From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Vampire In Brooklyn released in 1995.
Starring:
Eddie Murphy, Angela Bassett, Allen Payne
Directed by:
Wes Craven
Genre:
Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
Motion Picture Rating:
R
Budget:
$20,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb Rating is currently:
4.5
The Synopsis is:
Maximilian, the last vampire seeks his only chance to love with, Rita, the only half vampire alive n Brooklyn.
Story:
After more than a decade of successful collaborations, Eddie Murphy needed one more film to finish out his obligation to Paramount Pictures so he could go on to re-make The Nutty Professor.
Vampire in Brooklyn became the vehicle as he, along with Vernon Lynch and his brother, Charlie Murphy came up with the idea for the story. First time screenwriters Charlie Murphy, Michael Lucker, and Chris Parker wrote the screenplay, while horror movie maverick, Wes Craven directed the film.
The story is not bad adopting a generic Dracula tale quality to it and I think that's something everyone can pretty much agree on. However, there are quite a few unique aspects to this movie that puts a big smile on my face and it’s not that it’s funny, but because it’s such an unusual blend of things put together.
The first 35 minutes of the film is a horror comedy. Then it turns into a full out comedy for about 30 minutes. Then it turns into a romantic horror thriller for the end of the film. It's kinda wacky.
Pacing:
At 1h 40min, it has a decent run time for all of the things that are featured in the film. However, as I mentioned when describing the story, it feels like there were 3 movies in this one film competing with each other for screen time.
Challenge:
The challenge is Maximillian the last vampire to exist seeking his bride in Brooklyn. It’s hard to describe him as the antagonist because we do experience much of the movie from his point of view as if he is the protagonist.
There isn’t an epic reason why Maximillian needs a bride like repopulating the species or restoring a legacy. He’s just a lonely soul that does not want to go on alone.
So that is kind of romantic and instead of seeing him as a monster, you want him to succeed.
However the there is no denying Max is a quite dangerous and vicious killer his underlying evil grows more apparent as the film goes on.
He cannot just mate with anyone. It must be one of his own kind and in this vampire lore vampires are not simply made by biting the necks of one's victims. You must be born into it or endure a particular set of occurrences.
In Brooklyn there is one half vampire, Detective Rita Veder who is unaware of her heritage.
Max sets out to romance her, which is quite enjoyable to me because I do love a good vampire romance story. What is different in this one is how Max doesn’t just entrance Rita, but seeks to corrupt her morals. One great example of that is when Max takes the form of Preacher Pauly and hilariously says, “evil is good” in order to tear down Rita’s faith. That is Max’s main purpose in the film, to destroy Rita’s faith in humanity, her human self so she can embrace her vampire killer instincts. Without her humanity, he will be the only one he can turn to.
Not bad for an evil plan.
I rather enjoyed the complexity of his villainy because he is very charming and likeable, staying ahead of his enemies.
He gets a local low life numbers runner, Julius to help him with his mission, acting as the Renfield of the story to serve him.
Julius is a loud obnoxious over-the-top character full of energy. He’s not a bad guy except for the fact that thinks of only himself which catches Max’s attention.
What I liked about his character is that the film does something unique with him by making him a ghoul, or more or less a zombie. As the film progresses, Julius’s physical body deteriorates as he loses precious body parts. This progression is reminiscent of An American Werewolf in London released in 1981, where Jack slowly rots on screen. It’s a nod, but completely different.
It was done wonderfully in my opinion and really played into the comedy aspect of the film.
Julius himself gets a little annoying at times, so it’s hilarious when Max snaps at him for it. I liked their awkward chemistry together.
Empathy:
The character of Rita is the main focus in the movie as she’s really trying to cope with her mysterious heritage and her supernatural connection to the world around her.
Rita’s mother was a visiting researcher in the Islands and was seduced by Rita’s vampire father, making Rita a half vampire.
Her mother was put into an asylum when Rita was born and then died recently. She has no one to talk to about why she feels, so different, so alone.
Her partner, Detective Justice is having a hard time believing everything that she suggests which creates a lot of tension between them.
What is kinda surprising is that this tension is somehow leading up to possibly some romantic feelings. The love story element between the two is a little forced, but luckily something always gets in the way, wedging them apart allowing Max to step right into her life.
I don’t think I ever wanted to people not to fall in love as much as with these two and I was rooting for Max and Rita to be a couple.
