Cat.no : EDGE 09

Cert : 18

Running time : 90 mins

Year : 1995

Sound : Mono

Price : £12.99

Director :

Kevin Lindenmuth

Addicted To Murder is a gore-drenched nightmare of psycho supernatural sex and urban alienation. Like Martin Scorsese directing a screenplay by George A Romero.

Joel Winter (Mark McCleery) has always had a problem with sex, which is that he keeps murdering the girls he has sex with. He knows he has a problem, but where does a serial killer go for help?

As serial killers go, Joel is lucky. He has someone to talk to, his lover Rachel (Laura McLauchlin). Unfortunately, Rachel is a vampire. Of course like every couple they have their problems....

Rachel longs to be human and die, while Joel longs to kill and mutilate beautiful girls. They find a near perfect solution in a gruesomely fulfilling compromise.

It's a film which is right in there with the schlock-horror classics, and being a vampire, Rachel undergoes several murders at the hands of Joel, be they by electricution, being stabbed, or Death By Chainsaw!!

Life for Joel has never been better..but when Rachel leaves unexpectedly, his torment begins once more....until, that is, he finds Angie (Sasha Graham), an alluring succubus and proud of it. Together they embark on a hunger driven spree of bloodlust and copulation.

Joel begins to change. As his hunger increases so does his disgust for the lifestyle he's adopted...He realises that the myth-makers got it wrong... Vampires do not feed off innocent virtue, it is the darkside of human nature they relish.

He'll kill anyone who gets in his way, including a landlord who gives him hassle when he wants to get into Angie's apartment.

After a time, Joel decides he's had enough of love affairs with the undead, but how do you kick a habit that lasts longer than a lifetime?

Interviews throughout the film give an insight into the mind of disturbed Joel, by friends, psychiatrists and his wife.

Director Kevin Lindenmuth has created a disturbingly familiar universe, forbidding and desperate, where vampires survive unnoticed alongside the low-lifes of New York City's urban underbelly.

Put the kitchen knives away, and put this video on...

Review (C) Dominic Robinson, 1996.