Popular reviews

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  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★ 13

  Some of the *great* quotes from Abel on the new blu-ray commentary:

  "There he is right there, Russell" (after Russell Simmons' credit)

  "Yeah, these are all the old favorites..." (just watching the credits)

  "We had to do one black and white film, man."

  "There ain't no fuckin' extras. This is the street. You think I'm directing these people? We shoot in the street bro, what the fuck? You think we're casting these people, this is fuckin' New York!"

  "*singing*, I wanna get hiiiiiigh"

  "This is pre-Uber New York, dog"

  "You gotta give the vampire shit credit. Who would even come up with that?"

  "That might be an actress, I don't know."

  "This is Kodak at it's peak!"

  "Was that a…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★½ 2

  Moral relativism. Philosophical self-justification. Literate self-denial. Catholic absolution. Addiction metaphor. Elegant, historical interiors. Fetid, rancidly present city streets. Grunge. Hip-hop. THE ADDICTION seems to contain every vampire film made before and after it, ground together in boho poetry as Lili Taylor's graduate student morphs into a hepcat underground woman, her smoky, deadpan voice shot through with more conviction of the deluded addict than her philosophical arguments put forward. And my God, does Christopher Walken steal the show, filled with the born-again piety and paternalism of the recovered addict, castigating Taylor for still being in thrall to her fix as he boasts of being almost human, specifically pointing out that he even defecates. That's about Ferrara's measure of humanity, and it…

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★ 2

  "...the whole country, they were all guilty! How can you single out one man?"

  ---

  "Nicholas St. John and I wrote this movie soon after the death of his first son. At the saddest time in his life, he found a way to express that relentless search for truth and light in a world that often paralyzes us with its anger and darkness." - Abel Ferrara

  --

  A series of combinations of iconographies: vampirism, drug addiction, AIDS, academia, determinism, guilt and guilt in absentia. There are a number of oppositions: spirituality &/vs materialism, geometric force &/vs graceful movement, and predominately assertion &/vs inquiry. With the high-contrast black and white it achieves a unique sort of baroqueness in its minimalism -…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½ 11

  All the things that we tell ourselves to justiying lusting for more. Ferrara super charges every shot with association and meaning. The images surface pleasures are also the film's only way of escape and as it is often the case with 90s Ferrara, detachment is the ultimate evil. Taylor is every bit as great here as Lund in Ms 45 and Keitel on Bad Lieutenant.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★

  "there is no history. everything we are is eternally with us."

  ferrara and st. john's idea of vampirism as drug addiction feels unlike anything else in the vampire genre tbh. if anything the grimy b&w images feel closer to a 90s NYC riff on romero's vision of america's violent sickness in Night of the Living Dead, only instead from the POV of those carrying the insatiable appetite for killing, and the emotional and philosophical guilt that accompanies that desire. the orgy scene in particular and its connection to drugs, AIDS and genocide simultaneously has a similar ferociousness and psychological heat to it... an entire country trying to gets it fix until we're all culpable. lili taylor shooting the one dudes blood into her veins like its heroin is an image only ferrara could've come up with.

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  Review by David Sims ★★★★½ 3

  lili taylor bite me

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★ 11

  hmm today I will read some philosophy
  <-- (clueless)

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★½ 1

  Vampires, addiction, philosophy. 

  Abel Ferrara tackles so much with so little... achieving more than most without billions of useless dollars—an nyc arthouse philosophy vamp jam filled with city atmos, Lili Taylor killing it as always, and Christopher Walken savagely saying the word "nothing" more viciously convincingly than anyone ever. 

  This movie is a big mood for me... arthouse vampire films are very much up my alley... with movies like this and Fessenden's Habit being two of my favorite genre films—both from the a very specific mid 90's era of New York that I remember the most from my childhood, and both striking an intense close to home chord with me via the vampirism addiction metaphor.

  I love vampire movies. I…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 8

  72/100

  Vampirism revolving around a lack of structure and routine. New York City is seen as a connecting station between elegant, modern interiors; souls on the street either in passing or in crumbling stasis. Ferrara stages 'addiction' as the epitome of reactionary takeovers, for no one truly understands until they're under the very same spell. Its black & white photography - not even succumbing to the typical trope of showcasing bright red blood as anomaly - enriches the horror but allows for haunting clarity, plunging this grungy, shaken tale into a more inevitable realm. Terror on the avenue.

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  Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★½

  I liked THE ADDICTION a lot when I first viewed it back in 2013, but I've come to appreciate it even more in that time since. What I underestimated is just how deeply the philosophy ties into the narrative and how emotionally effective that process becomes through Lili Taylor. She's essentially working through a dissertation on the nature of man, and the most telling line is something to the effect of "Does man become evil or is he just evil to begin with?".

  The idea of an addiction could be linked to a handful of different things ranging from murder to drugs to queerness (more specifically AIDS). I think the film does a good job of touching on all three…

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  Review by iana ★★★ 1

  gimme more vampire christopher walken

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★½ 6

  Action! - Stoning Abel Ferrara

  Although he's been more miss than hits as of now, you must give it to Abel Ferrara – the man does not fear to go places and experiment with its style and stories he tells. This time we have a sleazy, stylized take on the horror genre centered on a shy college student who gets bitten one night and is transformed into a vampire. Our lead will have to learn how to live a new lifestyle in this film, giving up her moral compass to pursue her survival and desires.

  Prior to A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Ferrara had a much more moody approach to the vampire genre. Here it's all about the…