The Addiction
1995 Directed by Abel Ferrara
Horror Marathon Day 15 Film 22
Society eats at itself and crumbles under its own annihilation. Abel Ferrara continues his quest for the holy grime of New York with a tale of craving and drug addiction as vampirism. This is also shot beautifully in black and white- capturing very harsh black and whites. Ferrara has also cast half of the independent actors in New York for this at the time so there's a nice capsule of 90s actors before they went to bigger roles on HBO.
Lili Taylor's portrayal of a philosophy graduate student's descent into the justification for evil is certainly both obnoxiously trite and insightful at times. Books as decomposed rot that we live by- intellectual failure in search for any true experience and existence. As one stares into the abyss of human calamity- bodies stacked on top of each other from real atrocity it's no wonder that Catholic sin could creep in. Humans are evil- so why not give into the urge. In that respect a junkie's addiction becomes no more dangerous or destructive than any other human's motivations. We are all guilty because humanity resides in toxicity... Once will is given over to a higher power of addiction or God it is all justifiable. There is no escape from our very nature- we are not doomed to repeat history, but merely BE of evil because it is US.
So when the student becomes forcefully bitten by sultry vampire- her bloodlust is only a continuation of that external force enacting upon our will. This leads her to infect others by the same confrontation of telling each victim to force her away and when they are too weak - to devour them as she was- to trace her own sickness- as much as the genocide of AIDS had made its imprint on NY of the 90s. She injects the blood of a homeless man into her veins like a heroin addict- and reaches the sublime.
All very heady stuff, given out in droll philosophical mesmerism of haughty 90s grunge and hip hop chic. Taylor can't seem to speak any of these things without a whisper, a rolling languid quality that she has in most of her other work- this lack of air and projection is overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of Christopher Walken when his one scene basically sucks all the rest of the energy from the film. He aggrandizes his own ability to be human- to defecate and control his urge for another fix. Whatever turmoil you're nothing- your pain is meaningless until you've rebuilt yourself and know suffering as an impetus to every drive of human atrocity.
The eventual shift to an orgiastic bloodletting covered in the filth of their addiction only to be absolved and reborn is another addiction. It is in this that the film dissolves any quandary to the effective embrace of the self. The core of sin- our Self- must be incinerated. Sip the blood of Christ and eat his body- your will is never your own. How horrific is that? Aka one jumbled reading of a few philosophical texts and the student is out to the wind to justify any and all action- so long as you eventually repent. How very Catholic.
Lily's performance wobbles in the outbursts- never coming to a full shout! All of the philosophical drivel becomes meaningless and monotone so the overwritten monologues become dull- the themes are more interesting than the presentation.