Customer Reviews

Tale of a Vampire [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Set in contemporary London, England, "Tale of a Vampire" follows Ann (Suzanna Hamilton) and Alex (Julian Sands), two heartbroken strangers whose paths cross inside a large, archaic library where she works and he frequents. For Alex, Ann is the spitting image of his missing lover, Virginia (also played by Ms. Hamilton), who he had made into a vampire more than a century ago, but she has since vanished. To this day, he still misses her immensely and flashes back on her in a few scenes. As for Ann, she finds herself irrepressibly drawn towards Alex, despite the ominous warnings of a stranger, Edgar (Kenneth Cranham), who follows both Ann and Alex around with shady motives. It's not until the very end of the movie that his well-kept secret is revealed.

I thought "Tale of a Vampire" was really quite good (particularly the ending), even though I had relied on only a handful of reviews to convince me to buy the movie first before renting it, which, in most cases, leaves me quite disappointed when I do do that. But in this case, I was pleasantly surprised. There is plenty of violence and bloodletting in this movie to satiate any vampire hound, though no fangs are used. It may be a little too melancholy and subdued for more diehard blood-gore-and-sex viewers, but I would still highly recommend it to fans of tragic love stories. 4 ½ stars.

Although the movie had some akward moments when the lines just didn't feel quite right, it did have something that most vampire flicks just don't have. It didn't feel like one big sex and gore fest. Whether entirely successful or not it did feel as though the movie was trying to say something and not just fill a theater. One thing i judge movies by is if they leave me thinking, this movie has remained rolling around my mind for several days now. All in all i would definitly recommend this if you are in the mood for a different sort of vampire movie.

Firstly, I am a great fan of Julian Sands, so it was only a matter of time before I discovered this wonderful film. 'Tale of a Vampire' avoids the usual blood-'n'-guts stuff, instead we get a beautifully filmed Gothic romance, without fangs (yes, NO fangs!), or contact lenses. Naturally there is a fair amount of blood, but then what do you expect? Cranham's performance is equally brooding and dark, as the sinister Edgar, who's hunting Alex (Sands). However, the film gets a bit slow at times and it seems we are forever in the Library set of the film. Moody, gorgeous and with stygian quality, 'Tale of a Vampire' shouldn't be overlooked. The acting is well done and it's nice to see that the vampire isn't ALWAYS the monster of the story.

If Yasujiro Ozu (or perhaps Joseph Losey) had ventured to make a Gothic horror romance, he might have come up with something like "Tale of a Vampire." By ordinary entertainment standards, this movie is soooo slow and ponderous and under-dramatized that it feels like a half-hour television play padded out to feature length. But in spite of its often leaden and mawkish dialogue, hamfisted acting, corny genre trappings, and congealed-syrup pacing, there are a few nice things to recommend about this production. For starters, there are all those cold, clean minimalistic sets and artfully prepared Gothic interiors. And one could almost mistake the shots of warmly filtered amber light with frames from "The Double Life of Veronique."

This tale is set in a fictionalized version of London as a depopulated ghost town undergoing what appears to be some kind of total eclipse or nuclear winter. Probably owing to an inability to secure the proper shooting permits, there are only a few stock images of the Thames and Big Ben in long shot that establish any real sense of locale. Indeed, most of the production expense seems to have gone into renting the camera equipment, hiring out the services of the crew and processing lab, designing the interiors, and of course, paying the salaries of the three lead actors. Save for an old librarian, a dying old man, some offscreen voices, and a few homeless people, there is virtually no supporting cast to speak of.

The plot concerns Ann (Suzanna Hamilton), a young woman mourning the tragic death of her fiancé in a mysterious car explosion (this aspect of the story, and the elliptical dialogue which follows, seems curiously reminiscent of a Harold Pinter play). As fate would have it, Ann lands a job at a library specializing in arcane research and the occult. There she catches the eye of Alex (Julian Sands), a brooding and melancholy young scholar. It turns out that Ann bears an uncanny resemblance to Alex's long lost love, Virginia (also played by Hamilton who wears a wig in the flashback sequences). Soon after, Ann also crosses paths with Edgar (Kenneth Cranham), a pushy and obnoxious library patron who is not what he seems (actually his character is quite obvious from the outset, we're just not supposed to know about it, I guess).

Well...you get the picture?

No doubt Julian Sands was hired for his impressive Aryan-Byronic appearance and precise, martini-dry diction (he looks set to be remembered as the ersatz-Christopher Lee of his generation). But the script undermines his seductive Old World manner with its overemphasis on Alex's all-too-contemporary geeky obsessiveness and chronic adolescent depression (more than 100 years of it!).

Likewise, Suzanna Hamilton's Ann is a self-defeating Victorian stereotype: the sweet and passively winsome young innocent oblivious to her distress. The script makes too much of the fact that Ann is a helpless sweetheart and shrinking violet; and thirty-something Suzanna Hamilton seems too old to still be playing such chirpy, wide-eyed schoolgirl naivete. If anything, Ann just comes across as an implausibly dimwitted pushover who is manipulated with no great difficulty and predictably blunders into disaster. Fortunately, we are granted the pleasure of seeing Miss Hamilton do a Suzanna Hamilton specialty: the Sleeping Beauty. Indeed, I can think of no other actress who slumbers before the camera with such timeless grace and affect!

As the menacing imposter, Edgar, Kenneth Cranham easily delivers the worst performance. Had the film simply been about the blossoming romance between Ann and Alex (who happens to be a vampire), this might have been quite a charming and clever little picture. But alas, we are forced to endure the sustained annoyance of Cranham as he chews and spits scenery like tobacco and spouts atrocious, hackneyed, overwrought horror-movie dialogue meant to advance and explain the plot in the most clumsy and awkward way.

