One of the more successful (financially, that is) examples of no-budget horror filmmaking from the nineties, a $500,000 film shot in 15 days that returned a reported $15 million profit. EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE (1995) was a straight-to-video product (albeit released theatrically in the Netherlands) produced by the veteran costume designer Marilyn Vance and directed by longtime editor Anne Goursaud, who’d go on to helm similarly-minded STV features like POISON IVY II (1996) and ANOTHER 9½ WEEKS (1997).
Among Goursand’s editing credits was Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992). Its influence is evident throughout EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE, which like Coppola’s film attempts a lush and artistic treatment while still delivering the exploitation movie goods. The film’s pretentions went completely unacknowledged in its packaging (which was more in keeping with the grade-Z STV epics put out by companies like Full Moon and 21st Century) and reception, which has then and now centered on the nudity displayed by its star Alyssa Milano.
Milano (who very nearly established a place in the 1990s B-movie firmament alongside names like Brinke Stevens and Linnea Quigley) plays 17-year-old Charlotte, a chaste virgin reincarnated from a medieval maiden who, we learn in a prologue, was in love with a nobleman. The latter (Martin Kemp) appears to Charlotte in dreams that invariably turn sexual. She has a boyfriend named Chris (Harrison Pruett), a nice guy with whom she plans to lose her virginity, but finds herself falling under her dream lover’s spell via an Ankh he provides, which changes her behavior whenever she wears it. Matters are further complicated by a lesbian photographer named Sarah (Charlotte Lewis) who nearly deflowers Charlotte.
The vampire, who’s looking to use Charlotte to make his way back to the land of the living, takes the form of Marika (Jennifer Tilly), a hot chick, to seduce Chris and lure him away from Charlotte. This fails, and all three characters somehow end up in a bell tower, from which only two walk away.
I’ll give Goursand credit for making an effort at transcending the 1990s erotic thriller aesthetic. Her film is colorful and stylish, even if that style (represented by frequent dissolves and backgrounds filled with ill-diffused smoke) imparts a sense of puddle-deep pretention that does nothing to alleviate the hard-to-follow narrative or dialogue like “I know it sounds kind of stupid but I thought you were in some kind of danger last night.”
Onto the film’s raison d’etre: Ms. Milano, who looks great but gives ample evidence why her acting career never progressed beyond the B-movie and episodic television spheres. Her character never comes off as anything more than a disaffected brat, with reactions that rarely fit the situations she faces—but regarding her copious nude scenes, no complaints.
Vital Statistics
EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE (THE NOSFERATU DIARIES: EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE)
The Ministry of Film/General Media Entertainment
Director: Anne Goursaud
Producer: Marilyn Vance, Alan Mruvka
Screenplay: Halle Eaton, Nicole Coady, Rick Bitzelberger
Cinematography: Suki Medencevic
Editing: Terilyn A. Shropshire
Cast: Alyssa Milano, Martin Kemp, Harrison Pruett, Jordan Ladd, Rachel True, Charlotte Lewis, Jennifer Tilly