Somewhere along the story, it dawned on me that Justice was supposed to be the Jonathan Harker of the story and unfortunately Jonathan Harker is not a character that I typically enjoy in the Dracula tale.
But, Justice is responsible for being the physical representation of Rita’s faith in humanity. He is the one human being in the film that Rita shows emotional feelings for. The question that the film bypasses is why.
Technical:
This is an interesting film because the director is Wes Craven, responsible for the Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream movies, which have a nice blend of terror and comedy.
This seemed to be a perfect fit for him and you can see brief moments of his cinematic touches here and there. There are some amazingly well crafted scenes that are simply gorgeous to watch where the sound, visuals and music are choreographed with suspenseful perfection.
The gore effects were both a hit and a miss for me. And I was really surprised how little there were compared to other horror films. I didn’t mind that too much.
I absolutely loved the makeup effects for Julius’ deterioration. There were a few continuity errors with it, but on the most part, it was good.
The makeup effects for Max was interesting. I thought he looked good but the whole time you could see the outline of the lace front wig and the artificial facial hair he was wearing. It was so distracting if you noticed it.
Eddie Murphy also said that the wig his character wore was so awful it immediately made people despise the film. And I beg the differ. He looked good in it, it just wasn’t well applied. There are some girls on YouTube right now that can slay that front lace.
Eddie Murphy also wore lifts to appear taller in perspective to the other actors in the film to keep Max as an imposing figure.
The make up for Preacher Pauly and the more monstrous versions of Max were done in a very shiny latex material that made them look unnatural and that was shame, because it too was so distracting.
You can see all of the hard work that was put into the makeup effects considering that it takes several hours to put these actors into their characters.
1995 these were indeed great effects. I think that in today’s standards, special effects really upped its game.
The score was incredible for the scenes it was used in. There amid the cinematic score was a great attempt to use a lot of big horns and drums to mimic the sound of many other Eddie Murphy films like Coming to America with a Hip-Hop swing sound.
The soundtrack was filled with a lot of popular late 80’s and early 1990’s RnB Pop music, Like Salt-N-Pepa’s Whatta Man, M.C. Hammer’s Pray, Superstition performed by UB-40 and No Woman, No Cry performed by Hugh Masekela, and If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night) performed by Meshell Ndegeocello
Performances:
I thought that the performances were pretty good.
I got a big kick out of seeing Eddie Murphy as Maximillian. This was one of the films that Eddie really wanted to change his image and play more serious roles. And I thought he did a good job. But you sense in this film he’s not in his wheelhouse and the audience can really pick up on things like that, like sharks picking up the scent of blood in the water.
In an interview, Eddie has said that he only did the film to end his contract, but I think we should look a little closer before we conclude he didn’t care about this film.
He came up with the idea, had his brother and his production company involved and let us not forget that he plays 3 roles and all of these roles require more than 8 hours in makeup. So he really gives this film a lot more effort than people were led to believe.
And that’s fine because there is an audience for this movie. Not a wide audience, but an audience no less.
Eddie Murphy’s hand is in pretty much all over the film as we witness his Murphy-isms if you will.
Eddie Murphy plays Maximilian in this film with a strange African or possibly island accent, which you can’t place, however, it is very close to the same accent performs in Coming To America released in 1988. In both films his main character travels from afar to a borough in New York in order to find love. In that film and many others he’s starred in, Eddie wears makeup to play several other characters in the film, even in the same shot.
Angela Bassett was great as Detective Rita Veder. She is gorgeous in this film and really sinks her acting chops into every scene she is in.
Allen Payne was pretty good as Detective Justice and he does his very best with the part.
Kadeem Hardison was incredible as Julius Jones nearly stealing the show. From later interviews, Kadeem said that he enjoyed working on the movie because it was his chance to work with Eddie Murphy, Allen Payne and Wes Craven.
John Witherspoon as Julius’ Uncle, Silas Green was a delight! According to IMDb, this is one of his favorite movies he’s been in. He is such a treat in this movie! I absolutely loved his wit from beginning to end. John Witherspoon's character Silas says "Bang, bang, bang" repeating the same thing his character said in another Eddie Murphy movie, Boomerang released in 1992.
Zakes Mokae (Mok-eye) was excellent as Dr. Zeko, who is the Van Helsing of the story. He actually gave the story the gravity it needed. What a class act.
