Film

Vampire's Kiss

Name: Vampire's Kiss
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Fantasy
Released: 1989
Cast: Nicolas Cage, María Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Ashley, Kasi Lemmons

A Manhattan publishing executive spirals into obsessive derangement after a late-night encounter with a vampire. Nicolas Cage commits wholly to the role's unraveling psyche in this baroque horror-comedy that blurs the line between genuine supernatural affliction and elaborate psychological breakdown. It's a performance piece masquerading as genre fun.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a performance that goes full throttle, where a man's unraveling is played as both farce and nightmare, and you enjoy black comedy that refuses to explain itself.

Skip it if you want a coherent vampire story or restrained acting; this is mostly one man's frayed nerves, and its cruelty toward the people around him can curdle the laughs.

What it asks of you: Under two hours of escalating volume, with long stretches where the camera stays tight on one face and the mood swings between sour comedy and jolting dread.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

American Psycho2000

A wealthy Manhattan professional descends into violence and madness while maintaining his respectable facade. Like Vampire's Kiss, it's a darkly comic dissection of urban male ego and performative sanity that asks how much of the horror is real.

But The satire can feel heavy-handed, and the extreme content—graphic violence, sexual cruelty—exists partly to provoke rather than illuminate.

The Wolf Man1941

A man grapples with the horrifying realization that he's transforming into something inhuman, watching helplessly as his affliction reshapes his life and relationships. The monster isn't the real threat; the loss of self is.

But It's a classic Universal horror, so the pacing and effects read as period-piece slow. The tragedy is genuine, which means less camp than Cage's performance provides.

Possessor2020

A deeply unsettling portrait of a consciousness fractured and colonized by outside forces. Brandon Cronenberg creates the same queasy dread of watching someone lose control of their own body and mind, but with sci-fi precision instead of vampire mythology.

But It's austere and punishing. Cage's wildness has no equivalent here; instead there's cold body horror and psychological claustrophobia.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Vampire's Kiss

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom1976

Both films use exaggerated, almost operatic performance to depict the total dissolution of a human being's moral and psychological boundaries.

Pasolini's baroque nightmare transposes the Marquis de Sade to fascist Italy, creating a landscape of absolute corruption where performance and depravity become indistinguishable. Like Vampire's Kiss, it uses grotesque spectacle to explore power, delusion, and the willing surrender of self.

But This is genuinely difficult to watch. It contains explicit content, graphic violence, and defecation. Even serious film lovers often find it unwatchable rather than insightful.

After Hours1985

A man's ordinary night in Manhattan becomes an escalating nightmare of surreal encounters and misunderstandings. Scorsese captures that same feverish New York atmosphere where reality warps and the protagonist becomes increasingly unmoored.

But It's more of a dark comedy-thriller than horror, and the tone shifts can feel scattered rather than purposeful.

Mulholland Drive2001

A fractured narrative about delusion, performance, and the self that shatters under scrutiny. Like Vampire's Kiss, it keeps you guessing whether the unreality is external or internal—and whether that distinction matters.

But It demands patience and rewards repeated viewings, which not everyone wants from a film. The dream-logic can feel pretentious if you're not in the mood.

The Lighthouse2019

Two men in isolation descend into paranoia and madness, with reality growing increasingly unstable. The black-and-white cinematography and Lynchian atmosphere create mounting dread alongside moments of dark comedy.

But It's aggressively arthouse—strange aspect ratio, incomprehensible accents, deliberately abrasive sound design. Not a movie that wants to comfort you.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer1986

A deeply unsettling character study of a man whose interior life is utterly divorced from normal human feeling. It's unflinching about the banality of evil in a way that makes you complicit in watching.

But It's grimly serious about violence and suffering. There's no humor, no lightness, no relief—just sustained dread and moral nausea.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer poster

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari1920

A warped, expressionist fever dream about the collapse of sanity and the unreliability of perception. The distorted sets and shadows create a visual vocabulary for psychological disintegration that influenced everything after.

But It's silent, it's slow, and the plot is genuinely difficult to follow. The visual style demands adjustment from modern viewers accustomed to naturalism.

Bad Lieutenant1992

Harvey Keitel as a corrupt cop in free-fall, performing an increasingly unhinged descent into moral and psychological chaos. It shares Cage's willingness to let the protagonist become almost repulsive in their unraveling.

But Keitel's performance is so raw and ugly it can feel exploitative. The film offers no redemption and little catharsis, leaving you with just the wreckage.

Wings of Desire1987

Both feature a protagonist caught between two states of being, unable to fully inhabit either human or inhuman existence, and both use that liminal state as the engine for their storytelling.

Wim Wenders' meditation on desire, mortality, and what it means to be human unfolds as a poetic reverie about a angel drawn down into earthly suffering. It's the opposite register from Vampire's Kiss—serious, lyrical, transcendent—but explores the same obsession with transformation and falling.

But It's deliberately slow and abstract. If you're looking for plot momentum or clear narrative, this will feel like watching clouds. Its rewards come from surrendering to mood rather than following action.

Maniac1980

Both films plunge you into the subjective reality of a man whose perception of the world has become fundamentally deranged, making you complicit in experiencing his delusion as though it were truth.

William Lustig's brutal slasher follows a serial killer through escalating depravity with an unflinching first-person POV. Like Cage's character, the protagonist is absolutely unreliable—you're trapped in a mind that's fragmenting in real time, unable to trust what you're seeing.

But This is a nasty, misogynistic film made to provoke rather than to redeem. It offers no moral compass and takes genuine pleasure in suffering. Many will find it contemptible rather than illuminating.