Last year, while discussing David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, I clowned on Nicolas Cage pretty hard for his overwhelming Nicolas Cage-ness. I also spelled his first name wrong throughout the entire 5000 word article, which is wicked unprofesh and probably the reason why this website has very few regular readers. I said that Cage lives the sort of ostentatious lifestyle that makes Liberace look like Mother Theresa (I like that line so much i’ma use it again!). I said that he owned a Velociraptor skull and had a crippling castle-purchasing addiction and lived on a strict diet of komodo dragon meat. I didn’t really bother fact checking any of these claims before I made them but I had a strong feeling that I read this stuff somewhere...and I totally did! (well...maybe not the komodo dragon thing). In 2019, the New York Times dispatched ace interviewer David Marchese to ask Cage a lot of probing questions that were mostly answered in rambling, quixotic Cagespeak. Over the last decade, Marchese has developed a formidable reputation for getting good copy out of notoriously prickly celebrities, with the notable exception of the late Lou Reed, who ate Marchese’s lunch for him. Literally. Crab salad with avocado, if I recall correctly. Over plates of head-on branzino, Cage told Marchese that he thought his reputation as a profoundly erratic, eccentric kook was undeserved. Cage also said that he believed that his pet cobras were secretly plotting to kill him...and that he purchased property in the state of Rhode Island because he believes that the Holy Grail is buried there. The actual Holy Grail. Look, I spend a fair amount of time in the Ocean State. They have no shortage of red clam chowder and coffee milk...but the Holy Grail?? I don’t know, dude. Cage admitted that his poor financial decisions landed him in the straight-to-streaming B-movie ghetto, where he’ll take any paying gig that comes his way, sight unseen. Still, the sheer amount of product he’s been pumping out lately is kind of mind boggling. Cage amassed 15 credits over the two year span from 2018-2019...and you gotta figure they’re still paying that dude low six figs, right? Maybe not the type of dough to keep him decked out in bald eagle-skin jackets but probably more than I’m making waitin’ tables. Cage admitted that not all of his recent films are “Blue Chip.” Oh man--you mean the Nick Nolte basketball movie!? Making 15 different versions of Blue Chip is a total Nicolas Cage move. Oh wait--I think the movie I’m thinking of is Blue CHIPS. Never mind, then.
While we’re on the subject of Nic Cage’s questionable decisions, check out this timeline: after years of being dogged by cries of nepotism for being Franny Coppola’s nephew, Cage fully and properly broke through in 1987. The accolades came spilling off the page for his work in Raising Arizona and Moonstruck...and well deserved, I might add. At this point, the keys to the kingdom were his for the taking. He probably could’ve gotten Die Hard. He could've dressed up as Harry and met Sally. Instead, he took the lead in a low budget horror-ish flick called Vampire’s Kiss, where he fully cultivated the deranged, eye-bulging persona that still sends people searching for YouTube supercuts with titles like “Ten Minutes of Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit!” I realize that the entire premise of VHS of the Week involves me explaining plots of movies to you...but Vampire's Kiss kind of defies explanation. I kinda want to just stop right here and tell you that you need to see this one for yourselves (or watch one of those aforementioned supercuts) but I can’t, in good conscience, recommend viewing this film. (Unless you have a shitload of intoxicants on hand. Then, by all means, let her rip). It is uniquely terrible but also compulsively watchable. I have seen it thrice and I still have absolutely no idea what this movie is even supposed to be! I did some mild research and learned that it was written by Joseph Minion, the dude who penned the screenplay for the 1985 film After Hours, which is Top Ten Scorsese if you ask me. Depressed over a recent breakup, Minion wrote Vampire’s Kiss as a commentary on the toxicity of deteriorating relationships. To say that this is not at all evident in what ended up on the screen is putting it VERY fucking mildly. You remember that one flick Wolf where Jack Nicholson sustained a wolf bite and was like “oh shit--I think I might be a werewolf” and he totally was and we had to spend two hours watching the sixty-something Nicholson run around Central Park in khakis and werewolf makeup, eating birds and horses and David Schwimmer? Same idea here in Vampire’s Kiss except (spoiler alert) Nic Cage is not, in any way, shape or form, a VAMPIRE! Read on…
What happens is this: we open with an extended montage where the camera gazes lustily upon the gothic architecture of Manhattan. The dude who directed this movie clearly fancies himself a regular Sidney Lumet or some shit. The soundtrack: ominous. Tone: Candyman serious. We dissolve into a nightclub, where we meet heavily carousing literary agent Peter Loew (Cage). (Note: I’m just now remembering that Nicholson’s character in Wolf was also a literary agent! Shit man--must be a high risk of transforming oneself into fictional creatures in that industry!). Peter is drinking a glass of white wine at a nightclub, so right away, I do not trust him. Then he opens his mouth to speak and HOLY SHIT, Batman! I have absolutely no earthen idea what Cage is going for with this “accent.” I turned to my partner and said “what the hell is THAT supposed to be?” and she said “it sounds like he’s trying to impersonate Nicolas Cage.” Maybe he’s trying to sound like a pompous 18th century land baron or something? I really don’t know. He turns his “o’s” into “ewww’s.” Instead of pronouncing his last name, Loew, as “Low” he says “Leeeewwww.” Despite everything I just told you, this dude is a HIT with the ladies! He’s got this stunning gal Jackie (future Harriet director Kasi Lemmons) hanging on his every mangled word. They get ripshit drunk and retire to his brownstone, where she immediately gets buck nekkid, leading me to believe that intercourse is imminent. They move the action to the bed but, before they can get to the gettin’, a friggin’ bat flies into the apartment through an open window, which is not NOT a buzzkill. Smack that nasty bastard with a squash racquet and get back to business! But no--Jackie runs out of the apartment in her skivvies and I guess they decide to go to hers. The next morning, while in session with his therapist Dr Glaser, Peter admits that the bat episode left him feeling horribly aroused. The shrink is like “don’t you think that the naked lady straddling you caused your arousal?” But Peter says that his erection did not come to fruition until he was alone in the apartment with the bat. The doc is like “whatever you say, man. It’s your dime, kookaburra.”
