Vampire's Kiss (1989)

Once afternoon in early 2017, my friend Mia gifted me with one of the greatest experiences of my life: my first time watching Nicolas Cage’s 1989 “horror black comedy” Vampire’s Kiss. 

This is the perfect testament to strange directorial and dramatic choices, one of the best so-bad-it’s-good flicks I’ve seen in a long time. It tells the story of Peter (Cage) whose life consists of therapy sessions, one night stands, harassing his secretary and getting aroused by bats.

There are parts that feel like they are genuine attempts at humour, but others which are funny for completely different reasons - Nicolas Cage’s bizarre accent and mannerisms throughout are a great example. There is even an occasion where the same scene - literally, the exact same shot - is cut and pasted (the visible nipple covers are in the same place and everything) and passed off as another scene. Sometimes Nicolas Cage just yells! Perhaps his real ailment is a lack of ability to reasonably control his vocal volume. Things like that aren’t “black comedy” funny, they’re awful, laughably bad. 

Some really interesting, poignant themes underpin it if you stick through to the end - our initial viewing ended with a note of melancholy. Well, a melancholy that lasts until you start re-enacting this scene. Peter as a character clearly has a lot of problems, and there are other characters in this movie who endure genuine trauma. Still, it handles mental health in an utterly strange way, and there’s very little weight ever given to issues of harassment and sexual violence and misconduct. I initially thought that the sadness present would pull me from rewatching, but it actually gives it a little more substance: I have returned to this movie multiple times since my initial experience.

Rating: I’d consider this one of those movies beyond the normal rating spectrum. As a film, in terms of quality, it is exceptionally awful and deserves no more than a 2/10. For entertainment, it’s 10/10, would show to a friend. When a film breaks the scale, it's...deserving of note. Let's give it a solid 7/10 overall. Inexcusable in many ways, but indispensable in many others.