Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmare – Vampire’s Kiss/High Spirits Blu-Ray Review
Welcome Back to Saint Mort’s Nostalgia Nightmare. Glad to see you enjoyed it enough last week to revisit. Continuing in my Scream Factory Blu-Ray reviews I’ve got another double feature. Today you can own their double feature release of Vampire’s Kiss and High Spirits. Let’s dive in!
Not only have I never seen either of these films prior to this Blu-Ray appearing on my doorstep, I’ve never even heard of one of them. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it. Over the course of 5 hours I watched Vampire’s Kiss twice (once normally and once with commentary) and High Spirits.
Let’s start with Vampire’s Kiss. I’d heard many things about this movie, specifically that it’s one of the most Cage-iest of Nicholas Cage movies. I was not lied to in the least. The movie is bizarre, confusing, unintentionally funny at parts and a chore to watch at others.
The movie tells the story of Peter Loew, a womanizing literary agent who spends all day in the office and all night at the clubs and having one night stands. One night he takes home a vampire named Rachel who begins feeding on him nightly. Or does he?
Vampire’s Kiss is all about questioning what is reality while following an unhinged businessman that’s wrapped up in all the sleeze, culture and status of the 80s. Basically it’s American Psycho if Nicholas Cage played Patrick Bateman.
It’s got some fantastic moments in it and has notoriety for a infamous still which has become a meme (Scream Factory was smart to include that still on the back of the Blu-Ray). The commentary track between director Robert Bierman and Nicholas Cage is interesting to say the least. The two think highly of the movie and Bierman makes a few references to stylistic choices but then saying things like “I think I did that consciously”.
If you can get past Cage’s awkward accent choice (he sounds like he’s doing a bad Keanu Reeves impression) and the dark comedic cruelness it’s not a bad film to watch… once. You’ll most likely never watch it again (unless you listen to the commentary track)… the same can’t be said for High Spirits.
I had a lot of fun experiencing High Spirits for the first time. I’m willing to believe that if I saw this movie when I was a child I’d hold it with the same level of nostalgic praise that I hold movies like Monster Squad and The Goonies.
Looking at this cast it’s amazing that I’ve never heard of this film. It’s a fantastic ensemble featuring such infamous actors as Peter O’Toole, Daryl Hannah, Liam Neeson, Jennifer Tilly, Steve Guttenberg and Beverly D’Angelo.
The movie follows Peter Plunkett who’s about to have his castle repossessed. In order to keep his property he tries to claim it’s haunted to scare the Americans that are visting the castle (including the daughter of the man repossessed the castle). When their fake ghost stories are discovered, real ghosts begin haunting the castle including Mary and Martin.
Many centuries ago when Mary and Martin were married, Martin murdered Mary for infidelity. Every night the two are forced to re-enact that night. That is until one of the Americans Jack (Guttenberg) stops Martin, putting an end to cycle and causing Mary to fall in love with him.
I hope this film finds a decent resurgence from this Blu-Ray, as it’s a fantastic Halloween movie with ghosts, romance, comedy and a handful of good jump scares.
The most baffling thing about this film is that it’s written and directed by Neil Jordan, a man known for films of more adult nature like The Company of Wolves, The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire.
Doing research to do these reviews/writeups I can’t understand how Vampire’s Kiss was more critically well received. It’s an interesting film but for very unintentional reasons. High Spirits is a much more enjoyable film overall.
Pick up a copy of the Vampire’s Kiss/High Spirits Blu-ray Today!
Matt Kelly hosts The Saint Mort Show and the Reddit Horror Club as well as writes for Geekscape and his blog Every Damn DVD. He’s also going to spend Valentine’s Day night in the basement watching horror movies while his roommate has sex. He’d love it if you bought him something on his Amazon Wishlist to convince him to take that shotgun barrel out of his mouth.