When Peter arrives at his office, he learns that he needs a copy of a writer’s contract from way back in 1963. He summons his floral print dress-enthusiast secretary Alva (ass kicking Running Man star Maria Conchita Alonso) and tasks her with digging up a copy of the contract. And that, my friends, is the ENTIRE PLOT of the movie. Peter’s slowly gathering homicidal rage at his secretary for her inability to promptly locate a copy of the contract. Dude, I made home movies in elementary school with heartier plotlines. I mean...I guess there’s the “vampire” stuff too. About that: After work, Peter is back out on the scene trying to pull birds. He meets this gal Rachel (Flashdance’s Jennifer Beals) and she agrees to go home with him because this guy SMASHES! Even though he’s an uptight honky with a non-specific accent, ladies be all up on his business like HUH!? Rachel disrobes and layeth on the bed but, before they can ball, she bares a set of fangs, chomps down on Peter’s neck, and drinks his blood. Man, I did not see that coming! Or...maybe I did a little...but only because of the title of the movie. Ok so this usually means that he is now also a vampire and all of the usual rules governing movie vampires will start to come into play; don’t expose them to sunlight, don’t get them wet, don’t feed them after midnight, etc. But when he wakes up, Rachel is nowhere in sight, so he puts a bandaid on his neck wound, chugs some Maxwell House, and heads out (in the sunlight) to meet Jackie at the New Museum. My confusion spikes. While they’re strolling through the museum, Jackie asks Peter if he’s enjoying the what-have-you and Peter says “I gotta piss” and then immediately exits the building and hails a taxi, leaving poor Jackie high and dry. Later, she leaves him an answering machine message where she says “fuck you!...and also fuck you!” Peter hears this and says “well fuck you too, sister.” The feeling: mutual. He calls her up the following evening and apologizes and harangues her into meeting up for a conciliatory beverage or two. On his way to slam rieslings, though, Peter runs into Rachel and decides he’d rather spend the night doing naked vampire stuff. So that’s what he does...and hey, who am I to kink shame? If a dude wants to get his neck drunken then that’s his business. Jackie is less understanding. After sitting at a bar alone picking listlessly at a plate of spinach dip for three hours, she finally grabs a napkin and writes “stay out of my life!” Even though he never appears to actually receive said note, he does just that. He stays out of her life. She is never seen or heard from again. 86 Kasi Lemmons.
Back at the office, Peter starts to crack like a champagne flute. He falsely tells Alva that his client is furious that she can’t find a copy of that contract. He screams at her until she flees from his office, scared for her goddamn life. He chases her into one of the common areas and, in full view of all of their co-workers, leaps atop a desk, strikes an Elvis pose and howls “am I getting THROUGH to you, ALVA!?” What, does becoming a vampire turn you into an asshole or something?? Shouldn’t this dude be home hiding under a blanket during the daylight hours, crushing eps of True Blood?? He seems to grow more unhinged with each passing day. He chases Alva into the ladies room, where she cowers in a stall and tells him that she has a gun. This seems to just piss him off even more, even though I’m pretty sure vampires are impervious to the effects of bullets. Do they not have a human resources department at this publishing firm?? Sweet Jesus. Someone must’ve dropped a dime on Peter at some point because he’s forced to explain his behavior to his superiors. Luckily they’re all old white men, and they just sit around a conference table, smoke cigarettes, and have a good laugh at Alva’s expense because the 80’s were terrible.
