The Addiction

Wow. There is a lot to explore and navigate here. The Addiction’s vampirism refuses to present itself as any one, neat, single-focused metaphor. It’s excess, selfishness, historical violence and depravity, sexual appetite, substance abuse, and something innately, repulsively human — all at once, on scales both small and large. Here, the relationship between victim and perpetrator is most fascinating. Kathleen is violated, and then contracts the logic and disease and language of her violator, and then reenacts and reproduces that violence herself. It’s horrible. Complicated. The film’s climax, as well, is deeply, disturbingly revealing: the tidy, civilized mask of an affluent, educated gathering and the hunger and destruction and primitiveness underneath. Underneath us all. It’s all very human, very ugly and apologetic and philosophical. Wack.