Here at Fangtastic Films, we've seen vampirism as a metaphor for mental illness, addiction, and even African-American struggles and oppression by European upper classes. Now we have vampirism as a metaphor for AIDS; yes, I've gotten around to The Forsaken.
The Forsaken was released in the year 2001, and like many early 2000's vampire movies, it shows mainly in the soundtrack: lots of late 90's and early 2000's pop-rock, such as the very-oddly-chosen Eve 6's "Promise." However, this movie is no Dracula 2000 by any stretch of the imagination; I promise, this one does not have neon or defunct brands in every shot.
Our film begins (after a very brief opening involving practically-seizure-inducing jump cuts over a bloody girl crying in a shower) with a character named Sean who takes time off work in order to drive a $50,000 restored Mercedes cross-country to Miami. Sean is played by Kerr Smith (who at this point was most widely known as Jack from Dawson's Creek). As a character, Sean is not all that remarkable; he's a bland and rather vague everyman with few clear and notable traits to pin-point. We do learn that, despite a desire to be "wild" and free on his road-trip, Sean is ultimately a character of responsibility: when a girl on the road urges him to take a detour and flashes him as "incentive" (presumably with the implication that there's more waiting), Sean still decides that he should keep driving in order to get the car to Miami on time. It become clear that Sean is interested in the "bad boy" side of life but ultimately makes the "good" choices and is mainly risk averse.
At this point, the movie slowly begins to resemble a cross between Near Dark and an early Robert Rodriguez film, complete with wide desert, crime, and vampires. As the characters drive through the desert, we learn that Nick is a vampire hunter... but one who has a personal motivation. He has been infected himself and he is on the hunt for the vampire who created him, who he hopes to kill so the "curse" can be lifted.
Part of the reason I put "curse" in quotation marks is because the movie doesn't treat vampirism as a curse: it treats it as a blood and fluid spread disease. When Nick and Sean find a girl who has been infected, this is their conversation:
NICK: She's infected!Nick is also taking these drugs, and when the girl bites Sean, he too becomes infected and the symptoms include sweating, shaking, weakness, and vomiting blood. The language surrounding the dangers of fluid contact, the way vampirism is spread, and the use of drugs to slow the virus ("You get on the cocktail, you buy yourself some time") seem to greatly parallel language and experiences with AIDS. Nick's casual story that he was infected by "some bitch at a party" seems to underscore this even more, as well as Sean's insistance: "It's not fair." In fact, vampirism is so tied to AIDS that Nick literally explains that the anti-vampirism drug is from the same cocktail from "the late '80s" when doctors were researching HIV.
SEAN: Infected how?
NICK: ...She's got a virus. We can control it with drugs, but only for a little while.
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| Subtle... |
A potential parallel with AIDS is not this film's only social commentary; in fact, social commentary is essentially all of Nick's character. Besides hunting vampires, he spends the film philosophizing on life. There are several monologues where Nick muses on capitalism, the state of the world, and generally the viewpoints of Generation X. For example, near the beginning of the film he says to Sean:
'We are fucked. Take a look at the world we inherited. We're a bunch of fast-food munching MTV freaks humping the great Amercian Dream. The generation before us sold their innocence for 200 digitally enhanced satellite stations, and it's been downhill ever since. They had Mickey Mouse, Easy Rider and The Beatles. We got South Park, The Blair Bitch and Ricky Martin... We're just Microsoft Neanderthals addicted to surfing netland, still shitting in our nests.'
Nick wants to really live, unlike what he sees most of his generation as doing, but first he has to survive. To save both Sean and himself, as well as the infected girl, they must team up to destroy the vampires who infected them. This also allows Sean to grow as a character, as to save both the others and himself, he must grow beyond his risk-averse milk-toast self and become more of a hero.
The action scenes and the vampire hunting is fun and overall well done in this film. The villainous vampires are a little run-of-the-mill for my taste and a little bit too derivative of Near Dark and Lost Boys, but it still leads to a fun adventure and overall a strong arc.
Ultimately, though, this film can feel a little frozen-in-time. It's a Generation X, post-AIDS but pre-9/11 vampire story that came just a little too late. If this movie came out in the 1980s or 1990s, I think it would have been better received and feel less disjointed, but after the flashy-ness and neon of Dracula 2000 and the more subtley philosophical tone of independent movies like The Wisdom of Crocodiles, The Forsaken feels like a movie both strangely of its era and outside of it.
That said, the AIDS parallel, the road-trip aspect of the film, and the relationship between and growth of Nick and Sean all feel unique and an interesting perspective in a vampire film. Ultimately, The Forsaken isn't the best vampire movie ever in my view, but it has solid moments, interesting concepts... and characters (not to mention as oundtrack) that will hit your late-90s/early-2000s nostalgia bone pretty hard. Some aspects are good and some are just okay, but it's definitely not a bad film if you're looking for one to add to your watch list.
Rating: 3 out of 5 bites
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