Now dude starts to go completely off the chain. He destroys his own apartment...just cuz. He goes to see his therapist and asks her why his secretary can’t find the missing contract. She’s like “Huh? Dude...how would I know?? Who cares?” “The contract should be in the file!! Who misfiled it??” he screams. He then proceeds to recite the entire alphabet, growing more cartoonishly aggravated with each passing letter. It’s fucking nuts. When he returns to the office he decides to apologize to Alva for the way he’s been treating her. Ahh, so therapy DOES work! He tells her his behavior was the result of some bad mescaline. She says that she understands as she used to dabble in mescaline back in high school. Dude, maybe see if she wants to party! Don’t let those flowery dresses fool you: MCA will tune you up! But nope--the truce is short lived. He immediately goes apeshit again over that contract. While on the way home from work, Peter passes an illuminated crucifix outside a church and drops his groceries and starts screaming and IS HE A VAMPIRE OR NOT!? The only evidence we have in the pro vampire category is the fact that Flashdance shows up every night to drink his blood. But wait! One morning after their nightly glug-a-thon, he’s chatting with her in the shower and she ISN’T REALLY THERE! Ahh...ok...so if this was Fight Club she’s the Brad Pitt to his Ed Norton? Or--is the vampirish half of his personality Brad Pitt?? Sorry, I haven’t seen Fight Club in a long ass time. Also--sorry for ruining the end Fight Club for you...but not really. It’s 22 years old...maybe watch it already if you care so much. Anyway, he’s either a vampire or just fully spun. Probably the latter. Speaking of fully spun--after his shower, Peter dresses for work and walks through his kitchen, where he spots a fat ass city cockroach on his stovetop. He grabs the bug and disappears it right down his gullet. Check this out, though: that cockroach was real. And Nic Cage? He really fucking ate it!! The filmmakers were like “wouldn’t it be gross if this dude ate a raw egg?” and Cage was like “SILENCE!!! I’m a method actor! If vampires eat cockroaches (note: do they?) then I too shall eat a cockreeewwwch!” I heard he also strenuously avoided garlic and subsisted on the blood of freshly killed virgins for the duration of filming. Seriously, dig through the New York Times’ archives from the late 80’s. If there are any unsolved vampiric homicides from Manhattan or the surrounding boroughs from the summer of 1988, your suspect is probably Academy Award Winner Nicolas Cage.
One afternoon Peter arrives at the office and discovers that Alva has banged out sick. So what does Peter do, crazy motherfucker that he is? He takes a taxi all the way out to Canarsie or wherever the shit and shows up at Alva’s house! He appears at her kitchen window, where she’s ironing in a bra, natch. He brings her a packet of Lipton’s Instant Chicken Soup as a peace offering and asks her out to dinner (note: what’s the instant soup for, then? An appetizer?). Even though this dude has abused her to the point where she’s afraid to show up for work, she jumps right in the waiting taxi! She even tells him that she isn’t really sick. And hey, maybe Peter has finally learned the error of his ways and decided to be a kinder….ope...scratch that! He starts to go ballistic before the cabbie even puts the car in drive. He works himself into such a lather that he actually starts to retch! It’s mad gross. A panicked Alva begs cabbie to pull into a gas station where her brother Emilio works. She rushes inside and asks Emilio if he’s packing any heat. Luckily, he is. Unluckily, his gun is loaded with blanks. Now, I know fuck all about guns so I’m curious: do Brooklynese gas station attendants typically carry pistols that are loaded with blanks? I thought they only used blanks in the movies. Like...do people go to gun stores and say “gimme a Glock 19...and a box of BLANKS!” ANYWAY, Peter is so pissed about this unscheduled gas station pit stop that he calls Alva the C-word. Jesus CHRIST, man! He drags her back to the agency and tells her that she isn’t allowed to leave until she finds that contract. He then retreats to his office, where he stares into the mirror and moans “I’ve become a vampire! It can’t be! It isn’t possible, right?” Is that a rhetorical question? Are you asking ME? Dude, I have no idea!! You certainly seem to think so..soooo...if the shoe fits. While he’s in the middle of probing whether he’s a mythological creature or not, Alva finally locates that stupid fucking contract. She rushes to tell Peter the good news but dude has gone full Lestat. He screams “it’s TOO LATE!” over and over in a creepy, singsongy voice while chasing Alva into the basement. She pulls out her piece but Peter is all “YEAH! Let’s party! Light me up!” She fires a couple into the ground but that duddn’t stop Peter. He tears Alva’s clothes off and knocks her to the ground and OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE! Peter picks up the gun, puts it in his mouth, and starts to pull the trigger repeatedly but nothing of note happens. I was always of the impression that you could still injure yourself with blanks. Isn’t that how Brandon Lee died….ish?? Again, not a gun expert! Having failed to expunge his brain from his head, Peter takes to the streets, where he wails “I’m a vampire!” like a shitfaced toddler….even though it is abundantly clear at this point that he is NOT a vampire.
