Vampire’s Kiss (1988): An Examination of the Internet’s Obsession with Nicolas Cage [Joey’s Review]

There’s a reason why we chose Nicolas Cage for this site/project/podcast. It’s the same reason why he’s my favorite actor. It’s the same reason why the internet has become obsessed with him. That reason? Most actors are boring, and Cage is not.

Actually, let me take a step back. I don’t know if boring is the right word. I’d say that most actors are perfectly competent and/or good at their jobs. This isn’t (by any stretch of the imagination) a knock against actors. The same is true in every profession; there are always a handful of people who stand out from the crowd. If more people were extraordinary, then no one would be.

There’s a reason we wait for Daniel Day-Lewis or Tom Cruise to make a new movie: they’re fully committed to their roles and singularly focused on the product in ways that few other actors are. They have a vision that they adhere to, and don’t let anyone hold them back from giving their project their all. The same is true with Cage.

Recent Nicolas Cage movies seem to render this statement false. It’s easy to point to straight-to-DVD movies that sound generic and familiar, such as DYING OF THE LIGHT or SEEKING JUSTICE or THE FROZEN GROUND, and say that he’s abandoned his artistic behavior. But that’s not true. Even in Cage’s worst movies, it’s rarely (if ever) him that’s the problem; instead, the issues usually stem from a shoddy script or sub-par co-stars or some other factor. Cage still gives these movies his all. He can’t not do this; he’s wired to be a star.

(There’s an explanation as to why he’s doing so many of these quick-release movies lately: he’s been paying off $6+ million in back taxes after almost going bankrupt in 2009 and filing a $20 million lawsuit against his former business partner. Sure, he’s made insane purchases, but if you were being paid millions of dollars per movie, and you worked every year [except 1985] since 1981, wouldn’t you?)

It’s this wiring that prompted the internet to seemingly adopt Cage as its mascot. Cage memes are everywhere; even people who have never seen (and may never see) a Nicolas Cage movie know about him because of his presence on the internet. To people like Mike Manzi and me, I feel this is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because everyone wants to talk about him, and read about him, which makes people want to read #CageClub more. It’s a curse because people don’t give him the time of day. They only know his insanity, they’re only vaguely familiar with his less-than-stellar recent track record. They don’t know about movies like RAISING ARIZONA or MOONSTRUCK or WILD AT HEART or LEAVING LAS VEGAS, where he gives genuinely breathtaking performances.

Much of the internet’s obsession with Cage comes from a few of his performances, and VAMPIRE’S KISS is the first such performance. (Another will be SNAKE EYES, which is coming in a couple months.) It’s billed on IMDb as a horror movie and a comedy, and it’s when those two genres blend that we get our first taste of truly off-the-rails Cage. Vampire’s kiss masquerades as a vampire movie, but actually chronicles one man’s descent into madness. I think a lot of the confusion — and a lot of the awe — surrounding Cage’s portrayal of Peter Loew comes from people not sure what’s going on, or why he’s doing the things he’s doing.

As the film goes along, Loew descends deeper and deeper into his psychosis. The first visible sign of his insanity is when he goes to serve coffee to a lover in his bed, when his bed is actually empty. This is less than 20 minutes into the film, and the most innocuous sign of his tenuous grip on reality. By the end of the movie, he’s soaked in the blood of a woman he murdered (by biting her neck), standing alone on a street corner in New York City, muttering to himself and imagining entire scenes that never happen.

Vampire’s Kiss has the most unreliable narrator of any #CageClub film this far. We very really have no idea how much of what happens on-screen actually happens. We don’t know if a vampire bat actually flies into his room while he’s on a date. We don’t know if Rachel (let alone Vampire-Rachel) ever makes her way back to his apartment; it seems by the end of the film that they had gone on a date, but nothing much more than that. In Loew’s reality, though, she compromised him, gave him the titular “vampire’s kiss,” and set him on a path of self-destruction. In fact, it’s pretty clear that she was never really at their apartment; it’s the morning after her visit that Cage serves coffee to his empty bed. We don’t know what happened that night, but it wasn’t what we saw.

As Loew loses his grasp on reality, even the most trivial things seem like insurmountable disasters. It’s Cage’s overreactions to these events — like his secretary’s seeming inability to master the concept of alphabetization — that causes him to explode and create meme-worthy moments.

Cage has this eruption. He eats a real cockroach (and did it 2-3 times to capture it for film!)

He fires a gun loaded with real blanks into his mouth — twice.

His eyes bug out.

He runs down the street shouting, “I’m a vampire!”

It’s a smorgasbord of Peak Cage. It’s no wonder the internet loves this movie.

What frustrates me about the internet is how quickly people discredit Cage based on a few memes or out-of-context video clips. Yes, this movie is lunacy, and may have almost wrecked his career. But it also demonstrates just how committed he is to each and every one of his roles. We’re only 12 films deep into #CageClub, with more than 60 films to go. But already we’ve seen Cage’s range, commitment, and ability demonstrated masterfully time and again. There’s a reason we’re doing #CageClub. And I can’t wait to continue this adventure.

How can I watch it? Just like Moonstruck, Vampire’s Kiss ain’t on Netflix or free on Amazon, but you can rent it on Amazon for $2.99. You can also catch Cage’s “best moments” from the film on YouTube.

What’s up next? Our road trip continues with a brief pit stop in NEVER ON TUESDAY. Cage is on screen for less than a minute, but ohmanohman it’s a doozy.