The Addiction

Eerie and weird - but especially weird - "The Addiction" is, like "Nadja" a few months ago, another contemporary vampire yarn set in New York City, as bloodsuckers take on the appearance of street people and feed on the disenfranchised.

At its best, the film hosts some fine actors - chiefly Lili Taylor in the lead role. But eternally heavy-handed director Abel Ferrara ("Bad Lieutenant") isn't interested in making anything that even remotely resembles a conventional horror film. Instead, he seems to be striving for some kind of religious connection as he explores the nature of evil . . . although, in the end, he seems awfully unsure of what he wants to say about it.

Brooding, low-contrast black-and-white photography helps maintain the tone, as confused NYU philosophy student Kathleen Conklin (Taylor) attempts to reconcile the things she is learning in school with a world that can produce such wartime atrocities as Vietnam's My Lai massacre and the concentration camps of World War II.

So when she gets it in the neck after being approached by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra), and discovers some homicidal awakenings of her own, Kathleen really becomes confused. Out of control, as "evil" becomes her addictive drug, Kathleen tries to come to grips with her new, uh, life, though not very successfully.

Enter Peina (Christopher Wal-ken), a fellow vampire who, after a chance encounter, tries to help Kathleen learn self-control and to take responsibility for her actions.

Scripted by Nicholas St. John, who collaborated with Ferrara on "King of New York," "Dangerous Game" and "Body Snatchers," the film is full of posing and intellectualizing, including deadpan witticisms that are delivered so straight it's hard to know if they're meant to be as amusing as they are.

In fact, the film's campiness - and certainly the grotesque, escalating level of violence and gore - reaches such ridiculous heights that the film's more serious metaphorical intentions are undermined. (Check out that climactic graduation party, where vampires quote the great philosophers to each other ad nauseum before it turns into an orgy of blood.)

But in the end, this is an actor's piece, with quirky-as-usual work from Walken and nice support from Sciorra, however brief.

Taylor, however, adds one more enigmatic performance to her ever-growing list of fascinating characters, acting as the film's anchor, much like Harvey Keitel in Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant." And like Keitel in that film, Taylor is always better than her material.

"The Addiction" is not rated but is certainly in hard-R territory, with plenty of violence and bloodletting, as well as profanity and nudity.