Once Bitten (1985):
Day 4 of our Halloween marathon, so far we’ve had a maniac, a troll, and a coven of witches….something’s missing, oh yeah, vampires! Specifically a sexy mid-80’s cougar vampire who must drink three times from a virgin before Halloween! Don’t worry if you have no idea what I’m talking about yet, most people don’t. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for my Mom’s liberal stay home sick from school policy I may not know either. Today’s movie is Once Bitten. The biggest bit of trivia from this flick is that it was Jim Carrey’s first starring role, the fact that he didn’t get another until 1993 may tell you how this movie did at the box office but dammit, it’s SO much fun.
Carrey plays typical 80’s teen Mark Kendall who is becoming increasingly sexually frustrated with his SUPER hot typical 80’s good-girl girlfriend Robin, played by the criminally beautiful Karen Kopins. Thankfully, Mark has two goofball friends who are singly motivated by the quest to lose their virginity. Something makes Mark think it’s a good idea to go to some amazingly 80s gimmick of a night club where every table has a phone shaped like a pair of lips, with which you can call other tables to hook-up. It’s here that Mark meet’s a sexy older woman who gives her name simply as Countess (Lauren Hutton). After going home with the Countess and passing out Mark wakes up thinking he lost his V card, not knowing that the Countess has taken the first of three feedings from his virgin blood. Obviously regretting his decision Mark tries to regain Robin’s trust and forget about the night, the Countess is not so easily lost.
There’s so much I love about this movie, from the textbook stereotypes of high school students in 1985 to Cleavon Little’s performance as the Countesses assistant Sebastian. One of the more surprising bits about the movie is that Jim Carrey was actually pretty good as a teenage leading man, we even get a few glimpses into the future with a quick DeNiro impersonation. The writing of the movie is so ridiculous that it had to be intentional, and therefore genius comedy. Let’s look at Mark’s friend Russ, who plays the virgin that talks big to hide his obvious virginity. He’s the catalyst for the guys getting into these wacky “get laid” situations. His signature pick-up line is one of the cheesier bits that gets me every time, “Hi. I'm Russ, and I'm a Sagittarius. I enjoy surfing, candlelit dinners, and Tolstoy. Listen: I'm a mature person and you're a mature person, so why don't we just skip all the bullshit, get rid of our inhibitions, and DO what we really wanna DO? This works about as well as you’d think.The real shining jewel of Once Bitten is the dance off for Mark’s..umm…heart, I guess, between Robin and Countess. Sure, I could describe it for you word for word but this is really something you need to see for yourself…anything you need to know about the movie can be devised from this one scene.
So there you have it, Once Bitten, the movie you haven’t seen that you should give a shot this October. Though, if you were completely put off by the dance scene above it may not be for you.
