DEADLY LOVE (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I vaguely remembered having seen this bit of Lifetime Channel romantic schlock, but nothing else. Having seen it again, I can state that there's nothing memorable about it except for the stunt-casting of Susan "Partridge Family" Dey as a lovelorn lady vampire.

I know nothing about the source novel by one Sherry Gottlieb, except that I came across the online assertion that the adapters took almost nothing of substance from said book. I can well believe that, for Rob Gilmer's script barely has a plot. It looks as if he simply orchestrated a series of romantic interludes punctuated with very mild vampire action.

Rebecca Barnes (Dey) has very little backstory. She was apparently turned into a vamp by a former lover, about which the viewer knows little, except that for some reason he committed suicide by sunlight. He left Rebecca a servant named Elliott, who does not seem to be any sort of vampire-thrall but is fully aware of Rebecca's history and gives her someone to talk with. Rebecca has taken up professional photography, possibly just as an artistic hobby since she seems to have no money worries. She only comes out at night but it's not clear how often she must feed, though there's some vague talk about her bite healing up the wounds she makes after she feeds, I guess so that she doesn't leave the telltale wounds.

At a party she allows a good-looking guy to draw her out to the street. However, he tries to rape her, so she fangs him, drains him, and dumps his body in a trash bin. But previously she also took the guy's photograph and uses it in some magazine display. Two cops investigate the murder-- which they assume was the act of a powerful man, to have lifted the victim's body into the bin-- and one of the cops, Sean (Stephen McHattie) comes across the victim's photo. He seeks out Rebecca for information, and this slowly leads to a romance between the cop and the mysterioso photographer.

What's odd about DEADLY is that there's nearly nothing that moves the story forward. In many similar tales, Sean's partner might become suspicious of his new lady love, which would put pressure on the uncertain relationship-- but here, the partner is just someone for Sean to talk to. The conflict, such as it is, is that once Rebecca has well and truly fallen for Sean, she wants to bring him into her world. And once Sean learns that Rebecca is a creature of the night, will he want to join her?

Even for a romance, DEADLY's pace is deadly slow. The only memorable scene takes place when a mugger attacks Sean and Rebecca on the street; after Sean's knocked out, Rebecca just flings the thug around with her unnatural strength and then carries Sean to safety. This is one of a couple of events that expose Rebecca's secret, but there's no sense of strong narrative momentum. McHattie, despite having even less backstory to work with than did Susan Dey, manages to make Sean fairly charming, but Dey's Rebecca comes off as one note. Yet I doubt anyone will ever remember DEADLY for anything but for the casting of "Laurie Partridge, Tragic Vampire."