I, Desire

Plot synopsis:
Law student David Balsinger [David Naughton] works as a coroner's aid at the County Coroner's office in Los Angeles. David is busy studying _Constitutional Law_ when they bring in Milton King, attacked by a hooker, two holes in his neck, and all of his blood drained. Shortly thereafter, a priest arrives to see the body, but David learns later that Milton King was Jewish. Strange. Oh well. Time for David to pick up girlfriend Cheryl Gillen [Marilyn Jones], a nurse at Memorial Hospital. Tonight is a special night. It is the night that Cheryl is moving in with David. She had an interesting night, too. Someone walked off with two pints of AB+ blood. When David tells Cheryl about Milton King and the priest, she suggests that he tell the police what he knows. Detective Jerry Van Ness [Dorian Harewood] is a law student, too, so they chat amiably on the way down to the station where David is asked to look at mugshots and a lineup. On his return to the hospital to pick up Cheryl, David notices the priest getting into an elevator. David tries to follow but loses him. While looking for the priest, David and Cheryl hear screams coming from the bloodbank. Marge Bookman [Anne Bloom] has been attacked by someone who escapes by breaking through the iron bars on the window but, when David tries to tell Van Ness what he saw, he gets the brush off.The next day, a second victim is brought in. Same M.O. David tries to talk about it, but no one seems interested. Van Ness doesn't want to talk about the priest. Dr Herrera doesn't want to talk at all. Dieners Daryl [Timothy Stack] and Larry [Marc Silver] make jokes. Not even Cheryl wants to hear any more about hookers or vampires. People are starting to think that David needs to see a shrink.That night, when David goes to pick up Cheryl from work, he is sent to Marge's room. Cheryl isn't there, and Marge is gasping for air. He notices her oxygen line has been disconnected. As he is re-attaching it, he is attacked by a vampire. She pins him against the wall and tries to bite his neck. Fortunately, a nurse enters the room, and the vampire leaps out the third floor window. When David tells Van Ness about the woman, Van Ness doesn't believe him, so David decides to do a little investigating on his own. He goes down to Hollywood Blvd where he sees the priest. The priest tries to elude him, but David pursues. They go to a nearby donut shop to talk. Priest Paul [Brad Dourif] tells David that the vampire's name is Desire and that he has been following her, most recently from Fort Worth to Tucson and now to Los Angeles. He also tells David that a vampire has no power over a righteous man and agrees to talk with Van Ness. When David phones Van Ness, however, Paul disappears. So David decides to talk with a hooker. She turns out to be an undercover cop and arrests him for soliciting.Cheryl decides that she can't live like this and moves out. David goes back to Hollywood Blvd, looking for Desire. He doesn't find her, but he does run into Mona [Barbara Stock], a candystriper from the hospital. Mona invites David to her apartment for a drink. Mona's apartment turns out to be the penthouse, which she explains was left to her by her father. She only volunteers at the hospital to have something to do. Mona kisses David, then starts to unbutton his shirt. David jumps up and asks to use the bathroom. Upstairs, he finds the priest dead and laid out on a slab. Knowing that David now knows she is the vampire, Mona cuts the seduction act and starts going for the jugular. David attempts to escape, but the doors are locked. He goes outside on the balcony, all the while hollaring over and over, "I am a righteous man!" Mona/Desire leaps, David ducks, and Mona goes over the railing, falling to her death. When David goes back into the room, he finds that Paul has turned into a vampire. Paul leaps at David, but David holds up a deadwood branch, and Paul is impaled on it.David summons the police who find a coffin behind a concealed door. Van Ness warns David that, if he sticks to his version of the events, his life will become a living hell. Instead, he cooks up a story of how Desire killed Paul then came after David, they struggled, and she fell off the balcony. Cheryl comes back to David. While they walk away, another vampire stands in the shadows, watching them. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

