'Once Bitten': How an '80s Sex Comedy Reinvented the Vampire
Jim Carrey and Lauren Hutton tired to inject some fun into a genre dominated by AIDS in the '80s
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I initially planned to write about Once Bitten, one of my favorite spooky season movies, because it’s Halloween next week. Then, Variety released a story about a study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Scholars & Storytellers that reiterated, again, that teens today don’t want to see sex in movies and television and I thought all the more reason to discuss this silly ‘80s teen comedy.
If you haven’t seen Once Bitten, and it’s safe to say I heartily recommend you do, it follows horny teenage boy Mark Kendall (a pre-fame Jim Carrey) who encounters a beautiful woman known only as the Countess (Lauren Hutton) who, no surprise, ends up being a vampire. The Countess plans to turn Mark, a virgin, into a vamp by Halloween. The only thing that stands in her way is Mark’s sweet, and equally virginal, girlfriend Robin (Karen Kopins).
In the landscape of ‘80s teen comedies Once Bitten is an underrated, and forgotten, gem that usually only gets trotted out during Halloweentime. Unlike its more famous predecessors, that sought to thread the needle between authentic portrayals of teendom and the ‘80s excess, consumerism and hedonism that would define the “greed is good” decade, Once Bitten dives into the ways teens are pressured into sex and the way everyone chases youth, literally. Director Howard Storm is said to have been the one to eschew the original intentions of the screenwriters, to show the seedy underbelly of Hollywood, in favor of the neon glow and it makes a lot of sense.
Mark and Robin are everyday teens, albeit ones who look like they’re in their early twenties, who aren’t particularly looking for excitement in their lives. They hold little in common with the teen beauties of Brett Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero, which would see an adaptation two years after this film. But neither are they teens in which ALL the horrors of sex are knocking on their door, like in Fast Times at Ridgemont High or The Last American Virgin. They’re exceedingly dull and average. At least until they’re required to engage in an intense dance battle during the Halloween dance with a magician-ified Lauren Hutton.
Instead, Mark is coerced into seeking sex through his stereotypical ‘80s dumbbell friends, Jamie and Russ (Thomas Ballatore and Skip Lackey), who take him down to Hollywood to find a woman. Cinematographer Adam Greenberg does a fabulous job of showing what Hollywood looked like in 1985, or it could be a fantasy version. Teens aimlessly stroll through the streets, bars and clubs are everywhere and, under the surface, is the desire to score …. something. It’s here, in a bar with the famous Hot Lips telephones, that Mark catches the eye of the Countess.
Lauren Hutton is beautiful enough that it’s hard to believe anyone, regardless of gender or age, wouldn’t be a willing sacrifice. But Hutton’s performance veers this into the territory of how aesthetics focused the 1980s were, particularly for women. The movie is dated, to be sure — there’s a really misguided trans “joke” and a lot of gay panic — but the in-fighting between Robin and the Countess is very ‘80s girlboss/catfighting.
That being said, in a movie that tries so hard to erase homosexuality, I defy you to deny the chemistry is FAR more palpable between the Countess and Robin than Mark. And we know the Countess has turned women before — there are two ladies in her stable of teen vamps — so it’s never 100% explicated why she doesn’t see Robin as an equally worthy character.
But what’s more interesting about this 1985 comedy is how it fits into Gen Z’s current antipathy towards sex on-screen. There’s no doubt they’d look askance at Once Bitten for the reasons laid out above, but on the surface it’s a weirdly apathetic look at sexuality. Mark certainly wants to have sex, and Robin does as well; that alone is interesting to have a female heroine mention she wants to lose her virginity and isn’t persecuted for it.
And the Countess’ pursuit of Mark has nothing to do with his sexuality or desirability. It has everything to do with his lack of sexuality. While his inability to do it makes him a social pariah to his friends, it is the allure for a vampire that wants to exploit that very chastity. It’s hilarious weird that the movie’s moral is: just get rid of it so vampires won’t prey on you!
The audience has every indication of where the story will go, but the how of it is unique. It’s Robin who conjures up the idea to take their mutual virginities as a means of saving Mark from the Countess. But it’s the literal definition of a quickie, unseen and lasting all of about 45 seconds. Even the Countess takes note that “you couldn’t have. You were in there for less than a minute” only to realize she’s dealing with teenagers.
“You could’ve … but you didn’t have time to enjoy it.” It’s said that teens don’t respond to sex scenes because of the belief they’re exploitative or gratuitous in some way, and Once Bitten almost seems to call that out. In the grand scheme of the movie, the sex is paramount. But, in execution, it holds just as much interest as putting a stake through the Countess’ heart.
But going back to the Countess saying the pair didn’t have time to enjoy it. Remember, the 1980s is usually marred as a decade of being fearful of sex. I mean, there’s an irony to Mark and Robin doing the deed for the first time in a coffin. Movies like the aforementioned Fast Times hit on all the reasons why teens shouldn’t do it, music reminded them they didn’t “have to take [their] clothes off, to have a good time,” and AIDs was running rampant. However, the Countess does remind them that they are going to have sex, and if they do it should at least be satisfying to both parties, not to get a vampire off their backs. All this from a movie that has an impromptu dance sequence in it!
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