Vampire’s Kiss is a film that is so outrageous and satirical, that merely trying to describe it without resorting to hyperbole seems almost impossible. The film, which was written and directed by Robert Bierman, is the kind of story that both repels and intrigues the viewer, often doing so at the exact same time. The premise piques our curiosity from before the film even starts – a deliriously deranged New York City yuppie finds his life thrown into disarray after an ill-fated encounter with a young woman who turns out to be a bloodthirsty vampire, preying on him and eventually recruiting him into the realm of the undead, all against his wishes. When all of this occurs within the first ten minutes, then you know that the film is bound to go in several wild directions, and relish in absolutely every moment of it, which becomes integral to the entire tone of this off-the-wall dark comedy. Bierman, who is not someone we necessarily expect to be anything close to an auteur or a director with a clear authorial voice, does a decent job of putting this film together, which was supposedly aiming to be a horror-tinged version of films like After Hours, with the bleak depiction of New York City being coupled with a sense of terror, which is drawn from the sense of existential paranoia that emerged towards the end of the Cold War, where tensions were high and everyone was a suspect. Perhaps this is reading too much into a film that clearly just wants to have a good time while it can, but it easily proves to be one of the more intriguing aspects of Vampire’s Kiss, a film designed to divide.

You could look at any moment in the history of Hollywood and be met with the realization that, regardless of where in the past you may find yourself, there are an abundance of films that look at the concept of vampires. In fact, some of the earliest surviving films we have from the early stages of the film industry focus on the concept of vampirism in some form, including Les Vampires by Alice Guy-Blaché and The Vampire’s Trail by T. Hayes Hunter, which may not be influential in isolation, but carry a wealth of significance as early forerunners of a sub-genre that has remained quite popular for well over a century now. We are celebrating the centenary of arguably the most influential vampire film, Nosferatu, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula continues to break records by never being out of print since its initial publication in 1897. The point here is quite simple: vampire films are a dime a dozen, and it seems a large majority of horror filmmakers have done what they could to try and explore this fascinating concept. Vampire’s Kiss is obviously not any different, and it centres itself on a story that draws out our inherent fascination with these otherworldly entities, and blends it with a more modern perspective, using the literal concept of bloodsucking parasites as an entry-point into the more abstract depiction of the soulless activities of the malicious young upstarts that ran rampant through urban centres around this time, asserting their dominance and proving to be the definition of everything wrong with American society at the time.

For films like Vampire’s Kiss, any attempt to pander to the mainstream is going to likely fail, since this is not something that necessarily works well as a populist success, but rather was made for midnight screenings, amassing a considerable cult following that has been fueled by years of seeing other similar films come and go without making much of an impact. It is true that it exists more as a concept than as a fully-realized and respected film – viewers like to extract images and segments to show in complete isolation as a means to capture the sheer insanity that lingers beneath the surface of the film and makes it such an enigmatic but profoundly memorable work of both horror and comedy. The dark humour, coupled with the refusal to avoid more grisly subject matter and grotesque depiction of graphic violence, allows the film to establish itself as something that is going to be more aligned with those with a taste for the macabre and absurd, which is exactly the kind of approach that films aiming to be cult favourites tend to take when constructing their stories, and ensuring that they are well-executed. It almost feels as if Vampire’s Kiss was created to see how far it could go before becoming outright transgressive, which is precisely why there is so much value in seeing how deeply compelling it is when it hits its stride, albeit in a way that is never particularly pleasant, and instead has a gnarly, unnerving tone that keeps us both engaged and repulsed, a powerful combination that the film does not take lightly.

If we are talking about potential casting choices to play a character who slowly descends into unhinged madness, to the point where the entire film is structured around his loss of sanity, who else better to play the role than Nicolas Cage, one of our greatest actors who also happens to be one of the most bizarre performers working in the industry today? Interestingly, despite the fact that he has made something of a reputation for himself as a cinematic madman due to his peculiar late-career choices, Cage is doing some of his most deranged work here in Vampire’s Kiss, which contains a performance that laid the groundwork for the kind of endearing excess we’ve grown to appreciate from the actor. Bierman is smart enough to not over-direct Cage, allowing him the space to simply go mad on his own terms, and produce a performance that may be utterly bewildering, but is fueled by his unique talents that are never called into question, even when he is at his most deranged. The camera has always adored Cage and his very distinct manner of acting, and as we can see throughout the film, the feeling is absolutely mutual – there isn’t a moment when he isn’t on the screen where he is not taking full advantage of the opportunities that surround him, taking every chance to embody this bizarre character and give him nuance and intelligence, far more than a lesser (or rather, more subtle) actor may have been capable of providing. It’s one of the most thrillingly weird performances ever given by an actor who often peddles in such stories, leading to a film that is gleefully enthusiastic about a number of ideas, including the characterization of its absolutely demented protagonist.

Vampire’s Kiss is undeniablya bizarre film, but one that understands its audience, pitching itself to the viewers who are going to be most interested in seeing how the director captures the spirit of unhinged madness so integral to both the tone and execution of the film. It’s difficult to predict how this film will play to various viewers – after all, it is one that is mostly concerned with the darker side of humanity, which is filtered through a darkly satirical lens that may give it the sense of being otherworldly (although the presence of vampires certainly made this obvious from the outset), so it’s not easy to gauge precisely how far the film is willing to go when it comes to certain complex ideas, which feel riveting and disturbing in equal measure. It’s a film that requires reflection, and perhaps even a rewatch or two, in order to understand the scope of its story, and come to terms with some of its more peculiar decisions. Harrowing but wildly entertaining, and made by a director whose conviction is absolutely extraordinary, its hardly a surprise Vampire’s Kiss has become one of the most notable examples of cult classic horror, a film that plays to a smaller faction of the audience, but gives them everything they’d expect, layering humour, horror and harrowing imagery into this darkly satirical glimpse into the lives of yuppies, who are already soulless, bloodthirsty entities, if this film has anything to say about it.