VAMPIRE'S KISS

Peter Loew is a successful guy. He is the director of a publishing house, he is full of money, wears elegant clothes, and is surrounded by many women, a different one every night. But something in his life is not right, he is not satisfied, and he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. All his certainties collapse one night, during a date, when a bat enters his apartment through an open window. After that event, his life will decline, and the drop that will make the cup overflow will be a sexy girl who, during their lovemaking, will bite him on the neck and give Peter the conviction that he is a vampire. Perhaps not everyone knows that Nicolas Cage, at the beginning of his long career that boasts over sixty films, was not the protagonist of the blockbuster action films with stellar budgets that we all know. He was a young actor with the luck of being the nephew of an important director. A clue to understand who this famous uncle is can be found in the actor's real name, Nicholas Kim Coppola. He took part in important films where he played serious roles such as "Rusty the Wild," "Peggy Sue Got Married," and "Cotton Club" by his uncle Francis Ford, as well as other cult films of the '80s like "Raising Arizona" and "Moonstruck." Definitely a good actor. In 1988, Cage takes part in a strange project. The title of the film in question is "Vampire's Kiss," translated as "Stress da vampiro," and it is the film of the debutant Robert Bierman, who remained a debutant in the following years as this has been his only work for cinema. The film's starting idea is not one to be completely discarded, also because it comes from the screenwriter Joseph Minion, the one who wrote for the great Scorsese the masterpiece "After Hours." And in a certain way, the films are similar. They are both a journey into madness after spending a night without return. Take a successful young man, a director of a publishing house who, pressured by work and women, has an unusual nervous breakdown that manifests itself with the classic symptoms of vampirism: photophobia, fear of crosses, and an uncontrollable desire for blood. But why should a man behave in this manner? From a good starting idea, we have an equally interesting development where we witness the slow descent into madness of the yuppie, played by an exaggerated Nicolas Cage, off the rails but perfectly in the role (he demonstrates excellent acting skills that will flatten over the years) who literally goes crazy because of some completely normal events that will make him take the step beyond the barricade, crossing the point of no return: a chance encounter with a bat, a woman who bites him on the neck during lovemaking, and a lost work contract. Like a modern Nosferatu, he wanders through the city's nightclubs with his head tucked into his shoulders, eyes wide open, and, equipped with fake teeth similar to those found in chips, he will emulate Count Max Schrek, causing one damage after another. In reality, Peter Loew is a lonely guy, afflicted by success and the Big Apple, an imposing co-protagonist of the film. These elements, bigger than him, crush him day after day in an enlarged metaphor of the mental decline of a man dealing with the responsibilities of success. Moreover, the female figure is a key element to understanding Peter's descent into hell. He is surrounded by women who do not belong to him and whom he uses only for his purposes, like his lover Jackie (Kasi Lemmons), who is in love with him but is neglected at every opportunity, or the psychiatrist Glaser (Elizabeth Ashley), useful only to give him advice that will not be followed, or his secretary Alva (Maria Conchita Alonso), whom he torments day and night, harassing her with every kind of verbal and physical abuse. Paradoxically, the only woman he is interested in, despite the multitude of females surrounding him, is the one he can never have, Rachel (Jennifer Beals), a vampire born from his imagination. Not content with all this, in the delirious finale, the solution to his problems will be to imagine a fifth woman, Rachel, equal to Peter in every way. An interesting film, unknown to the general public but with a good idea, an excellent protagonist on whose acting the entire film is based. The exaggeration of the story tires in the long run and becomes repetitive, but overall it remains a good B-movie that cinema enthusiasts (and horror, even if it is not a real horror) should see.