Hooptober 11.0 – Vampire In Brooklyn (1995)

Being Film #17 for Hooptober 2024

You’re one of the biggest comedy stars in the world. You want to branch out, try something different. Horror looks good, so you get one of the masters of the genre who’s also looking to break out of his narrow confines. Sometimes that push-pull relationship can yield gold; other times you get Vampire In Brooklyn, which despite some chilling imagery and the luscious presence of Angela Bassett suffers from some serious identity problems which ultimately dilutes both the comedy and the horror.

THE QUICK SUMMARY: Don’t ask why, but the last living vampire on Earth desperately needs to find the long lost half-vampire from his tribe and turn them before the next full moon or he will die. And so Maximillian crashes into the Brooklyn docks and proceeds to search for Rita, a tough NYC cop who doesn’t her heritage. Sounds great, right? Well since this is a 90s Eddie Murphy vehicle we have to have him playing multiple characters, a silly Renfield sidekick in Kadeem Hardison (praise John Witherspoon, though), and a score that just reeks of everything wrong with studio fare in the 90s.

There are the bones of a really cool story here: I like the idea of vampires splitting into tribes and some going to Africa and the Caribbean – there’s a wealth of mythology to build on there. And credit to Eddie Murphy for wanting to play this really straight; he proves he can be terrifying and has the presence to carry a straight up horror film. And Craven is a good choice for the material: he has some great sequences in this, like then opening with the boat crash and Max’s killing of the mobsters. The pair aren’t afraid to go graphic with torn out hearts, squished eyeballs, and a particularly memorable death when a young woman is found crucified on a building.

Unfortunately, the pair don’t go far enough, and have to include the tenants of what makes this an Eddie Murphy™ joint. Some of it works: everything with John Witherspoon, and even Kadeem Hardison’s rapidly decomposing body has its moments. But the whole playing multiple characters just doesn’t work at all for this kind of movie, and completely takes you out the tension and fun Craven and Murphy are building. I think you do this same movie, and simply have different actors play the roles of the preacher and the gangster and have them attempt to imitate Murphy’s performance and it would work a lot better as opposed to once again putting Murphy under layers of latex and having him be a character.

But Murphy and Bassett are fun, and there’s enough here to warrant a watch of this oddity in both Murphy and Craven’s career. Vampire In Brooklyn could have been better, certainly. But it could have been a whole lot worse.