7. Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

Wait... what...? This is insane. I... I... I actually liked this movie? Behold the power of low expectations!

 If you take Vampire in Brooklyn for what it is (essentially a horror-comedy remake of Blacula for a new era) it's actually quite clever and enjoyable. I have to admit: I never would have guessed that Eddie Murphy as a vampire could be sexy or scary, and somehow he manages to be both.

While the movies I reviewed last time (Thirst and Cronos) were ones I expected greatness from, I went into Vampire in Brooklyn braced for terribleness. There are certain films whose reputation proceeds them: everyone knows that The Godfather is one of the best films of all time, just as everyone knows The Room and Birdemic are so terrible that they create whole new categories of terrible film just by existing. While on neither extreme, Vampire in Brooklyn was a film I had frequently heard dismissed as a terrible 90's film and one of Wes Craven's worst. While the film passed my "test" of having an over two star rating on Netflix/imdb, it only carries one star (10% freshness) on Rotten Tomatoes. Given my knowledge of this, plus the fact that I have never been much of an Eddie Murphy-as-an-actor fan, I was primed not to like this movie right from the start.

Which is why I was surprised to find myself smiling quite a bit at this weird romp of a film. It's not great, especially by 2013 standards, but it certainly is by no means the worst movie made in 1995. And perhaps what I like most about it is that it serves as a type of response to the blacksploitation classic, Blacula.

If you're watching Vampire in Brooklyn, it does help if you have a passing understanding of Blacula and and the Poitier/Shaft dichotomy. Remember in my Blacula review, I mentioned:

Essentially, a black protagonist is either a cold-and-dangerous badass, or he is a calm and dignified (and often near saintly) gentleman. The odd thing is that Manuwalde, aka Blacula, is actually the Poitier-type. He's respectful, honorable, and just not all that threatening for a vampire.

Over twenty years later, Eddie Murphy seems ready to push that envelope on Black character representation. Murphy's vampiric lord Maximilian is neither a brutish and emotionless badass, nor is he the kind and noble gentleman Blacula's Manuwalde is.  In fact, it's difficult not to read Vampire in Brooklyn as a direct answer to Blacula. At one point, a character even says to Maximilian:  "You don't have to pull that Blacula shit with me." The posters for the older blacksploitation film, remember, advertised Manuwalde as being "deadlier than Dracula." That was patently untrue, while Murphy's Maximilian seems ready to claim that title for himself.

The plot of Vampire in Brooklyn and Blacula are almost identical (if you remove the racist Dracula and the gay antiquers...).  A vampire who is centuries old is seeking the reincarnation of his long-lost love. He comes to modern day America, disguises himself as a foreign dignitary/from old money, and proceeds to woo her, hoping to turn her into a vampire and "keep" her forever.

While with Blacula's Manuwalde this goal didn't seem overly threatening (after all, Dracula tortured him and killed his wife - the guy deserves a happier ending!), Maximilian is outwardly predatory and seductive. He IS what the people who made blacksploitation posters were hoping people would expect/imagine. It's almost as if Murphy's Maximilian is a response to the 1990's political correctness

And let's not kid ourselves: the 1990s was the peak of the "let's all get along" approach to race relations. Unlike the '70s, when representation was the main struggle, the '90s was a constant debate over the type of representation. The "right" kind of black representation was often considered Cosby-like: nonthreatening and "normal," the beginning of the "color-blind" argument. Despite Dracula's racist language, this is closer to Manuwalde's character than it is to Maximilian's. What Murphy may have been wanting to do with this Blacula-like film is to question and counter that narrative.

I do say "Murphy" and not "Wes Craven" because, while Craven directed it, the film was written by Eddie Murphy and his two brothers, the elder who almost a decade later would be a head writer for Chappelle's Show. This is notable because the "voices" in this film are almost entirely all black voices. The movie takes place in predominantly black (and Caribbean immigrant) areas of Brooklyn, the vampire is black, the female he pursues is black, and the police-man who is in love with her (and who attempts to be the film's hero) is black. The zombie-renfield comic-relief is black too, but ironically his skin actually looks whiter throughout the film as his skin decays and becomes corpse-like.

There's some very serious representation and racial commentary there. However, I think it was for that reason that many people didn't know what to make of the film. Murphy's vampire was undeniably villainous, though also sexual and suave. He hit every white fear and countered every 90's narrative. Oh, and it takes place in "the ghetto," and the n-word is used a lot. In Roger Ebert's one-star review of the film, he devotes a whole paragraph to how disappointed he is that black people are using such a word in films. At one point he quotes Stanley Kauffman, saying:

Black people use that word incessantly to each other and about each other when only black people are present. If present-day films are accurate, they still do it. I don't know of any other group, ethnic or religious, that uses a slur word about itself so constantly as a token of intimacy or humor or even ironic resentment of its use by others.

There is almost anger at the use of the word (*notably, almost another twenty years later, Ebert had no problem with the use of the word in Tarintino's Django Unchained as it was true that the word was in "common daily use" and "there was a reason for it"). There is a hint of judgement against the culture portrayed in this film and BY EXTENSION against a certain arena of 1990's black culture. I saw similar points popping up in other reviews, making me think that one of the reasons the film didn't do very well in 1995 is that the Murphies actually succeeded in getting their point across and making people uncomfortable.

Now, the critics who pointed out that this film doesn't know if it wants to be a horror film or a comedy are correct. The film tries to walk the line between and thus fully doesn't succeed at either, but I'm not sure vampire films should ever fully be scary OR fully serious. For me, the tone (while a little campy at times, for example when Eddie Murphy turns himself into a non-sequitur, er, Baptist preacher) mostly worked well. It's a B-movie and embraces it's cheese whole-heartedly!

The comedy isn't high-brow, but it does have charm. One of my favorite moments is when the renfield says to Murphy's vampire (right before the unfortunate preacher scene), "My daddy always said that the quickest way to a woman's heart is through church." Murphy dryly responds: "It's actually through the rib cage, but that's a bit messy."  That just killed me and sums up what works so well in this film: Maximilian is the villain, but he's a damn sexy, fun, and likable villain!

The other thing that this film has going for it is a strong female lead/protagonist. It's very easy in a vampire film to make the female character nothing but "food," or some[thing] to be preyed upon. In the classic Stroker story, the female characters are there to be killed or ultimately "saved" by the male characters. Once they are turned into vampires, they can be seductresses and predators themselves, but they are rarely if ever the heroes. (See: why Buffy was such a unique series)

This is not fully the case in Vampire in Brooklyn, however. While Murphy's Max is stalking and trying to "turn" the female Rita, she soon proves that she is completely capable of taking care of herself. Armed with police-training, psychic premonitions, and a sense of self-confidence, when Rita is seemingly wooed by Maximilian, we can't help as an audience but see it as her active choice. Yes, she has (if you can forgive my laps into feminist terminology) agency.

When she does finally realize what Max is, there is a moment of real choice: will she be his vampiric partner, or will she stand against him? While her male police-officer partner Alex tries to act at the film's hero, he ultimately fails. It is Rita who makes the final stand against Maximilian and keeps control of her own destiny.

So, yes, I ultimately liked Vampire in Brooklyn. It's not a great film, high-brow or otherwise, but it seemed to have a message to it which stands in stark contrast to many films (vampire and mainstream alike) in the 1990's collective consciousness. The characters were interesting and likable, Murphy's suave Maximilian was a memorable villain, and Wes Craven filmed the movie well (though with a notable 90's aesthetic that feels a tad dated today).

Long story short: it doesn't suck. (/bad pun)

Rating: 4 out of 5 bites