A Vampire a Day: Jim Carrey in OONCE BITTEN

this 1985 movie is a take on the Countess Bathory legend about a countess who bathed in the blood of virgins. In this iteration, Lauren Hutton's vampire Countess must drink the blood of a virgin to maintain her eternal beauty. But this is the 80s and virgins aren't that easy to find. Until...Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) comes along.

the movie was made five years before Jim Carrey broke out in In Living Color and nine yearss before he starred in the trifecta of films that turned him into a superstar--Mask, Ace Ventura, and Dumb and Dumber. Once Bitten was released to 1095 theaters nationwide--it didn't even get a release in Carrey's native Canada--and grossed just a little bit more than $10 million. Even twenty years ago, that was a pretty poor performance.Janet Maslin, legendary critic for the New York Times gave it a thumbs up ("Call me crazy, but I liked it") but she was pretty much the only one. It's really a TERRIBLE movie, although i have friends who like to wallow in 80s kitsch and claim that it's actually a perfect time capsule of L.A. in mid-decade. Which may be true, but I don't have a lot of nostalgia for either the time period or the city.

A Vampire a Day: Vamp

I have a theory about vampire movies and the lackluster performance of 2014's Vampire Academy bears it out. I don't think audiences really like comedy blended with their vampire stories. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a hugely successful television series but the movie it was based on only made $16 million domestically and was never released overseas.
Vamp was a movie I saw one weekend when my roommate and I scooped up a ton of videos more or less at random because our local video store was already out of all the new releases. I wasn't expecting much, frankly, but as it turns out, I was pretty entertained. for one thing, Grace Jones as the vampire was both sexy and scary. For another, some of the comedy really worked. (I particularly liked amoment when a character gets staked through the heart but doesn't die because it's formica and not wood.) Robert Rusler as Chris Makepeace's hapless friend was darkly handsome (yes, I can be shallow), and Gedde Watanabe starred as well. Billy Drago and Sandy Baron also co-starred and were perfect.
If you're looking for something pulpy and silly to watch one Halloween night, check out Vamp.

A Vampire a Day: Innocent Blood

You didn't see this movie. Nobody did. I know this because it was a Warner Bros. movie and I was working at WB at the time. In fact, I was working at Warner Bros. helping develop a vampire script that had been written by two guys who'd penned a massive, franchise-spawning hit. The premise of the script was original and featured vampires in Vegas preying on people in 12-Step programs. We submitted the script to the studio the weekend Innocent Blood opened and on Monday, our script was deader than disco. And unlike vampires, it did not rise from the dead. (For the record, Box Office Mojo says it made less than $5 million in domestic release (and even in 1992, that was terrible). It never got an international release and considering the global appetite for horror, that tells you just what a stinker the studio had on its hands.

On paper, the movie was a no-brainer. Directed by John Landis, starring Anne Parillaud who was hot off La Femme Nikita, and the late, great Robert Loggia, with Anthony LaPaglia and Angela Bassett in supporting roles. The movie was chock full  of character actors, from Zhazz Palmenteri to Luis Guzman. Even Don Rickles showed up. The storyline combines romance, Mafiosi, and dark humor. Maybe it was the humor that was the problem. Audiences seem to prefer their vampire movies straight up unless it's an out and out spoof like Vampires Suck.

It had a GREAT poster. The kind of image you could see on a paranormal romance today. No fangs, just Anne Parillaud's gorgeous face and big red eyes.

If you're curious, you can watch the trailer here.