Best:
I enjoyed a lot of the little details of the film like Max’s ring, Rita’s paintings, Max’s coffin, the sacred weapon, and the cross Rita wears.
Rita paints her visions and this was a nice way to see some foreshadowing in the film as well as add an extra layer to Rita’s character. It makes sense when we find out that she likes Van Gogh’s paintings because it connects with her on an emotional level.
I noticed that there was a similarity in the hair textures between Rita and Max, connecting them genetically to their vampire genetics.
I loved the fact that Max had powers that were more wizard-like, casting spells.
I absolutely loved the texture of the locations in this film. It felt very nostalgically 80’s instead of 1990’s, but the surreal creepy darkness really made me think of Nightmare on Elm Street.
And I enjoyed Rita’s dream sequence a lot, the music, the suspense, the jump scares, the foley sounds, and the way the use of red foreshadows the vampire lust. I just loved it.
I enjoyed the scene in which her roommate is being attacked by Max and she is outside painting it as the train goes by drowning out the sounds. I felt that the scene was excellently composed.
I really enjoyed Rita’s seduction scene. Max really pours on the charm to snag her into his web. I also, liked the choice to use the song No Woman, No Cry.
The ending:
The ending is as generic as you can get for a Dracula / vampire film. I has a lot of similarities to the ending in Dracula released in 1979 and Fright Night released in 1985, but it’s still good.
One nice thing that happened in the end is what happens to Julius. At first you see that even though Max has been vanquished, Julius is still a ghoul. It turns out Max’s ring contains the spirit of the vampire in it and literally falls into his lap.
When he puts on the ring, he becomes the vampire. The curious thing is that this leaves you with cool questions like, does the ring change anyone into a vampire or does it only change those with vampire blood in them, because earlier Max gives Julius his blood in order to make him beholden to him.
I also thought it was cool that Julius had the same accent as Max when he transformed into the vampire.
In a way, it’s a happy ending for everyone.
Wish List:
There is a character by the name of Nikki that is sort of the Lucy, of the Dracula tale, the sacrificial lamb for Dracula. In this case Nikki is the one for Max to seduce before his main lover.
In this case, she is not drawn to Max because no woman can resist his powerful supernatural charm, but because she is unreasonably sexually charged.
She is killed, which we expected, but the film goes on to shame her by having Preacher Pauly refer to her as the whore of Babylon. Babylon being Brooklyn, as a crazy woman in the police station mentions that Brooklyn is the new Babylon.
That was pretty harsh.
I wish that was done better. Perhaps giving us a great example of Max’s powers of persuasion over humans, or just refrain from calling her names.
I wish that Eddie Murphy had played the role without the accent. It’s ok, but it was one of those distracting elements.
Wes Craven suggested to Eddie that he should play Maximillian funnier. You think, Wes Craven knows what he’s talking about, but Eddie shut him down. But I think that if he played the role a bit funnier it would have off set how the audience received the character.
By the way, this same thing happened with Beverly Hills Cop 3 released the year before in 1994, directed by John Landis. Landis wanted the film to have more humor in it and Murphy wanted to play it serious.
The first 30 minutes was actually played the best, where I think his character seem to incorporate the two styles.
The script was pretty good from first time writers. I think they did a good job. There are some really great moments when the dialogue shines and you wish it were in a better film. But there are some moments where it had some missteps in continuity and wording.
For example there was a scene in which Justice tells Rita that Nikki is dead, but the way he says it doesn’t sound right. He says, “she died the way you painted it”, implying that Rita knew Justice saw the painting and that we all knew that the person in the picture was Nikki.
And as much as I loved Max’s narration, it makes you think that Maximillian is still alive, but is is clearly killed in the end.
Enjoyment:
This is my guilty pleasure, I’ll admit. Yes, it’s official. I am crazy, but I can’t deny who I am. I do love this film. Yes, it’s got a lot of missteps, but somehow when I watch this film it makes me chuckle a bit because it’s so unusual.
How often can you say, “Remember the time Eddie Murphy played a scary evil vampire?”
And although there are some weird moments there are some uniquely delightful segments that I really enjoyed a lot.
I get such a kick out of this film. It’s a strange combination of cinematic elements and it just makes me smile every time I watch it.
My Rating:
7.6
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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