The surRealist’s Review: Vampire’s Kiss or Nic Cage is a… wait, what?
Where do I even begin on this one? I just watched Nic Cage shove huge fake plastic vampire teeth into his mouth, make a face like a stoned weasel having the most satisfying orgasm ever, and then exit the scene by crawling away on all fours. Because he thinks he’s a vampire. This is a scene that happened in a movie that exists. It was glorious.
Though I can’t honestly remember if it came before or after he went running down the streets of New York city screaming “I’m a vampire! I’m a vampire!”
Before you ask, no, Nic Cage does not play a vampire in Vampire’s Kiss. He plays a literary agent, already obviously plagued by deep rooted psychiatric issues, who is quickly devolving into an absolute lunatic after a one night stand with a woman, who from his perspective was a vampire who preyed upon him. From the viewer’s perspective though, she probably doesn’t even exist. Or she’s invisible. Honestly, it could go either way in a Cage movie like this.
I need you to imagine something okay? Imagine Nic Cage as he is currently. The awesome energy he puts forth, the great reactions, the eccentricness. Now imagine that the only reason he acts like that is because the studios learned a long time ago that the only way they can work with him and not have him scare the crew off is to pump him full of tranquilizers. Apatosaurus tranquilizers. Now imagine what he’d be like without said tranquilizers. That’s what he get from the Nic cage of 1988 in Vampire’s Kiss.
I honestly can’t even give you many examples of some of what he does in this because its really just better if you see the movie for yourself and experience them fresh. I’m halfway regretting mentioning the plastic fangs scene for the fact that seeing it was one of the top moments in my opinion. But words don’t even do it justice.
This movie is a portrait of a mind breaking, portrayed by a talent unleashed. A young Nic Cage still trying to make a name for himself and intentionally going over the top. Whether he’s reacting to “becoming a vampire” by kicking his apartment to death, blaming his violent rages on mescaline, or psychologically abusing his secretary to the point of near mental breakdown, he does it all spectacularly. He moves fluidly from serious business to lovable eccentric to dazed and hypnotized from being “fed on” and finally to super villain levels of wide eyed spiteful hate and evil only to flip right back to serious business. He is an absolute joy to watch in this.
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