For a brief stretch in the late ‘80s and early ’90s, we were waist-high in billowing satin sheets, backlit blinds, and droning synths.
The ‘erotic horror’ genre littered the horror shelves – but they really did deserve their own section. Somewhere between Dawn of the Dead and Witchboard, you’d find titles like Meridian, To Sleep with a Vampire, Dance of the Damned, To Die For (the 1988 one). The sexy slo-mo vampire noir was a la mode, and even Bram Stoker’s Dracula didn’t stray too far from the four post bed.
The “vampire” in Red-Blooded American Girl (1990) isn’t a creature as much as a medical diagnosis. No fangs, no bats and no hissing undead shenanigans. The metaphor of choice isn’t addiction or class inequality, it’s STDs.
This nosferatattitude is spread via a virus. The plot’s nutshell revolves around a scientist who’s desperately trying to find a cure for his girlfriend’s vampy affliction.
It’s written by THE Allan Moyle (Pump Up The Volume, Empire Records) and directed by David Blyth (Death Warmed Up and My Grampa is a Vampire), but it’s an exercise in art house restraint and smoky B-movie boudoir patina.
If you squint, you sometimes get soft impressions of David Lynch and Michael Mann, but squint you must. It’s a beautifully red gel-lit mood piece that doesn’t go anywhere fast, but does it in style.
The minimal background scenery is mostly there to be chewed by the dramatis personae. In this case, you get sucked in by Christopher Plummer, Andrew Stevens, Heather Thomas and Kim Coates. Not a bad roster.
It’s obviously looking to sit on the shelf next to The Hunger or Near Dark, but odds are, this one ended up in the ex-rental cheapie bin before anyone could take notice.
And whatever happened to this neo-noir bloodsucker wave, you ask? By the mid-90s, the erotic thriller had eaten this little sub-genre alive – with Andrew Stevens practically franchising the straight-to-video template overnight. Out went the urbane spooky ambience, in came the glass coffee tables and office affairs. Shannon Tweed, Lisa Boyle, Shannon Whirry – they became rental royalty, and the queens of skinemax.
But the horror section got a little less sexy. -Pop