I was trying to track down this movie I remembered watching on TV in the late eighties. I did find it, and even watched it. A good time. But there were some challenges in my quest, chiefly that there were two cheap-ass vampire movies made in the same year with the same name: Night Life (1989) and Nightlife (1989). I was able to work out that the one I sought featured Maryam d’Abo, but amusingly it was the one red link in her filmography on wikipedia. It wasn’t even on the male lead’s wiki.
Both movies are on yewchoob in their entirety. I’m just going to link to the right one, baybeh (won’t play as embed). This video is a trip. The channel that uploaded it has only three videos, all from eleven years ago. For all I know, the guy who runs the channel died ten years ago. One of his videos is some kind of public embarrassment thing I’m not clicking, another one is underwear model / 2fastman Tyrese Gibson’s make money seminar, and the last is this. A TV vampire movie from 1989, ripped from VHS, stabilized with tech that unintentionally transforms it into Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream-cam.
Nightlife (1989) (not Night Life {1989}, fuck that shit) made the most of its budget by shooting in Mexico City, where the locals speak English with a TV Mexican accent. At least the city got to play itself, instead of pretending to be somewhere else. Maryam d’Abo had been in a middling James Bond film a few years prior and was the biggest star.
You can see why she’s a star. She plays a blood junkie very sympathetically. This is why the movie was so memorable to me as a thirteen year old. I’m not really attracted to skinny ladies, but actors are professional charisma havers, and she had the most here. When she found out about blood transfusions, she didn’t want to kill people anymore, and I really felt that. I was rooting for her. Like, genuinely emotionally affected. As a thirteen year old.
The other thing that I found memorable as a thirteen year old was a fucking horrible pop culture reference to beer commercials of the time. Ho ho, we do enjoy our pop culture references, don’t we?
The male lead is made-for-TV version of Kevin Bacon, in unflattering blue jeans that don’t delineate his ass cheeks enough. Maybe it was an acceptable butt shape at the time, but it makes him look a lil like he’s wearing bladder control underwear. I would do a guy who has to wear bladder control underwear, ok, but I’m not gonna be admiring his form while they’re still on. Get better pants next time. He has since become very successful as a character and voice actor, particularly for video games. Pants are not a factor in those roles.
Blood junkie is unsealed from the earth and ends up in the ER, where they give her blood transfusion, and she’s introduced to Male Lead Doctorman. After that she sells her jewels and gets a cool penthouse with dee-luxe coffin and refrigerator full of blood bags. The maid character veers dangerously close to “she’s funny because she’s Mexican” (actress not Mexican), but far from the worst for that year. Meanwhile, junkie’s creepy ex-bf Lastnameless-due-to-Universal-Pictures-IP-Fuckshit Vlad is in town, stalking her.
Vampira gets to know the doctor romantishly, and finds out from her ex that if she doesn’t get blood from a person who’s being attacked, it’s less effective for her health – and a Beast she ams lest a Beast she Becomes. Vlad Not-Necessarily-Not-Dracula literally talks about the Beast inside them, two years before Vampire: The Masquerade‘s first edition came out. Mark Rein(spot)Hagen, is there something you want to share with the class? Sorry, there’s no way in fuck most of you get half the humor in this article. I suck (not-necessarily-vampirically).
All that’s to say, how does she get fear-laden blood without killing people? I won’t spoil it, tho it ain’t deep. Oh, and this is another reason this appealed to me at age thirteen. The doctor treats vampirism as a disease, is skeptical of the supernatural – and although the science in the movie is very bullshitty, the plot supports him in this! In this world, science can win. Kinda.
And so they all lived happily ever after. Except the guy who played Vlad, who is dead IRL. And Maryam, whose husband died two years ago. Time is the real monster. And probably TV Bacon is actually in bladder control underwear by now. Fuck you, time. Let all the vampires live forever.
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probably going to stop quick-posting for a while now. who knows how long? see you next year? idk.
or from one year after this, the ttrpg Nightlife, no relation.
i really don’t know why universal wouldn’t let this movie say dracula when it’s their own fuckin movie
Believe it or not, the crappy 1980s movies are so much better than the crappy 1960s and 1970s movies. Too many of them share the same plot: a bunch of unkempt young people–who probably would be attractive if they bathed and groomed themselves–move to/visit/go camping in someplace rural, where they sit around and get high. That’s it! Now that I wrote that, I wonder if the slasher movies of the 1980s where people doing that get killed are a reaction to those boring movies of the 1960s and 1970s.
does someone have a grudge against easy rider?
you know how i mocked the movie for referencing a bud light commercial, when earlier in this very article i referenced a coke commercial? yeah i didn’t even notice i’d done that.
a much better use for that coke reference was when i watched ninja scroll, and in the scene at the beginning when a monster drinks blood from a guy’s severed arm, i said “u got the right one baybeh, uh-huh.”
it could have been the left arm, i wasn’t watching that closely for continuity, to justify my bad humor.
Your descriptions make me laugh, Bébé! I love how the Depends are not a dealbreaker for you. Well done. Have you heard of “Weird House Cinema” from the “Stuff to Blow Your Mind” podcast? Every so often they do an entire show on an obscure movie from the past that most people are unfamiliar with. You might get a kick out of it. Most of the movies they do shows on are really really bad but I think that’s kind of the point.
thx bud, very nice comment. the biz about the depends is a risky joke to land right, and won’t work for everyone. those happy b’day cards for old folks that are like “your titties are hang low and that’s funny” (reddit calls these boomer hentai) they range from relatable cheek (life is undignified and we share a laugh about it) to cruel / bullying.
there’s also a whole-ass sea of discourse about how saying who you’re down to fuck is not activism. but i like to think this will work in the kinder way on both levels. that if someone out there is thinking, i could never get someone like bébé, they would feel a bit more like they can.
i haven’t heard of the podcasts, but thanks for the recs!
Growing up pre-cable tv, if you wanted to watch tv, you watched whatever was on the four channels you got. For some reason, that was usually 1960s – 1970s movies with a bunch of unkempt layabouts lying around gazing at the sky and droning on and on and on about nothing. That was supposed to Send a Message about something. The mindless action movies of the 1980s came as a nice antidote.
i still didn’t have cable, but more than four channels. VHF channel something something was “USA Network,” which showed a lotta weird movies, like this one. not sure if i saw it on captain USA’s groovy movies… UHF had some unusual cartoons like pawpaw bears, snorks, heathcliff & the cadillac cats… good times.
ooh remember planet of the apes marathons on channel 13?