Embrace of the Vampire (4 Stars)

Another vampire film, but I didn't forget this one. This is one of the sexiest vampire films ever made, with some unforgettable scenes, especially the scene in which the unnamed man played by Martin Kemp is turned into a vampire by three beautiful naked vampiresses. But let's start from the beginning.

Martin Kemp is a nobleman who is ecstatically in love. Round about the 16th Century, it seems, though the date isn't stated. His relationship is cut short when he becomes a vampire. The fate of his lover isn't stated, which is strange, because he searches for her for hundreds of years. Yes, a small hole in the plot. Eventually he finds her, reborn as a 17-year-old college girl called Charlotte, played by Alyssa Milano. Just in time. After three days, at midnight, he will die forever. This date coincides with Charlotte's 18th birthday, but Martin can avert his death if he drinks Charlotte's blood before this moment, and only if she's still a virgin. Yet another strange reinvention of vampire mythology. It gets confusing, doesn't it?

Unfortunately Charlotte has a boyfriend called Chris that she loves deeply. Martin wants her to leave him voluntarily, rather than taking her by force or killing him. But he only has three days to win Charlotte's heart.

The film's imagery is beautiful, but the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. At the beginning we see Martin as a man deeply in love with Charlotte, so we sympathise with him and want him to succeed. As the film progresses it seems that all he wants is to drink her blood to prolong his life; he even says that the act will be without emotion. At this point we begin to boo and hiss.

The film has achieved a certain notoriety though Alyssa Milano's nude scenes. Before this she had been famous as a child star, and three years later she reached the peak of her career starring in the TV series "Charmed". Even today, 17 years later, nude screenshots from the film are plastered all over the Web. Just do a search for "Alyssa Milano nude" and you'll see what I mean. I've never understood the fascination with nude celebrities. It must be an American thing. American society is so uptight, which leads to men getting excited when a mainstream actress can be seen without her clothes. In Europe nobody cares. Serious German actresses have no hesitation to appear nude if the plot requires it. The same applies to England, where actresses like Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet have appeared naked countless times. In Alyssa's case it goes one step further. Her mother, Lin Milano, went as far as to create a company called Cybertrackers to hunt down people posting nude photos of her daughter online and threaten them with legal action. This is a sad case of a mother not respecting her daughter enough to accept the choices she's made in her life. Alyssa's nude images will exist forever, on the Internet and on DVD. She claims success, saying that all the sites that she finds are closed down, but she's fighting a losing battle, as a simple web search will prove.