The Addiction

The Addiction
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Abel Ferrara
Written by	Nicholas St. John
Produced by	Preston L. Holmes Russell Simmons Denis Hann Fernando Sulichin Antony Blinken
Starring	Lili Taylor Christopher Walken Annabella Sciorra Edie Falco Paul Calderón Fredro Starr Kathryn Erbe Michael Imperioli
Cinematography	Ken Kelsch
Edited by	Mayin Lo
Music by	Joe Delia
Distributed by	October Films
Release dates	January 25, 1995 (1995-01-25) (Sundance) February 18, 1995 (1995-02-18) (Berlin) October 6, 1995 (1995-10-06) (United States)
Running time	82 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$302,393

The Addiction is a 1995 American vampire horror film directed by Abel Ferrara and written by Nicholas St. John. Starring Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Paul Calderón, Fredro Starr, Kathryn Erbe, and Michael Imperioli, the film follows a philosophy graduate student who is turned into a vampire after being bitten by a woman during a chance encounter on the streets of New York City. After the attack, she struggles coming to terms with her new lifestyle and begins developing an addiction for human blood. The film was shot in black-and-white and has been considered an allegory about drug addiction and the theological concept of sin.^[1][2]

The Addiction premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 1995, and was screened at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival on February 18, 1995, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear.^[3] The film was theatrically released in the United States on October 6, 1995. Despite underperforming commercially, the film received positive reviews, with Taylor's performance earning critical praise. At the 11th Independent Spirit Awards, Ferrara was nominated for Best Feature and Taylor was nominated for Best Female Lead.^[4][5]

Film critic Peter Bradshaw named The Addiction as one of his top ten favourite films in a 2002 Sight and Sound poll.^[6]

Plot

Kathleen Conklin, an introverted graduate student of philosophy at

During finals week in the library, Kathleen meets a female anthropology student. They go to the woman's apartment to study, where Kathleen bites her neck. While the young woman weeps incredulously, Kathleen coldly informs her "My indifference is not the concern here, it's your astonishment that needs studying". Later, Kathleen runs into an acquaintance, who goes by the street name "Black", at a deli. She propositions him for sex and the two leave, but soon attacks him on an empty street and drinks his blood. Later on campus, Kathleen confronts Jean, rambling about the nature of guilt, before proceeding to bite her neck and drink her blood.

While walking on the street, Kathleen meets Peina, a vampire who claims to have almost conquered his addiction and as a result is almost human. For a time, he keeps her in his home, trying to help her overcome hers, recommending that she read William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Later, Kathleen defends her dissertation to a committee and is awarded her Doctorate of Philosophy. At the graduation party, she and Jean feast on the blood of a waitress in a storage closet. Afterwards, she, Jean, Casanova, and the other victims proceed to attack the other attendees in a bloody, chaotic orgy.

Kathleen, having overdosed from the bloody bacchanal and appearing wracked with regret, wanders the streets covered in blood. She ends up in a hospital and asks the nurse to let her die but the nurse refuses. Kathleen decides to commit suicide by asking the nurse to open the curtains. After the nurse leaves, Casanova appears in Kathleen's hospital room, shuts the curtains and quotes R. C. Sproul to her. Next, a Catholic priest visits Kathleen's room and agrees to administer Viaticum. In the final scene, Kathleen visits her own grave in broad daylight. In a voice-over, Kathleen quotes: "self-revelation is annihilation of self".

Cast

Production

Concept

According to Abel Ferrara, the characters of Peina and Casanova were originally written as a female and male respectively. When Walken read the script, he thought Peina was a male character and wanted to play the role. As a result, Walken had his way on portraying Peina whereas Casanova was played by Sciorra.

The Addiction was shot on location in Manhattan, in Greenwich Village and on the New York University campus.^[8] The sequences inside Peina's home were shot in a loft owned by Julian Schnabel, who allowed Ferrara to film there.^[8] Lili Taylor recalled meeting with Ferrara and rehearsing scenes at his apartment during evenings leading up to the shoot.^[8] Taylor and co-star Michael Imperioli, whom she was dating at the time, would walk the streets in Manhattan late at night, which Taylor stated helped her get into the mindset of the character.^[8]

Analysis

Scholar David Carter interprets The Addiction as a reimagining of the vampire film, in which the vampire's victims submit to being bitten and thus take on bloodlust for themselves

Historically within fiction, while vampires so often represent sexual desire, the baggage that came with that desire was being a slave to it. Vampires need and lust for blood at base primal level. Within The Addiction it's taken even further. Vampires are themselves the addicted and the addiction, foisting themselves alluringly upon people who want to dabble in something dangerous and all consuming. The words Casanova speaks to Kathleen (“Look at me and tell me to go away. Don't ask, tell me”) become a refrain in the film, the idea being that the prey want to become addicted even when they know the risks.^[9]

Scholar Tom Pollard interprets the film as a metaphor for drug addiction, which Ferrara has called as the theme of the film.^[8] "This plot relies on human willpower to control addiction...  Eventually [Kathleen] achieves the necessary willpower and seemingly triumphs over death after she's reborn as a human".^[1] In addition to the thematic parallel to drug addiction noted by several critics and scholars, Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzalez considers the film "perhaps the most fabulously serpentine political work of Ferrara's career, a quivering nexus of AIDS allegory, identity crisis, historical unease, and socio-economic panic".^[10] Film scholars Yoram Allon, Del Cullen and Hannah Patterson note the film's preoccupation with religion, salvation and self-destruction, which are recurrent in Ferrara's films and add that it "perfectly illustrates Ferrara's obsession with the collapse of moral order".^[11]

Film critic

The Addiction premiered in New York City on October 4, 1995, and opened in Los Angeles two days later, on October 6, 1995.^[13] It was distributed in North American markets by October Films, who one month earlier released Nadja, a vampire film also shot in black-and-white and set in New York City.^[14]

Home media

The Addiction remained unreleased on

The Addiction grossed a total of $46,448 during its opening weekend, playing in seven cinemas in the United States, averaging $6,635 per theater.[19] It expanded to a total of 14 theaters before closing on January 11, 1996, concluding its theatrical run with a domestic gross of $307,308.^[19]

Critical response

As of January 2, 2022^[update], the film holds a rating of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Abel Ferrara's 1995 horror/suspense experiment blends urban vampire adventure with philosophical analysis to create a smart, idiosyncratic and undeniably odd take on the genre."^[20]

Stephen Hunter of The Baltimore Sun praised Taylor for portraying Kathleen "with dour, sexless intensity," and deemed the film "far sexier than Interview with the Vampire and far deadlier than the campy Nadja...  It's extremely disturbing, a graduate- level movie for advanced students in any of three subjects: cinema, philosophy and debauchery."^[12]

Accolades

At the

At the 11th Independent Spirit Awards, the film was nominated for Best Feature and Best Female Lead.^[24] At Mystfest, it won the Critics Award and was also nominated for Best Film.^[25] The film received high praise from critic Peter Bradshaw, who named it as one of his top ten favourite films in a 2002 Sight and Sound poll.^[26]

References