Hemdale Film Corporation

There’s nothing better than having grown up in the age of the video store. I would spend countless hours browsing the aisles, hitting all of the stores within my city limits, and there were quite a few. I would rent almost anything I could find, and the action and horror films were exactly what I needed. Being fourteen or fifteen, when I saw the box for Vampire’s Kiss, I felt I needed to watch it.

Being so young and having built up a stereotype of what the film would be, to say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Needless to say, I never watched the movie again. Flash-forward more than thirty years, and Nicolas Cage is, well, still Nicolas Cage. Some films he’s released over the last several years rival anything he’s done throughout his career. This is just a personal opinion, but films like Mandy, The Color Out of Space, and Prisoners of the Ghostland are pretty stellar pieces of filmmaking, and Cage truly shines in them.

I recently began revisiting some of his early works, like Raising Arizona and Valley Girl, before noticing that MVD Rewind decided to release Vampire’s Kiss. Shout! Factory put the film out on Blu-ray several years ago, which I hadn’t been aware of, so this release from MVD is quite welcome. They used the same sources as that release, which is long out of print.

The film follows Peter Loew (Cage), a literary editor, who encounters a mysterious woman (Jennifer Beals). The two engage in a heated affair when she bites his neck and draws blood. The next day, Peter begins to feel as if he’s changing into a bloodsucker himself, and he begins to lose who he is as the vampire lifestyle begins to take control.

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The movie is so very much a product of its time. It’s hard to picture a film like this being made in the present. It has the same misogynistic sensibility as some films like Revenge of the Nerds. The film gets pretty mean-spirited about halfway through, but there’s always a reason to continue watching.

We all love to see Cage go crazy in a film, and as far as outlandish performances go, Cage hits another home run. While most of the supporting characters are pretty empty, Cage isn’t afraid to breathe life into his character in a way only he can. His delivery and mannerisms in Vampire’s Kiss give you a taste of things to come, assuming you still follow his career.

Aside from the nifty retro packaging, the only extras available are the commentary from Nicolas Cage and director Robert Bierman, a photo gallery, and some trailers. This presentation is the best available, mainly because it’s a single-film release that emphasizes the singular film.

Depending on how you look at it, Vampire’s Kiss is one of the first (of many) memorable performances that Cage would tackle in his career. It gives you a taste of what’s to come in one of the most outlandish careers in Hollywood.

Hemdale Film Corporation & MVD Rewind

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