The Addiction

I hope your Halloween went well and that you’re all safe and sound.  Ok, ready for some post-Halloween shit?  Originally I was going to do Vampire Mania but things developed into something quite different.  Sorry, sometimes this happens.  So as a peace offering here’s part of the segment I had planned, The Addiction. 

Abel Ferrara’s vampire picture was pretty good.  He’s a spotty director and I was worried that this was going to be boring but he made it work.  It’s a simple story of a newly formed vampire named Kathy, Lili Taylor (Ransom, High Fidelity), that struggles with her new identity.  She has an insatiable thirst that she can’t quench no matter how many throats she bites.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s filmed in black and white and I don’t totally understand why.  There was a big resurgence of its use during the 90’s with films like Schindler’s List, Ed Wood, Kafka, Shadows and Fog, Dead Man and parts of Natural Born Killers.  Maybe Ferrara wanted to jump on that bandwagon.  Most of the time in The Addiction the use of black and white isn’t that remarkable but every once in a while you’ll get a shot or a scene that’s very beautiful and/or eerie.  I don’t think it would’ve made a huge difference to shoot this thing in color but at the same time I understand the need to change things up creatively and the way Ferrara went about the cinematography works perfectly fine.

Now I haven’t seen Lili Taylor in that many roles but this is the best I’ve seen her.  She pulls off being conflicted and tortured well.  But Christopher Walken as the veteran vampire that offers words of wisdom steals the show.  He’s only in this for a couple of minutes but he nails the part and it made me want to watch a whole movie just about his character.  Other notables include Annabella Sciorra (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) who plays the vampire that turns Kathy and Edie Falco (The Sopranos, Oz) who is Kathy’s friend.

I feel like I should warn you guys that this film is pretty damn arty and fairly pretentious.  The entire thing is a metaphor for drug addiction.  I mean it is called The Addiction after all.  There’s a lot of talk about how vampires are actually kinda weak because they are defined by their constant need for blood.  They’ll walk the streets late at night and consort with strangers to get what they crave.  Friends, mentors and colleagues are affected as well by the disease because they are who the addict turns to.  Ferrara even has Kathy go into extreme pain and convulse when she can’t get a blood fix (Walken actually uses the word “fix” too) and then stumble over herself wandering on the street all strung out when she’s had too much.  I think the parallels are convincing and well done which makes the movie fascinating and takes away from the pomposity a little.  I like this angle of vampirism and how Ferrara portrays these creatures as both ferocious and pathetic at the same time.

Russell Simmons produced this and up until this point he hadn’t done a serious drama yet.  It’s a curious choice because I guess he wanted to show how drug addiction destroys society but didn’t want to make a clichéd picture with a message that beat people over the head.  If that’s what Simmons was going for then he pretty much got it.  However, I don’t think anyone saw this.  That’s too bad.

This one is more of a thinking man’s movie.  There’s a lot of philosophy which went over my head but there’s also some real cool vampire shit, especially the feeding frenzy ending.  None of it is very scary or creepy.  It’s refreshing though.  I think you should see it.