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You know, if they would have chosen a path – dark comedy or serious vampire story – and stuck with it instead of merging the two into this hodge-podge unsettled mess we could have had something here. But the behind the scenes politics of filmmaking lead to a less than stellar product. Ain’t that always the way it goes down?
Eddie Murphy, the poster boy for lazy choices and easy money, was once viewed as a daringly original and edgy comedian. One didn’t know where his comedy would lead us, and frequently it led to projects like Raw or his time on SNL. Classic stuff, but then the 80s started to come to a close and Murphy decided that he was only interested in being a likable and bankable movie star and didn’t feel like putting in much time or effort to make a worthy project. Any goodwill attached to his name is all but gone, and Vampire in Brooklyn can be looked back on as the beginning of the end.
Vampire in Brooklyn was the last film required for Eddie Murphy to fulfill his contract with Paramount. And this clearly shows, instead of rising to the challenge and playing the character correctly, you can see the concessions that Wes Craven made to his star. Once more we have Murphy in layers upon layers of prosthetics in order to briefly appear as an ethnic comedic stereotype, this time an Italian gangster. This character offers nothing to the film at large but the distracting appearance of Murphy in wax-like non-emotive makeup. Even better are all of the scenes that should be played as vulnerable, scary, romantic or any other number of emotions that Murphy derails by insisting on trying to make them funny.
Look, a satirical take on Blacula doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Hell, a vague remake in which it’s brought up to modern times (or then modern times as this film is from 1995), not the worst thing I’ve ever heard if you do it properly and make it funny enough. The problem is, Brooklyn was clearly meant to be a scarier film. A spinoff of the tropes and themes in Dracula, but set in the inner city urban community with vague allusions to voodoo and a person being two halves of the same being. This two halves line is brought up in the beginning but quickly goes nowhere despite some interesting nightmare sequences and a heavy importance placed upon in the earliest parts of the film. It’s a shame that it becomes dropped – whatever happened with the body of the “other”? Why bring up all of these hints and teases about her mother’s work in Jamaica and having a previous familiarity with other characters and voodoo magic if it’s not going to build to anything?
Well, at least Angela Bassett looks gorgeous and has an appealing chemistry with both of her leading men. She’s trying really hard to create a believable character and ground her work in this film, but the numerous screenwriters clearly didn’t have a clear sense of purpose of what they were trying to achieve. If it was too be funny, then the movie is too dark and horrific, if it was to be scary then the movie is filled with too many scenes of abrasive characters mugging for camera time. It’s not a bad concept, either version of the film, but it lacks a distinct purpose so it’s left to drift into the ether forever.
