Vampire's Kiss (15)

Manhattan literary agent Peter Loew (Nicolas Cage) is a vain bully who by day terrorises his secretary (Maria Conchita Alonso) and by night cruises yuppie bars. But all that changes when he picks up a real bloodsucker in the sultry form of Flashdance's Jennifer Beals.

Much like Bruce Robinson's How To Get Ahead In Advertising, also from 1989, Robert Bierman's uneven comedy-horror uses the grotesque as a way of exploring the nervous breakdown of a self-obsessed man. But while the idea sounds promising, the script by Joseph After Hours Minion is patchy at best.

More problematically, Cage's performance is so operatic in its twitchy, nervy excess that it unbalances the film, taking the emphasis away from the damage Loew's violent misogyny causes. Put simply, he's a real pain in the neck.

DVD Extras:

None.

Print