Hey everybody it's retrodave. I had submitted this article six days before Halloween. For you Retrojunk writers you know there is a delay before new articles are approved and posted. Hopefully this will be posted before Halloween. If not enjoy it anyway. I'd like to talk about a movie called "Once Bitten" a vampire comedy starting a young Jim Carrey.
Jim Carrey 23 at the time plays high school student Mark Kendall looking to lose his virginity, but his girlfriend Robin won't put out. That can be a problem. However, it can be a bigger problem when a female vampire simply called Countess played by Lauren Hutton (Michele in "American Gigolo") is hunting him for his virgin blood.
A current picture of Lauren Hutton
You see Countess needs the purity of virgin blood before she loses her youthful looks and becomes and a very old looking woman. She must receive blood from him three times before the stroke of midnight on Halloween. Mark frustrated from not getting action from Robin hits the town with his lame friends in Mark's lame ice cream truck. They stop into a bar in which Mark meets the Countess. They have a few drinks and Countess takes him to her place so she can draw blood.
The character Countess at the bar
She draws blood not from the neck but from his inner thigh; near his personal area. For some reason that is where it needs to be drawn from. Mark does not remember if he did anything sexual with Countess, nor getting bit. He believes it was because of being drunk, and does not suspect that Countess is a vampire at all. Countess must take his blood two more times but has to wait till he gets his strength back before she can draw some more blood.
Robin finds out about Mark's escapade and becomes angry with him. Later in the movie she forgives him. Countess returns and bites him a second time in a department store changing room. All this time Mark is becoming a vampire and he doesn't realize it yet, but he does no something is wrong. His skin has started to turn pale. and he starts doing weird stuff like sleeping in a trunk and eating raw hamburgers.
Later at the school Halloween dance Mark is dressed in an all black suit with his hair slicked back and he is very pale. He is not in a costume but everyone thinks he is dressed as a vampire. Countess also shows up at the dance. There at the dance Mark, Countess, and Robin have a dance-off. Which I admit is a fun scene.
After the dance scene when Robin and Mark have a moment alone Robin notices Mark doesn't have a reflection in the mirror. Then they both suspect that Countess is a vampire and is turning him into one. Robin then decides to do some research and finds that if he was bitten by a vampire there would be a bite-mark on his inner thigh. Well since she is his girlfriend she could look herself and upon finding the bite marks she could take away his virginity saving him from becoming a vampire. No she doesn't do that she asks her friends to do that after gym class in the shower. This leads into the funniest scene in the movie.
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So there is that and then Robin gets captured by Countess and Mark and his friends go to rescue her at Countess's mansion. Vampires (previous victims of countess through out the ages) chase Mark and Robin around the mansion in a real cheesy way in which the vampires break thru walls and floors that are obviously false. Until they find the coffin room. Robin saves Marks fate within a coffin. That is when the coffin is rocking don't come a knocking.
Once Bitten happened to be the first vampire movie I saw as kid when I was 7 or 8. So back then I like it because I never saw a vampire movie before, and I thought that the vampires in this movie were so cooI, back then. Now in the present day the vampires don't hold up so much and some of the comedy. However "Once Bitten" does however show some of Jim Carrey's early classic comedy; which is good. Also Marks best friends in the movie have some comedic moments. Lauren Hutton is hot as Countess Esp. at the Halloween dance. This movie is also the only movie I'm aware of with a homosexual vampire servant played by Cleavon Little. (Sheriff Bart from "Blazing Saddles.") Cleavon is so funny in that role. Another thing I like is the music is good; even though the theme song good use work on the lyrics. Come on, "We're singing in the rain boy."
I'm not sure what most people think of this movie, because I'm not sure if other people I know has seen it or not. I checked out the comments on this movie on this website and besides my comment there are only two others. However I like this movie very much. It is ridiculous at times, but that's the point. "Once Bitten" is great.
