THE ADDICTION

82 Min.
Directed by Abel Ferrara
October Films
Angelika Film Center, NYC
Tel. (212) 995-2000

In the beginning of Abel Ferrara's vampire film you get the style first: expressive high contrast black-and-white photography, very slow camera movements, and extreme close-ups taking delight in the horrified faces of white female philosophy students-turned-vampires biting each other and feasting on black men's blood in contemporary downtown Manhattan. Add to this music by Cypress-Hill and other rap groups and you can begin to enter into the strange atmosphere of this film. Once you get into it, though, it starts taking you over, and by the middle of the film it seems like quite a real picture of life.

Think about vampires as participants in some ghastly process of energy transfer in which one partner gains vitality at the expense of another, and you'll see what Ferrara is getting at: every victim in the film is given the opportunity to not participate in this game by telling their attacker to "go away." But no one does, and they become addicted, forever. Like any other dark occupation, blood-drinking ends up empowering it's participants, in spite of their attempts to escape it.

Lili Taylor, who plays the main character of a philosophy student that begins to show symptoms of a junky, turns to the arch-vampire, Christopher Walken, for advice (after trying to bite him). He is of no help. "It's all your choice, and you better enjoy it," he tells her. And not only does she begin to enjoy it, but she manages to astonish the faculty at school with a revolutionary dissertation. By the end of the film everyone, including the audience, realizes we are all in it together anyway, as the philosophy department's elegant get-together turns into a big orgy of insatiable hunger and lust.

-- Naomi Ben-Shahar

Email: ThingReviews

If you wish to meet real vampires. Go to Moonstruck.

I really can't remember where I found this Web address but it may have been in "Paper" magazine (my personal fave.) Though I really can't be sure. Anyway today is the first time that i have ever used the web and i am delighted to see "The Thing" here. I am a senior out here in California at California State University, Chico and I will be graduating in May. I hope to be then moving to New York City to persue a career in a future of films and magazines. I don't suppose you guys are looking to hire some new personnel???Thanks for the review on "The Addiction." It sounds like a pretty fun ny film and I will eventually rent it! E- mail me back... O.K.?

I have mostly heard bad reviews on this movie I was starting to get discouraged but I knew that the movie wasn't probably meant to be your adverage vampire movie were people are bitten,they develope fangs, and all you see is a bunch of naked women running around going,"HELP ME,HELP ME",I'm personaly sick of it.I feel that this movie is going to be much different.And show what really must go on inside a vampires head because its not just about the hunger for blood,well it is,but its much more than just that. And Im positive that this movie will portray vampires in a more realistic way while keeping them as people have always viewed them to be.Most people probably didn't like the film because they have no good taste-(although I really shouldn't say anything because I never saw the movie.)I'm sure I will love it though.

I love the movie ! could you help me to find a video copy of it?