Stars:
Christopher Walken,
Christopher Penn,
Benicio Del Toro,
Isabella Rossellini,
Annabella Sciorra,
Lili Taylor,
Kathryn Erbe,
Michael Imperioli,
Paul Calderon,
Edie Falco
Director:
Abel Ferrara
Summary: A double pack featuring 'The Funeral' in which a young Mafia member is murdered, and his brother swears vengeance. The prime suspect is the leader of a rival crime syndicate... and 'The Addiction' in which a student is pulled into an alley by a well dressed stranger who proceeds to drink blood from her neck. Now she too suffers an overwhelming need which only killing can satisfy...
Two films from the dark and edgy New York auteur Abel Ferrara are packaged together here: 1996's THE FUNERAL and 1995's THE ADDICTION. In the first,
at the wake of their murdered younger brother, two gangster siblings revisit their past while making plans for revenge against a rival gangster who killed him. Christopher Walken delivers a powerhouse performance as the eldest brother, Ray, whose emotions have been shut down after their own father's suicide some years before and who must come to terms with his failures as a man. Chris Penn costars as Chez, his abusive, emotionally unstable brother who has inherited their father's self-destructive behavior. Set in 1930s New York, this elegiac film delves into such topics as faith, masculinity, and redemption as it moves slowly toward its bloody, powerful climax. Annabella Sciorra plays Ray's wife, whose devout Catholicism serves as the moral center of the film. Isabella Rossellini, Vincent Gallo, Benicio Del Toro, and Gretchen Mol round out the stellar cast.
In THE ADDICTION, ulnerable New York University grad student Kathleen (Lili Taylor) becomes a philosophic vampire after an alleyway attack. Shot in expressionistic black and white, Ferrara's film blends a cool underground aesthetic with analytical digressions on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard delivered in a breathy voice-over as Kathleen stalks and seduces new victims. Parallels are drawn between vampirism and drug addiction--and intellectualism and genocide--as Kathleen bites and infects a cross section of the East Village, including cabbies, hustlers, and professors, while completing her doctoral thesis on the nature of evil. Her attacks and dissertations are accented by footage from Vietnam, Bosnia, and Nazi death camps that further the parallels. Christopher Walken has a memorable scene as Peina, an older vampire who gives Kathleen some sage advice. Schoolly D provides a fittingly nihilistic rap soundtrack.