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The Addiction

Play trailer Poster for The Addiction Released Oct 4, 1995 1h 22m Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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74% Tomatometer 31 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 Bloody fun, the film is classic Ferrara -- stomach-churning, infuriating, sublime. Dec 27, 2022 Full Review Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader No matter, without exactly transcending the awful material, Ferrara puts it across with astonishing poetry and conviction. Oct 20, 2009 Full Review Time Out Scary, funny, magnificently risible, this could be the most pretentious B-movie ever -- and I mean that as a compliment. Jun 24, 2006 Full Review Rob Gonsalves Rob's Movie Vault One of Abel Ferrara’s interesting failures. Rated: C- Sep 1, 2022 Full Review Lisa Nesselson France24 You can look at it as an allegory for addiction...or you can enjoy the sexy and unnerving tale. Mar 30, 2021 Full Review C.H. Newell Father Son Holy Gore Ferrara looks at the deeper truths of what it is to be right or wrong. How do we live with ourselves if we choose to embrace the darker side of our nature? Better yet, can we? Rated: 4.5/5 May 1, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (157) audience reviews
Steve D It isn't as clever as it thinks it is but it is interesting and beautifully shot. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 09/15/23 Full Review Audience Member 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. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member The first hour was a good antidote to umpteen other vampire movies in which they are portrayed as either mindless bloodsuckers or toothed renaissance intellectuals who cannot stand light because of its affiliation with good. B&W made a huge difference to the realism - you can imagine all you want without colour - and the acting was largely beyond compare. A scene of apparent direct conflict with god took the shine off it. Then the party scene reverted to much we bored of long ago though thankfully Dante made an entry soon after and, unusually for a vampire movie, it became more interesting. As a physicist it's reassuring to see philosophers who spout nonsense get sucked dry of the little sense they possess. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Inspired by a mind transfixed by philosophical gibberish and vampire fetish has produced this weird monochrome tedium. Walked as ever acts well, I would struggle to recommend the rest of the film. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member It's a cool little indie flick that one again uses Vampirism as symbolism for addiction. It's the kind pretentious little film that you expect to show at a smokey jazz club with a bongo playing in the background while you drone on psuedo-intellectually about philosophy. That said, there are some cool ideas and visuals working in it, and it raises some interesting points of discussion. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/11/19 Full Review Audience Member Heidegger + vampiri + lesbiche = moda Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Addiction

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Cast & Crew

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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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