Love Bites (2001)
Aka Les morsures de l'aube and directed by Antoine de Caunes who i know better from Rapido and Eurotrash.
Love Bites is a bit of an oddball movie. Guillaume Canet plays a wannabe socialite who blags his way into upper class Parisian parties and finds himslef blackmailed into tracking down the elusive 'Jordan' and his sister Violaine (Asia Argento).
The film has a surreal edge to it and is slightly reminiscent of the vampire films of Jean Rollin as Canet's life spirals out of control on a downward slope. It feels whilst watching that either de Caunes or the producers didn't have the balls to go all out decadent and lacked something in the sleaze and violence departments. The parties and clubs visited are slightly risque but that's about it. I feel de Caunes should have gone with a mixture of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Schumacher's 8MM, instead what we have is a PG13 mash up of the two.
Asia Argento's vampish er' vamp is wasted and only has a couple of elongated but memorable scenes as the film seemingly struggled with it's identity. Does it want to be a gangster film, a vampire film, a drama or a straight up horror? And yet it's unevenness also makes it watchable as i'd forgotten what was coming next as it's been well over ten years since i last saw the movie. Having said that, the film looks great and certainly has it's moments including a vampire seduction that plays beautifully with the Jonathan Harker / vampire brides idea from Dracula.
|