Tale of a Vampire

I'm a huge a vampire horror/romance fan and I thought this movie delivered that romance, mystery, and horror found in most vampire stories. Alex (played by the physically stunning Julian Sands) is a lonely vampire still mourning the loss of his lover, Virginia. He spends most of his time brooding the streets and hanging around the local library until one day he meets Ann (Suzanna Hamilton, a wonderful actress who seemed to have disappeared after a good body of work) who bears a striking resemblence to Virginia. Like Alex, Ann is alone and in mourning of her lover who died in an accident. Through bizarre circumstances brought on by a mysterious man, Ann and Alex become drawn and attracted to one another.

I loved the relationship between Alex and Ann. Filled with tension, repulsion, regret, sadness, longing, and desperation. The film is flawed because it moves at a slow pace, but the story itself is good. The performances by Sands and Hamilton are good and does not play out the cheesiness of the whole swooning into the vampire's arms routine. Ann is real and lovely to Alex while she is touched by his sadness and drawn by his mystery. It's a vampire movie that tries not to play the same formula and plays as a human drama of two very different beings.

This is one of the most morbid and thoroughly depressing vampire stories I have ever seen...and yet, it also contains moments of dark beauty that nearly redeem it.

Alex (Julian Sands) is a lonely, centuries old vampire wandering the streets of London. The only woman he ever loved was lost to him centuries ago...but there's a new woman in his life, a woman named Ann who bears an extraordinary resemblance to Virginia, the young girl Alex once loved. Ann has recently lost a love of her own to a fiery car crash, and lives deep in her own gray depression. After an anonymous letter leads her to a new job in an occult library, Ann begins a slow, hesitant courtship with Alex, whom she finds both attractive and a little spooky. Alex, confused and jaded (and also unable to refrain from imagining himself feeding on Ann) holds her at arms length. But the fears and emotions of Alex and Ann are not the only complications in their relationship. There's another man stalking them both...a man named Edgar, who was once married to Virginia and has been looking for Alex for a very long time.

This movie is, quite obviously, an homage to the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, most of which dealt with the sad, early deaths of beautiful young women, one of which was Poe's own wife and cousin, Virginia. It is a slow, dark, oppressively bleak tale, filled with blood and despair. It is an all-too mortal tale of loves lost and people scarred by the cruelties of life, be it mortal or immortal. This sad tale of pain has no happy ending and reinforces the depressing ideal that what we love most will be taken from us forever, before the love can ever be admitted, known, expressed and shared.

This film is beautifully shot and has great performances. The story is nothing new, but its strange little twists almost make up for that fact. By all means, see it at least once, especially if you're a fan of vampire cinema...just don't watch it when you're already depressed, because it won't do a thing to snap you out of it.

This film isn't about plot or dialogue so much as it is about angles, style and lighting technique. The plot moves slowly so the watcher can enjoy the express talents of the director's shot choices.

Julian Sands is riveting, capturing the personality of a slightly deranged vampire riddled with heartache and centuries of guilt, while Suzanna Hamilton portrays a woman beside her own wits with grief. The shift between plotlines is especially brilliant when they collide with present moments in time.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who can appreciate a good art film.

The opening scenes move as fluidly as frozen velveeta. The attempt at dramatic dialogue only makes me wish I had better control of the fast forward control. Vampires are usually portrayed as sexy and intelligent or mangy disgusting creatures. This vampire tries to seduce his prey by imitating a lost puppy. I usually tally a body count, so there was a cat (which doesn't count) a bum, a girl who fell out of the sky with a sword in her (whatever that was about) and then the plot. Foley artists are respected for using celery to create the sound of a broken arm, but using the sound of biting into an apple for a vampire biting a victim is just plain silly. I liked Warlock, but this movie just stunk so bad that we turned it off, and it was so forgettable we rented it a year later only to turn it off again.

If your idea of vampire films involves buckets of blood, fast-paced action, a ton of ultra-violence, a fair bit of sex, then more blood, this film will not be for you. You will be bored stiff, and will find little satisfying in this film.

However, for those people who can appreciate something more than that, and value the more subtle approaches to filmaking, then this is definitely worth a look.

This is an art-house style movie, with a good, and suitably heart-wrenching story, directed, filmed and lit in a stunningly beautiful, and thoughtful way.

Acting is superb throughout, but its the sets, the lighting, and the film work itself that make this film shine. And it does. I didn't find it boring, or even particularly slow paced. I had enormous empathy for the situations of both main characters, and was pleased that the ending avoided all the cinematic clichés of the past 50 years.

You could view it as depressing, and in many ways it is, but I don't mind that in a film. If I want inane one-liners, and throw-away vampire entertainment, I'll watch Buffy, or Blade. If I want something a bit more intelligent, thought-provoking, and different, then this is it.

I happily award this film 10 / 10 - I haven't enjoyed a film as much as I did this one for quite some time. i will be buying it on DVD.