The Film (5/5)

    The Addiction stars Lili Taylor as Kathy a philosophy student finishing up her dissertation on the evils of the Vietnam War. One night while returning from a documentary screening, she is attacked by a woman in a alleyway, who drains her blood, and turns her into a vampire. At first she has no idea what to do with this new change, and begins draining blood with syringes from homeless people. However, the titular addiction gets stronger, and she begins to feast on her friends and those closest to her, thus turning them into vampires too.

   Abel Ferrara is a master of the profound and striking image, and with the Addiction he creates a film that is absolutely full of them. The film is a metaphor for drug addiction, which is not even subtext, from quite early on we have imagery of Kathy using a syringe to deal with her addiction, which makes it quite obvious. But that is the way Ferrera works, he tends to deal with things head on. In the process of course, he blends aspects of philosophy, literature, religion, and social commentary to create a truly potent cinematic cocktail.

    When watching the Addiction 2 films struck me as comparison points in the horror genre. Frank Henenlotter's 1988 film Brain Damage (also out through Arrow Video), and George Romero's sadly under seen 1978 Martin (I wish it was out on Blu-ray through Arrow Video). Brain Damage is a satiric creature feature, that takes a dark and powerful look at addiction, and in many ways is one of the best horror films to look at the power addiction holds on a person.

    Martin is a film that Romero made pre-Dawn of the Dead that takes a look at the mythology of the vampire through the lens of a teenage boy who believes he is a vampire, and commits acts of murder, to obtain the blood he feels he requires to survive. It incorporates stark black and white cinematography to deal with the moments that we are in Martin's head envisioning himself as a vampire. 

    The Addiction uses the vampire as a springboard into the world of addiction, but unlike Martin these characters seemingly really are vampires. Like that Romero film though, there is effective use of black and white, in this case throughout the total of the film instead of in parts of it. This doesn't so much lend the film a gothic horror atmosphere, as one might think from exposure to prior films in the vampire subgenre. Rather, it gives it a gritty street like atmosphere that grounds the film closer to the reality of the time it was shot. In many ways, it could be seen as the vampire flip side to La Haine, which happened to come out in the same year.

Audio/Video (4.5/5)

    Arrow Video presents the Addiction in a very solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the original presentation. The monochrome presentation looks quite fantastic, with excellent contrast, natural grain, and solid detail, and I could find really no issues to nit pick.

   Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in English. Everything here sounds quite solid with the hip hop soundtrack coming through loud clear, dialogue is mostly clear, but occasionally there was some muddiness, but that is probably the nature of the production rather than the audio work by Arrow.

Extras (4/5)

      Arrow provides an excellent audio commentary with Abel Ferrera and Brad Steven. We also get a 30 minute look back on the film that involves the cast and crew including Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken.  There is a 17 minute interview with Abel Ferrera, plus a 9 minute appreciation of the film by Brad Stevens.  Finally, we get a vintage piece of Abel Ferrera editing the film, a still gallery, and original trailer.

Overall

    The Addiction has possibly over taken Henenlotter's Brain Damage in my mind as the most powerful film I've seen that mixes monsters with the horrors of drug addiction. The audio video work from Arrow look and sound positively amazing, and the release comes with an excellent slate of extras. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.