Dance of the Damned (1988)


This low-budget movie by Katt Shea Ruben features a vampire and a suicidal stripper as the only two characters, and is a serious take on existentialism and yearning. A reluctant vampire(reluctant because he dislikes drawing blood from humans, and thus starves himself till he can contain no longer) follows his instincts to a seedy strip joint, where one of the dancers Jody is fighting depression and has attempted suicide two times before. The vampire is attracted to a "dark spot" he notices in her and marks her as his next victim. As Jody is locking up for the day, he approaches her and convinces her in spending a night conversing with him. Once, however, they reach his home, he reveals to her that he is a vampire, and he lays bare his plan to kill her and thus end her misery early the next morning. Trapped in the house with no route of escape, Jody begins a conversation with the vampire, both detailing the griefs in their respective lives( he on the death of his mother when he was a young child and on how he spends his days in extreme isolation, as an out-caste from society that cannot accept him; and she on her low-paid job, the 5-year old son she is not allowed to see anymore, the futility of her existence). As the night advances, the two sad souls begin connecting to each other, seeking companionship in their loneliness. There is a moving scene where the vampire takes Jody to the place where her young son resides with his father, and helps her in scaling the wall to reach the window to his room. Here, she wishes her son a happy birthday, and tells him how much she loves him. Then, on a beach, she illustrates to the vampire the sensation of sunlight through a night light. When they return to his home, the vampire reminds her that it is time for her death. Jody then realises that she wants to continue living and resists his attempts to kill her, thus a cat-and-mouse chase begins between the two.The entire movie is centered on the night-long conversations between Jody and the vampire, action is far and between limited to 3-4 scenes, and the increasing sexual tension between the characters is also understated, with a brief kiss thrown in towards the end.
The film is almost forgotten today, and has never been released on DVD, though surprisingly enough, its 1993 eroticised remake, To Sleep With a Vampire, despite having weak plotting and unmemorable actors, has become the better known of the two, and also has garnered a DVD release.