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The Addiction

Play trailer Poster for The Addiction 1995 1h 22m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
75% Tomatometer 32 Reviews 68% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.
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The Addiction

The Addiction

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Critics Consensus

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.

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Critics Reviews

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Manohla Dargis Spin 12/27/2022
Bloody fun, the film is classic Ferrara -- stomach-churning, infuriating, sublime. Go to Full Review
Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader 10/20/2009
No matter, without exactly transcending the awful material, Ferrara puts it across with astonishing poetry and conviction. Go to Full Review
Time Out 06/24/2006
Scary, funny, magnificently risible, this could be the most pretentious B-movie ever -- and I mean that as a compliment. Go to Full Review
Ray Pride Newcity Oct 3
10/10
Indelible, ineffable Lili Taylor at her formidable best... While the characters drench themselves in grad-school chatter, the milieu is still recognizable as Ferrara’s ultra-serious, ultra-perverse New York and its congeries of overlapping demimondes. Go to Full Review
Rob Gonsalves Rob's Movie Vault 09/01/2022
C-
One of Abel Ferrara’s interesting failures. Go to Full Review
Lisa Nesselson France24 03/30/2021
You can look at it as an allegory for addiction...or you can enjoy the sexy and unnerving tale. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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John M Jul 5 Not your usual vampire flick, which makes it an enthralling movie. A terrific cast takes on the premise of peoplr who are brought into the vampiric world by virtue, in some ways, of their desire for it. This is also a world where a vampire can finish a PhD in philosophy. Philosophy is not incidental to the film as it proposes that the vampiric addiction, perhaps all of humanity has, is to sin and evil seen throughout the film in clips of mass murder or genocide victims. The end of the film raises questions for me as to whether Lily Taylor’s character is dead or alive and what that means in this film. See more Stephen C @bob25009 Jul 1 Success in 1 hour and 22 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See more MikesReviewsArt n May 13 *Rough Thoughts* 95% Get your neck biting on! Love the black and white style to it gives it a Gothic look. Don’t believe the bs marketing. Christopher walken comes like the last 30 minutes of the movie they make it seem like he’s a main guy he’s not. The messaging Metaphor for about addictions to drugs and sex. also that were nothing without our desires. They drive us, but also break us. Creature of habit. The inheritance of human corruption. See more Dan C Apr 22 Dipping with the cliches of 90s 'grittiness', this diatribe on philosophy, wrapped in a bizarre narrative about vampires, comes off more like a student film experiment than peice of cinema that has anything worthwhile to say. See more Steve D 09/15/2023 It isn't as clever as it thinks it is but it is interesting and beautifully shot. See more 06/24/2022 The Addiction, a black and white arthouse vampire flick, revolves around a philosophy student developing a thirst for blood after being bitten by a mystery woman while walking along the street. The film, for some bizarre reason, led critics to speculate that the story night be a metaphor for drug addiction. I don't say this because that's one of many interpretations, but because the metaphor is so blatant that there's absolutely no way a person can possibly miss it. The word addiction is literally in the movies title! Also, director Abe Ferrara has himself struggled with drug addiction in the past, so it makes sense why he'd want to make a film with this subject matter. Its not a film with which I was especially enamoured. The performances are good and there's a palpable sense of escalation in terms of our lead's vampiric tendencies, but so much of it is just philosophical prattling, like the filmmakers took pieces written by Sartre, Aristotle, Descartes, Marx and the likes and simply lifted quotes and placed them into the script. It felt like a film I seen a few years ago, I'm Thinking Of Ending Things, where the majority of the dialogue was just 2 people trying to see who could say the smartest thing. The images of holocaust victims feels unnecessary and even tasteless, and not a lot was done to make our lead a sympathetic character. The best element was, unsurprisingly, Christopher Walken, who could do nothing but read out of the phone book for an hour and a half and you'd never lose interest. But his appearance is just a glorified cameo, a chance to inject yet more exposition into a story where every character already explains way too much. It didn't feel too long, and I wasn't ever bored by it, but I feel the film did a disservice to itself by having its metaphors be so on the nose as to be redundant. An interesting concept, but a result that just didn't appeal to me. See more Read all reviews
The Addiction

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Movie Info

Synopsis A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.
Director
Abel Ferrara
Producer
Fernando Sulichin, Denis Hann
Screenwriter
Nicholas St. John
Distributor
Polygram, October Films
Production Co
October Films
Genre
Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 4, 1995, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Jun 1, 2017
Runtime
1h 22m
Sound Mix
Surround
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