In the sister film to the Funeral philosophy student Kathleen Conklin is dragged into an alley and bitten by Casanova and left to bleed. Despite hospital care she begins to change and have strange desires. With her desires controlling her turns to Peina for help.
A sister film in that both film share a crew, a writer and some of the cast. The genres are very different but the themes are the same religion and redemption. The vampire thing isn't played like it usually is stakes through the heart etc, these are mentioned but not laboured. Instead the story is about the origins of sin and the extent it controls us and how we can be redeemed. It cleverly uses the vampire myth as an allegory for wider human evil `We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. We aren't evil because we do evil, we do evil because we are evil'.
At times it gets a little heavy the ending in particular takes some interpretation and the message can be easily misunderstood. However ignoring the message this also stands up as a great vampire film the party which turns into a massacre is as good (if not better) then the nightclub opening of Blade, and much more meaningful to boot. Ferrara is a master director who has never followed the money to blockbusters here he is in total control of his themes and the film rarely loses focus. His clever use of music is also good a blend of all styles. The theme song feels like it's going to be a 1980's romantic comedy, but this blends straight into hip-hop and others to create a mix that never feels strange in fact a baseline seems to run under the whole film like a heartbeat.
Lili Taylor is on top form as Conklin and commands attention the whole time. Walken and Sciorra are both good but have less screen time than in the Funeral, however here, as there, they have key lines of dialogue that carry tremendous weight. Sopranos co-stars Falco and Imperioli are both good but are no more than bit players. The real stars are Ferrara and writer Nicolas St John, who wrote this and The Funeral after the death of his son.
Overall this is a great film that serves up more for thought than for action. To this end it won't please those expecting a Blade style vampire film but to fans of Ferrara used to his themes this will be very enjoyable.
