Embrace of the Vampire 1995

Charlotte, Alyssa Milano is a seemingly chaste young woman who is haunted by erotic dreams in which she meets a dark, handsome vampire; the man, Martin Kemp, has a backstory that he was bitten by nymph vampires long ago and now views Charlotte as the reincarnation of his long-lost lover, a princess. These dream-visions begin to spill into her waking life, straining her real-world romance with her more ordinary boyfriend, Chris, Harold Pruett. As the dreams intensify, Charlotte finds herself pulled toward the Vampire’s world even as a quiet dread gnaws at her, leaving her torn between two competing loyalties: the safety and light of her daytime life and the alluring, dangerous lure of the night.

The tension between duty and desire grows when The Vampire hands Charlotte an ankh that subtly, and then starkly, alters how she behaves whenever she wears it. Under its beguiling influence, Charlotte begins to act on impulses she would normally suppress. She attends a party wearing ankle boots and a short, low-cut dress, and soon finds herself in a precarious situation as her drink is spiked. In a moment that blurs longing and risk, she shares a brief kiss with Milo, a student, John Riedlinger. Their moment is cut short when Milo’s girlfriend Eliza, the campus figure described as the “‘campus slut,’” enters the scene, creating a volatile triangle that spirals toward tragedy. Eliza is violently killed by The Vampire, who bangs her head against Charlotte’s door and then licks the blood from the door, a grotesque act that Charlotte witnesses with a mix of arousal and horror from the other side.

Charlotte drifts in and out of her dream-state as The Vampire urges her to come to him. He believes there is nothing left for her on Earth and insists he has only hours to live unless he can win Charlotte’s love, sealing a bond that would grant him eternal life. The dream sequences culminate in a tower scene where The Vampire is present with Charlotte and Chris. The Vampire pushes Chris aside and closes in, preparing to bite Charlotte, until she calls out Chris’s name. He chides her, telling her not to think of Chris and instead imagine herself with him as a couple, a tease of eternal union that would erase the ordinary life she knows. When Charlotte again utters Chris’s name, The Vampire warns that she cannot borrow Chris’s love to fuel the eternal life he offers, and with that, he disappears.

In the end, Charlotte and Chris awaken together in the morning and share a tender kiss, a quiet testament to the life they have chosen. Meanwhile, The Vampire meets his demise in his desolate room, a stark counterpoint to the warmth of a waking world that Charlotte has decided to return to. The story leaves the audience with a meditation on desire, choice, and the pull between light and darkness, and the moment when love in the daylight proves stronger than the night’s alluring danger.