for a couple of hours, but they agree to meet at a bar at 9PM. Peter gets ready at his apartment, and he hears someone knocking on his door. He answers it, but no one is there. He starts to feel some random tics and sensations, so he sits down for a moment. Looking at his watch, he shakes out of it and goes out to meet Jackie, who is already waiting at the bar. Peter gets down the stairs but starts moving very slow and looks to almost be in a trance. Just then, Rachel comes down the stairs behind him and starts to speak as if she’s Peter’s conscience, even calling herself a mistress and a jealous one at that. Peter stands there anxiously. As she leads Peter back up the stairs, we see Jackie still waiting at the bar and having enough. She writes a note and gets out of there. Meanwhile, Peter has sex with Rachel, and she bites on his neck again. The next day at work, Peter is sitting in his office and starts loudly calling for Alva. She can hear him and so can the rest of the office.

He storms out of his part of the office, jumps on a desk, and points her out to everyone’s confusion. She runs out of there, down the hallway, and into the women’s bathroom, but Peter sprints after her. If Peter hurts her, Alva says she will use her gun on him.

She still hasn’t found the contract and wonders if it was lost, though she is trying. Once she threatens to tell Mr. Langdon on him, Peter changes his tune in an instant, sincerely apologizes, and runs out of the bathroom. Sometime after, Peter is in a meeting with the other executives, and they all laugh off the incident. Langdon laughs even harder when he mentions that Alva wanted a raise. Peter laughs with them, though he noticeably closes the shades on the window as they talk. That night, Peter goes home to his apartment and finds Jackie’s note telling him to stay out of her life. He reads it inside and starts to cry as he tears the note into pieces. At the same time that Alva takes her subway train to Pelham, Peter is destroying his apartment and yells into the mirror, “What is happening to me?!”. He looks into the mirror he broke, and he gets a quick vision of Rachel’s face smiling and showing her fangs. At his therapy session the next day, Peter passes off the day before as a bad one because of a mishap at work. He talks about the missing contract and gives Glaser a hypothetical about how if a literary agency makes a contract with every client they have, in theory, shouldn’t the copy be within the file of that person? She agrees because he worded it in a way to where he got the answer he wanted, but then Glaser brings up that the exception could be that it was misfiled by the person who was supposed to do it in the first place. Naturally, this causes Peter to flip out because he sees misfiling as an impossibility because everything is alphabetical. Following his screaming of the entire alphabet at her, he swears he has never misfiled anything in his life. After she can’t tell Peter who misfiled it (because how in the world could she?), he can’t believe the audacity she has to call herself a psychiatrist. Following all of this, he says it’s too bright in the room. At work, Peter is sporting sunglasses, smoking his cigarette, and walking through the office space in silence. Everyone looks at him as he walks by and messes with things on people’s desks before going back to his office without a word.

At the end of the workday, Peter calls Alva into his office before she leaves and reiterates his apology while facing the window. He blames the incident on mescaline, and she accepts this because she tried it once in high school. He then asks why she has her coat on, so she reminds him it’s 5PM. Peter knows this, but he reminds her that she still hasn’t found the contract and suggests she stay late. She brings up how there are 15 Der Spiegel files and she’s having trouble with it, so she was hoping that Peter could get someone else to do it or get another secretary to help her out. Taking off his sunglasses, he tells Alva that this job is for her because she’s the lowest on the totem pole and the one with the least experience. Then again, even if they did hire someone new, he would still make sure Alva had this assignment because it’s that awful of a job. If she doesn’t do it, he’ll fire her. Once she exits the room, he dares her to use her gun. That night, Peter walks home with his groceries and falls at the sight of a cross outside of a church. Someone helps him up, but he just leaves the groceries with the guy and runs across the street, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a car. Later on, Rachel is back in his apartment, and she throws him on his bed, demanding Peter to tell her that he loves her. Finally, he says it to her and takes the band aide off the bite mark on his neck, allowing her to bite him again. While they both watch Nosferatu on TV, she laughs and gives him credit for thinking of the mescaline excuse when speaking with Alva. She knew he could keep their love a secret. He just stares ahead at the TV while sitting up, and she lays her head on his thigh before going to sleep. The next morning, he welcomes “Rachel” in the shower with him, but she’s not actually there. Next, he looks in the mirror and gasps in pain after touching it. Then, he goes into the kitchen, finds a cockroach on the stove, and eats it.

Peter’s transformation into a vampire, or descent into utter madness rather, is now in full effect. Even so, he still has to go to work, and Alva is not going to get any breaks anytime soon.

