A vampire (Martin Kemp) must get Charlotte (Alyssa Milano), the reincarnation of his lost love, to join him or he will die. But Charlotte is a repressed girl with a boyfriend, Chris (Harrison Pruett) , and the vampire only has three days.
A stripped-down version of the standard vampire story, Embrace of the Vampire exists to show off Alyssa Milano’s breasts. If you really, really, really want to see Alyssa Milano topless (and I know some of you do), then this is the movie for you. Of course you could just find the pictures on the Internet and save yourself the hour and a half. If you want to see a sensual vampire flick, you’re out of luck here. Yes, Milano takes off her top, and she is an extremely attractive woman, but she doesn’t do anything all that interesting once she’s bare breasted.
But let’s just take it as a given that her multiple flesh scenes are great cinema (if you don’t think that, just run from this film now). They still only amount to a few minutes. Between those scenes there are endless soliloquies on lost love and diatribes on virginity. No one does anything, but they sure talk a lot. If we’re not getting unbelievable dialog, we’re getting dreams. I really should have timed it, but my guess is more time is spent in dreams and hallucinations than in “real” action. Too bad all those dreams lead to nothing. Inhabiting those dreams is the wimpy vampire (who doesn’t even get a name) who snarls and crawls around the floor when he isn’t wearing cloths only fit for a gay German dance club. He also licks doors. You can see how there can be a lot of sexual tension between beautiful Charlotte and a guy with a door fetish. Worse still is Chris, who doesn’t have any personality beyond whining that Charlotte won’t sleep with him. To add in a touch of hypocrisy, the theme of the film is that lust should be suppressed and that a good life comes from purity. I don’t think anyone whose libido is quelled will find anything of interest in Embrace of the Vampire.