At the time of writing this blog, Julian Sands went up a mountain in California and never came down. I’m hoping by the time this posts, they’ll have found his remains to give his loved ones closure.
And with that, I present Tale of a Vampire, in which Sands even with all of his magnificent angst cannot save a rather stupid film. Yeah. I’m going to give some opinions on this one and major SPOILER ALERT ahead.
Alex (Sands) is an Anne Rice reject who spends all of his time in a research library. Anne (Suzanna Hamilton from 1984) is the newest employee who looks identical to Alex’s lost love, Virginia. The two instantly have a thing for each other, but Alex is pretty much the most awkward romantic vampire ever so they’re relationship seems doomed from the start. I mean, beyond the whole she’s human and he wants to eat her thing.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man in a hat named Edgar shows up (Kenneth Cranham) and harasses Alex until she finally confronts Alex about his vampirism. Alex confesses quickly, stating that the love of his life, Virginia Clemm, who he met as child (gross) and turned into a vampire upon her deathbed, is still out in the world somewhere being held prisoner by Edgar, her former husband. At the same time, Alex also admits that he’s got the hots for Anne.
To sum up, Edgar kidnaps Anne, explains to Alex that he trapped Virginia in a lead coffin at the bottom of an ocean after he had her turn him into a vampire, and the two battle. Alex kills Edgar (or at least maims him pretty bad, the movie wasn’t clear on the vampire rules in this one). However, Anne is already dead and it’s too late for Alex to turn her. He lays his head on her chest and cries while the poem Annabel Lee is recited by a disembodied Edgar. The end.
No really. That was it. Alex cries over Anne being dead and doesn’t seem to have any intention of trying to find Virginia at the bottom of the sea. I mean, he’s immortal. He could see how far down he could go before pressure destroyed him. Either way, I’m really not sure what the point of this story was. Just to show that it sucks to be a vampire in love? He didn’t even get any.
Also, the Poe angle was odd. This movie is suggesting that when Virginia Clemm was a child, she befriended a grown vampire man, went through puberty with this guy as her “special friend”. She married Edgar, begged Alex to turn her when she was dying, ran off with Alex into a nondescript country setting, turned Edgar for some strange reason, and ended up in a fate worse than death. Oh, and Poe became a psychotic monster who killed for the fun of it (you know instead of just killing for sustenance) and decided to torture his rival with Virginia’s body parts which he’s just been carrying around with him for a century. Yep. This was not a great film. Even all of Sands tormented cries could not save it. I’m not even going to try to analyze this one.