So now what the fuck, right?? I mean, other than having verbally, physically, and sexually abused his secretary, Peter isn’t a complete lost cause just yet. He could totally get his life back on track after, what, 35 years in prison? Rachel’s apparition appears to him and says “you know what to do.” I mean...does he?? He sprints to the nearest occult shop and tries to purchase a pair of fake vampire fangs. But dude...he only has, like, 5 bucks so he has to buy the shittiest pair that they sell! A giant, white pair of plastic choppers that barely fit in his maw. He runs to a pay phone and calls his therapist but she can’t understand a word he’s saying because of the fake teeth. Mouth leaking drool like a sieve! He then grabs a pigeon off the street, takes it home, and eats it. In this case, I don’t think Nic Cage ate an actual pigeon...but do you know who has two thumbs and DID eat a pigeon once?? (Here I point to myself with both of my thumbs like a douche). THIS GUY! Don’t worry...it was at a proper restaurant in Portland, OR called Le Pigeon. I didn’t just grab a motherfucker off the sidewalk, smother it in Frank’s Red Hot, and wolf it down. Peter also starts sleeping under his sofa because why not. The next night, Peter takes his fake teeth out to a nightclub, where he prowls around making scary faces, only to be ignored by the clubbers. They’re probably just seeing what I’m seeing: a dude with ill-fitting vampire teeth who looks like he desperately needs to take a shit. In the VIP area, Peter sidles up to a woman all “I vant to suck your blood” but she’s like “drop dead, dickhead.” So what does he do? He MURDERS her! Right there in the club! He snaps her head back and sinks his fake teeth into her neck. Dude, no way you’re getting full pen with those chintzy $3.99 vampire teeth. But yeah...no...she dies. Gruesomely. Peter stumbles out onto the dancefloor where he runs into the vampire Rachel. He’s like “phew, thank god...I’ve had a DAY! Let’s Netflix and chill” but she’s like “ummm...am I supposed to know who you are or something?” Peter is super confused because he had been under the impression that this woman had been doing weird vampire/sex/butt stuff with him every night. So now we can officially, unequivocally say that this has NOT been happening! Let the record show: not a real vampire or vampire-adjacent creature. He gets tossed out of the club around dawn. He yanks a plank of wood off of some discarded pallet, sharpens the plank into a stake, and then runs around the Lower East Side begging random passersby to kill him. The people look extra disturbed by the sight of a blood-soaked Nicolas Cage begging to be murdered...and the reason for this is that they were actually being approached by stake-welding, blood-soaked Nicolas Cage. They filmed these scenes from concealed locations so the puzzled reactions you see are genuine. Man, it’s a good thing he didn’t catch me after I finished watching The Wicker Man. I might’ve taken a stab at him!
While Peter is limping down the streets, having a session with Dr Glaser in his head, Alva wakes up Emilio and tells him that Peter raped her. Dude hops in his Trans-Am and is crossing the Brooklyn Bridge before Alva even has a chance to fasten her seatbelt. Peter continues his imaginary dialogue with his therapist as he makes his way back to his apartment. He tells her that her profession is bogus and, I mean, he’s kinda got a point. If your patient is out murdering people as an ersatz vampire then you are probably a piss poor therapist. When Peter arrives at home, he crawls under his couch for a little vampire disco nap. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re in the group of people who can’t wait to see this movie end), Emilio busts into the apartment before Peter can start sawing logs. He pulls up the couch and discovers Peter crawled up in the fetal. Peter yells “leave me alewwwwnnnn!” but Emilio does not leave him alone. He grabs a hold of that wooden stake and stabs Peter to death. Just one stab, real quick-like, without much fanfare or gore or anything at all, really. As he’s drifting off to death, Peter sees an image of Rachel. She whispers “dream of me.” And that IT! That’s the entire movie! Although that ending kind of leaves the door open for a sequel. Nic Cage would totally do it, too. I know it has been 31 years but Cage mentioned Vampire’s Kiss like FOUR TIMES in that New York Times article I mentioned way back at the beginning of this review. Or a one-man broadway show?? That shit would be bonkers!
So to recap: Vampire’s Kiss is about a promiscuous literary agent who terrorizes his secretary over some misplaced paperwork. At some point he becomes convinced that he’s a vampire despite showing zero symptoms of vampirism. He rapes his secretary and commits an actual murder before being himself murdered by his rape victim’s brother. Like Morgan Freeman says at the end of Seven: the world is a terrible place and worth fighting for. Wait, I think I might’ve fucked that up. Whatever. The end.