It doesn't help that Cranham is a terribly, terribly unattractive actor and he delivers an overaggressive and embarrassingly obvious performance. There is no elegance or seduction in his evil, and no grandeur in his lust for revenge either. He looks a bit like Vincent Price in "Witchfinder General," but the resemblance only makes you wish that Price was alive and fifty again to do justice to this kind of role.

Saving the worst for last, the ending of the film is flaccidly anticlimactic. In a sequence which seems to last forever, Ann's curiosity about Alex's vampirism is roused and she eventually tracks him to his lair, Nancy Drew-style, and confronts him. I won't give anything else away.... Suffice to say, it is at this point that the movie really falls apart and any developing interest in the characters (and the story) collapses with a resounding thud.

Who would have thought Edgar Allen Poe and a vampire would meet in modern day London but that is the premise of the film. Julian Sands does the honors as a heart sick vampire looking for his lost amour when he meets her double in a library. This storyline has a 20th century twist almost rivaling the dating game except for the villanous presence of Edgar Allen Poe who has also come looking for his lost Lenore. Although at times jumping from 19th century flashbacks to 20th century minimalist interiors, the story is a muddled mix of Poe's elgaic Annabelle Lee versus Sand's smooth bite me baby seduction of the heroine. Good for an evenings entertainment, but don't go answer any rapping at the door.

This movie is wonderful! Julian Sands is a wonderful actor and brings the feelings of a morose vampire to life in this film. Every scene he is in is so great you won't want to peel your eyes from the screen. Unlike some other vampire films, you actually feel for Alex(Sands). Great film if youre into vampire films without a lot of gore, there is also no over exaggerated fang scenes. I am now a Julian Sands film for life! Check this one out!

Okay, so it is a little on the pretentious side. So what? :) It's still an interesting film, a diversion from the typical vampire story. Julian Sands seems to do particularly well in these types of roles--"Gothic" was obviously good training. I enjoyed it....a thought-provoking film.

This might not have the following of "Interview With a Vampire", but for me this movie is just as good. Julian Sands plays the vampire of the story very well, and both Kenneth Cranham and Suzanna Hamilton are also very good in their roles. The jazz-y soundtrack adds to the mood of this little known vampire film.

The VHS tape by VidMark/TriMark Entertainment was released in 1998, and is now long out of print. This has received release on Region 2, but has never had a real Region 1(U.S) release. It definitely deserves that.

I came in on this film late at night by accident and was immediately drawn in by its surreal, gothic feel. There were no acrobatic fight scenes, no revealing sex scenes and no unnecessary cgi. It was simply a tragic love story where you could actually feel the characters pain and sadness. The settings were like a dream... It was a beautiful poetic film that lingered in my imagination long after the film was over.

A unique and valuable installment to the vampire canon, hung on the framework of Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. Sometimes predictable with irreverent music from time to time, slowly paced (not a bad thing), with some rehashing of familiar vampire lore, there are plenty of thrills and unusual, rich imagery to pique the vampire fan's interest. There are many jarring and disturbing images in this film (children and the homeless are not spared as victims) and Julian Sands and Suzanna Hamilton play their roles to perfection. As made evident by this performance, Sands was simply made to play a vampire, and the more time I spend with this film and study his portrayal of Alex, the more painfully obvious it becomes that Tom Cruise was woefully miscast as Lestat in Interview With The Vampire. Sands does more for the vampire canon in this single performance than any actor has been able to do in years of cinema. Sands plays the vampire-scholar Alex with unflinching disconnect and reserve, sometimes maddeningly so, and as we see later, to the detriment of them both, but that is what drew me in even more.

Perpetually mourning the death of his long-lost love Virginia, he stalks and is obsessed with her present-day look-alike Anne (and we do not even know the real nature of their relationship as we see him meet her when she is a lost 5-year old child in the woods, and then romantically involved with her as an adult - the rest mysteriously left out...maybe it's best that way), yet inexplicably rejects her advances when she finally reaches out to him in a coffee shop after they connect over the obscure French poet Forneret. Is he shy? Is he afraid he will screw things up or say the wrong thing? Is he afraid she will push him away? Is he protecting her from his lack of self control (as evidenced in an erotic scene where he fantasizes about attacking and overpowering her on the couch to take a taste from her neck after sucking her cut finger)? Hard to figure, but it felt as though the dark, lush imagery in this film washed over me like a dream.

As other reviewers have mentioned, it is refreshing to see Sands play this character without orange contact lenses, animal growling and fangs. The nature of the beast is just what you see: hidden beneath the cool handsome blonde, blue-eyed exterior, and yes, vulnerable too, and able to kill with silent, deliberate precision. In one scene, we see a victim smile at Sands who is looming in a dark back alley, mistaken that he has perhaps stumbled upon a chance sexual encounter with a stranger. Sands smiles back at him, but not for the same reason just before he slices him open and drinks from him like a fountain. I also like that he does not sleep in the typical over-used coffin scenario, but in a normal bed inside an abandoned building in disrepair by the Thames, the bedroom resembling something out of The Police's Wrapped Around Your Finger video. Hamilton's Anne is such a warm, disarming, approachable, bold presence that the ending just left me cold and dissatisfied, (maybe that was the point) but viewers will decide for themselves. The disturbing, rich imagery in this film along with Sands and Hamilton as these characters have made this one of my very favorite films of the genre. Sometimes actors turn out their best performances in small, limited-release films like this and it was a joy to see Sands and Hamilton portray these characters with such intelligence and commitment. Maybe we will get a DVD release sometime soon for us in the USA, but for now I've had to settle for the VHS tape version.