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R3store grades and restores The Addiction for Arrow Video

May 16 2018

“My indifference is not the concern here, it's your astonishment that needs studying.”

Abel Ferrara’s 1995 feature The Addiction is coming to Arrow Video, graded and restored by our team here at R3store Studios.

Lili Taylor (I Shot Andy Warhol, The Conjuring) stars as our protagonist Kathleen, a philosophy student at New York University who gets bitten by a strange woman and begins to exhibit mysterious symptoms, such as aversion to light and food. Soon she learns that the price of immortality is an addiction to blood. Kathleen goes on to meet Peina, an older vampire played by Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, Catch Me If You Can) who has managed to overcome his addiction to blood and is hence can live an almost normal life.

The Addiction is famed for its integration of philosophy into the narrative; Descartes, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Feuerbach are referenced throughout. The film is considered a metaphor for drug addiction, with Kathleen looking overdosed and hungover after a chaotic night of feasting on human blood. Peina even recommends that Kathleen read The Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, a novel about addiction to heroin and morphine.

This restoration has been approved by Ferrara and director of photography Ken Kelsch. The Blu-ray also contains a documentary about the film made by the director himself, especially for this release. The film will be released on June 25th – you can pre-order your copy here.

By Jenny Collins