Saturday, 18 September 2021 20:03

Once Bitten






ONCE BITTEN

US, 1985, 94 minutes, Colour.
Lauren Hutton, Jim Carrey, Cleavon Little, Karen Kopins.
Directed by Howard Storm.

Once Bitten is a vampire story, 1980s story, very 1980s and look, musical soundtrack, comedy about vampires, virgins, sexuality and blood.

Lauren Hutton had been in films for a number of years, a former model, who had made quite an impact on the big screen. here she is a 400-year-old Countess from Europe, living very comfortably in a mansion in New York City, with an entourage of young people who have been vampirised by her, even 150 years earlier, whose task it is to find a virgin before Halloween so that she can have three injections of virginal blood in order to survive.

Cleavon Little plays her majordomo, butler, confidant, in an exceedingly camp manner.

But interest in the film at the time but, especially in later years, is the fact that 23-year-old Jim Carrey portrays the central character of the young man, with a college girl friend, Robin, played by Karen Kopins, who resists his advances for sexual experiences. He and his two rather leering friends who run an ice cream truck decide to go out on the town – with quite unspectacular results in terms of being picked up or making any impression on any women.

However, the Countess is at the bar, summons the awestruck young man, Mark, intoxicates him physically and emotionally and takes him to her mansion where, unbeknown to himself, she has the first drink of his blood. He goes back and his friends are avid in curiosity, his girlfriend is completely upset. The Countess keeps pursuing him, taking his blood for a second time, he becoming more and more vampire like in terms of raw meat, blood, not liking the light, wanting to take naps during the day, to his parents’ dismay.

Eventually, Mark and his two friends and Robin all arrive at the countess’s mansion on Halloween eve – Sebastien and the entourage present, Robin defies the Countess, there are fights with the entourage to the curious amazement of Mark’s two friends.

There is a solution, with Robin agreeing to have sex with Mark so that he is no longer a virgin and the countess will not want his blood.

Jim Carrey, from Canada, had made an impression on television in In Living Colour and in short films, it was still another nine years before his successful year in 1994 with the first of the Ace Ventura films, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber.