In honor of The Goat’s birthday, I decided to finally visit a film of his that has become increasingly popular, especially with memes and gifs. For so many years I have seen clips of this movie played in Nicolas Cage compilations, often used to show the wild and “Cagey” side of his acting. In an interview with GQ, (see minute 9:18-9:49) the King himself said it is his favorite movie that he has ever worked on. Logically, I had to check it out. While it definitely stands as one of the Cagiest performances I have ever seen, the film itself turns out to be one of the more bizarre, strange, and surprisingly dark movies in his filmography. Let’s unpack Vampire’s Kiss.
Directed by Robert Bierman, Nicolas Cage plays a publishing executive named Peter Loew. Yes, you read it correctly, Loew. He seems to be having problems with his romantic relationships and consults with his psychologist from time to time. After meeting a certain woman and bringing her home, she bites his neck as they are getting romantic. It is from this point on where the movie takes you through a strange turn of events as he begins to believe that he is turning into a vampire. At the same time he becomes increasingly irate with his secretary and harasses her relentlessly to find an old contract for one of his clients. We see Peter slowly devolve into a deranged state of mind where it becomes difficult at times to tell what is reality and what appears to be mere hallucinations.
In the words of Cage himself, this movie is truly a laboratory for experimental acting. Cage is experimenting with everything, from trying different accents throughout the movie, to playing with his physicality. The trailer and poster for the movie attempt to market it as a silly, light-hearted romantic comedy. It is anything but that. The movie never gave me time to really settle with my feelings about it. At times I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole thing, while another time I’m left disturbed watching this guy sink deeper into madness. For example, one scene he is running around screaming he’s a vampire, the next he attempts to rape his secretary. I just couldn’t pin point what exactly this movie wanted me to feel. Objectively, some of the scenes by themselves are silly and outright Cagey. But in context with the rest of the film, it’s harder to laugh and not feel unsettled at watching this guy eat a live cockroach on screen, catch a pigeon in the street and eat it, and attempting suicide multiple times. His actions were wildly unpredictable and I never knew what was going to happen next. It’s ending was sad and depressing no matter how I tried looking at it. The whole thing really becomes less funny and more depressing the more I think about it.
From a production standpoint, it’s actually pretty impressive. New York City is a character in and of itself. A lot of the movie is shot on the streets of New York unbeknownst to bystanders. We see authentic reactions from actual citizens to Cage’s performances in the street which did add something to the film. Even the score is well done and helps create an eerie feeling that let me know I was not about to experience a light-hearted comedy.
Overall, Vampire’s Kiss is not a movie I would recommend to a casual moviegoer. Even for die hard fans of Nicolas Cage, it’s hard to recommend it on a selling point other than, well, it stars Nicolas Cage. I mean, I myself was sold on that aspect of it alone. There are things to appreciate about what Cage is doing and he truly goes all out in this movie. Knowing that it was a laboratory of sorts helps put what he was doing into perspective. But in the end, this is a strange, eccentric, bizarre and somewhat sad and depressing movie that left me conflicted with emotions. Not sure I will be revisiting this one anytime soon.
