07/21/2025
Vampire's Kiss released . June 2, #1989 American black comedy horror film directed by Robert Bierman and written by Joseph Minion. Starring Nicolas Cage, María Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, and Elizabeth Ashley, the film tells the story of a literary agent who falls in love with a vampire. The film later developed a cult following largely due to Cage's "scorched-earth acting", which has become a source of many Internet memes
The role of Peter Loew was originally given to Dennis Quaid, then passed on to Cage after the former dropped out to do Innerspace. Cage and Beals reportedly did not get along on set, with their friction most likely stemming from the part of Rachel going to Beals rather than Cage's then-girlfriend, Patricia Arquette.
Going purposefully against the method acting technique, Cage "took a highly surrealistic approach" to Loew. Apart from his "pseudo-Transylvanian dialect", scenes of Cage screaming the alphabet, eating cockroaches, and ranting "I'm a vampire!" shocked viewers and critics alike. The original script called for Loew to eat a raw egg but Cage decided a cockroach would be more effective claiming it would "shock the audience". This shock was further extended to a couple of homeless people whom Cage ran into on the streets of Manhattan as he pleaded with them to drive a stake through his heart as Bierman and crew shot from afar. Physicality played a central role in the creation of this character for Cage, who sought to see "how big [he] could get [his] eyes" in order to appear terrifying. This was then furthered with scenes of Cage jumping on tables, sprinting across the office, and many frantic hand gestures which he claims were "extremely choreographed"