My Thoughts:

Vampire’s Kiss has to be seen to be believed. Not everyone will love it and not everyone will hate it, but I cannot stress enough that everyone needs to watch it. It’s one of the most bizarre, chaotic, outlandish black comedies in existence and it’s highlighted by a surreal performance by Nicolas Cage that could either be described as artistic genius or over-the-top nonsense depending on what side of the coin you land on in regard to Cage’s Nouveau Shamanic extravagance. No matter what conclusion the viewer comes to by the end of the film, they will agree on one thing. This film is entertaining as all hell, and the star’s lead performance cannot be forgotten for as long as you are still breathing on this planet. On top of that, this is one of the best and surely one of the most underrated vampire movies in existence. That is something that one has to concede at the very least.

“This guy is very weird”.

Well Alva, that is an understatement.

Nicolas Cage is a polarizing cinematic figure to a lot of people. Though it’s true that he’s meme fodder when certain scenes or moments of his on film are taken out of context, it’s all by design. To the untrained eye, some may call certain performances of his “overacting”, but these viewers cannot see the artistry in what he’s doing because of their preconceived notions on the respected veteran of the field and how serious he takes his craft as an actor. As he said himself when discussing the style of acting that he developed for himself, it is not acting but rather being. In addition, he NEVER phones it in. Once Cage locks into a role, he will make it worth watching. I’ve said it many times before, but he always goes all-in with every role he’s gotten over the years. It could be a big budget spectacle, or an indie drama seen by a hundred people. It doesn’t matter. If Nicolas Cage accepts a part, he sees something in it, goes over what he wants to do in that role and who the character is, and goes all-in with his take on it. For some, it’s too much, but what’s important about the art form of acting is allowing the actor in question to read his part and fill in the cracks as to who they think this person is through and through regardless of what lines are given. Granted, Cage is already an eccentric to begin with (even Alva refers to Peter as eccentric in character, which in hindsight is almost a meta way of acknowledging the critics’ view of the actor himself), but he does take his craft seriously, even if it comes off as ridiculous at times. It’s just how the man thinks. For instance, the original script called for Peter Loew to eat a raw egg when he began showing more signs of his vampiric transformation. Instead, Cage was the one who decided that eating a cockroach would be more effective, and he was right. Decisions like this only add to the iconoclastic imagery of Vampire’s Kiss that makes it one of the most unforgettable, stays-in-your-conscious-for-a-lifetime types of movies, along with furthering the genius/madness of its star. It’s an actor putting everything he has into what he thinks his character should be.

In some cases, this attitude and motivation in cultivating a role can result in a performance that can only be described as lunacy. This is the genesis for the narcissistic, outrageous, volatile, and unstable Peter Loew.

As the audience is still trying to get a feel for how the story will take shape, Cage lets us in on the beginning of his increasing zaniness in the lead role with his tone-setting decision to speak in this slight Transylvanian dialect that no one else has. There is no reason for his character to talk like that. There is no backstory that makes sense of it, and he works in Manhattan in a corporate office. It’s just a daring decision by the actor. Because of Cage’s commitment to this just being who he sees Peter Loew as, it somehow fits, and the movie is unique enough in its presentation that the viewer rolls with its punches of schizophrenic rantings and unexpected turns at virtually every corner. Admittedly, sometimes these risks taken by the actor doesn’t work, like Cage’s nasally-sounding voice in Peggy Sue Got Married, but that’s just part of the fun in the acting game. They have the right to take these risks because that’s how the role speaks to them. Sometimes it translates and sometimes it doesn’t. Vampire’s Kiss is so strange, rocketing itself into a different dimension of insanity in the second half of the film, that everything Cage decides to do in his psychotic performance fits within the confines of the world he helps create. Make no mistake about it however, it’s still an intentional comedic performance, no matter what the internet might want you to believe. It’s surrealistic no doubt and the movie itself has darker moments of murder, rape, and all that jazz, but the over-the-top Cage losing his ever-loving mind in comedic fashion, while tormenting his secretary, is where the bulk of the entertainment stems from. When Peter is in the bathroom and splashes water in his face before screaming, “Where am I? I’ve become one, a vampire! Oh God. Where am I?”, one of his bosses is in the stall and hilariously yells out that he’s in the crapper and suggests Peter take his acting lessons home or to go to the lady’s room. As weird as the movie is, it’s still meant to be a comedy and is letting you in on it, despite some of its darker content.

Still, it’s hysterical, and it’s a big part as to why it might be one of Cage’s most “Nicolas Cage” roles of all time.

Only Cage can say with a straight face to his therapist, “Well, the fact is I did murder someone last night. I turned into a vampire. It’s a long story”. Besides The Wicker Man remake, do you want to know where all of those Nicolas Cage memes came from? It was Vampire’s Kiss, and it’s even funnier in the context of the story. The Peter Loew character is already an asshole to begin with, but as he starts his transformation into a vampire, his dickhead core evolves into deviousness, and he makes it his mission to make Alva’s life a living hell by finding this contract like its life or death (or her job). Alva explains to her mother how awful Peter is, but her mother has no sympathy because “Everyone hates their boss”. To say Alva’s situation is a bit different is an understatement. Peter Loew is literally turning into a monster. At one point, he taxies all the way to her house in The Bronx because she called in sick. In reality, she was scared at what Peter would do to her since she still couldn’t find the contract. Even so, Peter brings her soup since she said she had a cold and because he wanted to apologize for the day before when he forced her to stay until 1AM to continue looking for said contract. We as the viewer know he’s faking the apology to get her back to work, but it’s a joy to watch him go this far with it because the anticipation waiting for him to comically explode only increases, especially after Alva admits she was just afraid to come back to the office without the contract and that she’s not sick. He figured this as such but tells her to not worry about Heatherton and how he just wants a truce with her, so she can take a taxi with him back to work. On the ride back, Peter continues to encourage her and talks about how she might be in a position of authority someday. It’s a slow burn because now, the viewer is anxiously waiting for Cage to flip out, but they tease us with this sequence, with Alva starting to smile a little because of Peter’s kind words. Following this, he tells her that she can start on this path to success by finding the contract because the work isn’t going to stop and then he predictably loses it (“THAT GODDAMN CONTRACT IS SOMEWHERE IN THOSE GODDAM FUCKING FILES!“).

Going back to his near hysteria, Peter starts heaving like he’s about to throw up, and she is still kind enough to ask if he’s okay to which he immediately replies, “Shut up bitch”. I cannot tell you how insanely funny Nicolas Cage is in this role. Despite how awful this main character is as a person, his otherworldly performance is ridiculously entertaining. It gets to the point where you can’t wait to see what he does next. It’s almost a competition Cage is having against himself to see how he can top his last scene, evidenced by amazing sequences like his silent Nosferatu impression in the nightclub while donning plastic toy vampire teeth he buys from the store (he didn’t have $19.95 on him to buy the better-looking kind), screaming “I’m a vampire!” to random people on the street, stealing a live pigeon and later eating it, and dragging a plank behind him and moaning to the public around him like he belongs in an insane asylum.

The sense of confusion regarding what is real and what isn’t in the third act is actually brilliant (highlighted by the phone call with Dr. Glaser about an emergency appointment while he wears his plastic vampire teeth), and the climax of Peter in a full-on psychotic trance talking to a wall while imagining his final therapy session, conjuring up his dream woman, and still getting into a blow-up with her was hilarious. You’ll be in stiches while he yells at thin air like this woman is walking next to him, “I turned into a vampire last week, but it’s all in the past now, okay? No, I don’t want to talk about anymore. It was a very unhappy period in my life. I don’t want to talk about it. End of subject. Sharon, GODDAMN IT! WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!”. That final stretch where Peter is in a bloodstained suit ranting like a homeless person asking people to drive a stake through his heart is not only laugh-out-loud funny, but it also might be one of the most accurate depictions of a crazy homeless person in the big city that we may ever see on film. The confusion by bystanders and Peter’s earnestness in speaking this complete nonsense to these strangers is that of a real-life brain-fried hobo. Again, this performance is one-of-a-kind. In the final minutes when he imitates his fake girlfriend by asking, “Why did you become a vampire? Why can’t you be normal? Does this mean we can never have children?”, before wondering aloud if he should see a shrink and interrupting himself to violently dry heave, I started to think how hard it probably was for the crew to keep a straight face.

The descent is handled so well in how its shot and its general execution. There are subtle things like Peter’s perfectly slicked back hair unraveling as he loses his shit, but it’s really when he accepts his transformation when the movie hits the next level of cult classic. The filthy imagery of Peter using his couch turned upside down as a coffin inside of his now pig stye of an apartment (the landlord will just paint over it anyway) makes the viewer’s skin crawl. It’s excellently done. There are just so many creative decisions in this production that you can’t help but commend everyone involved. Seriously, there are some scenes and moments in the ludicrous Vampire’s Kiss that I have legitimately never seen before on film. The whole fucking movie is upside down, and it’s fascinating to watch. What I have talked about in this review is just a sliver of the innovation and imagination that takes place in this delirious turn of events. The highly underrated Vampire’s Kiss could be yet another example of peak Nicolas Cage, showcasing arguably the most extreme performance of his (or any other actor’s) career. Surely, it’s the most underrated film of his filmography. Just this positive alone is worth watching this black comedy horror movie. It will get to the point where you will ponder whether it’s the worst movie you’ve seen this year or a certified masterpiece.

Is this enough convincing? Let me ask you, “Am I getting through to you ALVA?”.

Fun Fact: The role of Peter Loew was to be played by Dennis Quaid, but he dropped out to do Innerspace instead.