Tags: murder

Review:
Underrated Gem of a Horror Film.
David Balsiger (David Naughton) works the night shift at the city morgue, watching over the "cold room".
He's just moved in with his girlfriend, Cheryl Gillen (Marilyn Jones), a nurse.
A corpse shows up with puncture wounds on its neck, drained of its blood.
A priest comes in, apparently from the man's family, to give last rites, then disappears.
Moments later, the man's rabbi shows up.
David tells the police, and begins to become wrapped up in the case, which appears to be some kind of serial murderer who is at least mimicking vampirism.Despite a slight clunkiness in a couple spots and a too-understated climax, which caused me to subtract one point from this film's score, this is an incredibly underrated and too-little-known horror flick.
It has some resemblances to Taxi Driver, including that film's wonderful grittiness, but as a vampire film.Perhaps with a different cast, Desire, The Vampire (aka I, Desire) would be a much lesser film, but Naughton, who is the focus here--we're following him 90-percent of the time, is fabulous.
As he becomes more wrapped up in the strange events, so do we, and we empathetically experience the odd, alienating reaction that he begins to receive from others.
Brad Dourif is extra-creepy in the film, and in many ways he's the biggest villain in a film that has many besides the obvious, titular one.This film deserves much more recognition.
The American werewolf vs a sexy vampire..
Superior made for television movie that bears a more than passing resemblence to the newer and triter "Def by Temptation".
"I Desire" stars David Naughton fresh from his impressive performance in "American Werewolf in London", as David Balsiger, a Los Angeles morgue attendant who notices a series of bodies that cross his station appear to be victims of a vampire.
He initially discounts this possibility but as more bodies come in he undertakes a personel investigation into the matter.
Eventually his snooping leads him into a near fatal confrontation with a decidedly female fiend.
Foolishly, he tells the authorities of his encounter and is promptly dismissed as a crank.
His fellow morgue attendants get wind of the story and play some morbid but convincing hoaxes on him.
Even his girlfriend doubts him, suggesting he seek professional help.
Balsiger is just starting to doubt his sanity when a priest shows up and confirms his suspicions.
The priest, who has tracked the killer from its last murder spree in New Orleans tells the young man what they are dealing with is more than a mere vampire.
The beast is actually the demonic personification of lustful desire.
Taking the form of a beautiful woman the creature poses as a prostitute and uses the art of seduction to corrupt the souls of men.
Only a truly righteous man, the priest informs him, can hope to resist the demon's wiles and thus combat it.
Armed with this knowledge Balsiger sets forth to battle the beast in an all or nothing showdown of good versus evil.
Being a made for television film overt sexuality and gore are thankfully nonexistant.
Instead the movie wisely concentrates on characterization and quality plot development..
Charming little vampire flick NOT TO BE MISSED!.
This little gem has it all!
David Naughton was an excellent casting choice for the lead role, but some of my favorites such as Dorian Harewood and Marilyn Jones (remember the cute little Nurse that Radar meets in Japan on TV's MASH?), the alluring Barbara Stock, and a powerful Brad Dourif performance also contribute to this made-for-TV delight which richly deserves to be released on DVD!
(Hint, hint!!) The plot was probably patterned after "The Night Stalker", with a vampire in modern-day urban America coming to the attention of law student and part-time night employee David Balsiger.
He and his attractive "girl-next-door type" fiancée Cheryl Gillen make a likable young couple, and Harewood is very convincing as ambitious young Police detective Jerry Van Ness.
But defrocked priest Paul (Brad Dourif) has a memorable few minutes in the middle of the movie that really sticks in my mind.The ending of the movie comes as somewhat of a surprise, and is well handled by the cast members.
There's a bluesy musical theme supporting all this, and a refreshing ABSENCE of modern potty-mouth language that make so many modern flicks unattractive for adults and unsuitable for children.Keep a lookout for it on TV, and if it's ever released on a "legitimate" DVD, stay out of my way at the counter, or you'll get run over by me when selecting it!.
where lechery is punished.
This flick pretty well bridges the gap between a centuries-old concept and a modern environment.
I regard this to be a difficult task in our contemporary era of pragmatism, so, this gets an above-average rating from me for its attempt.
But I guess that SOME elements of the vampire belief just CAN'T be left in the past, and they, unfortunately, remind me that this IS a fantasy, evoking my idiosyncratic prejudice against that genre.
The story is about a squeamish law-student/morgue worker and his nurse/girlfriend, who, in their positions, see some deaths which involve blood loss.
As the guy's fascination intensifies, so does his alienation of his shack-up and the cops, who tire of his tries to convince them that his theory is worthy.
I think, however, that you will agree that there is nothing unprofessional about this movie, and that you will, therefore, also conclude that this is an adequate investment..
bloodless vampire movie.
Rather bloodless vampire movie from TV movie veteran, John Llewellyn Moxey and starring, David Naughton who co-starred in, American Werewolf in London, the year before.
The idea is great in that in this updated version, the one in search of blood poses as a hooker to ensnare and in between these bouts supplements the supply with raids on hospital blood banks, as you would.
All good, but here played so carefully that those special ingredients (sex and violence!) only get hinted at here.
For some the wailing sax (such a sign of 80s films) is effective, for some of us lazy and tiresome, but the films just about engages and is helped enormously halfway through with a fantastic interjection by the priest figure.
If only the whole film had been as vital, or indeed, dare I say, Mr Naughton's performance as effective..
I can't say enough about this great movie!
Roy..
If I could only use one word to describe the movie "I, Desire" that word would be Surreal !!.
The critics should hail it as the triumphant climax of Surrealistic art.
It is truly an Existentialist's delight.
That Barbara Stock is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and the way she walks down those steps at the end of the movie is the most memorable scene I have ever seen.
It is so sad that it has been pushed aside by the mainstream media.
It is hardly known to anyone because every person I have asked about it has never even heard of it.
Barbara Stock should have appeared in more productions.
They should have worked that sexy woman to death.There are also some important analogies to real life in that movie.
For example, when "Paul" was in the coffee shop, which he "hates", he dramatically stresses the importance about staying out of trouble by keeping one's mouth shut!
At the end of the movie, David is almost misled by a woman of great tempting qualities but is able to resist and finds he is better off to stick with the " Suzy Homemaker" type..
Desire, The Vampire.
This film has a strong opening, a murder, then looks like it is going to deteriorate into the usual fifth rate predictable trash, but the consensus is that this somewhat off-beat tale of modern horror is both a superior effort and vastly under-rated.
A female vampire posing as a prostitute to procure her, or perhaps that should be its, victims, a cynical detective working his first homicide - which soon becomes a killing spree - a deranged former priest who is not so deranged, and our hero - a righteous man - one who will not be tempted by the sins of the flesh.
Yeah, "Desire" delivers the goods.David Balsiger is the law student who having tangoed with the evil one in the hospital where his girlfriend works as a nurse, goes on her trail only to be arrested by an undercover policewoman for soliciting a prostitute.
Fortunately, although he doesn't find her, she finds him, but how can a righteous man overpower a fiend who can rip iron security bars from a third floor window and leap out of it with impunity?
Who knows, but good will triumph over evil.
Gripping stuff, even three decades and more on..
One hot-looking Vampire.
This movie has one of the hottest looking female vampires ever played on television.Played by [whoops,spoiler],this vampire spooks,bedevils and exasperates David Naughton and the police.
You'd think this was part of the Kolchak movie/ tv series as Naughton stumbles into the vampire's lair by mere chance.
Still,the gothic atmosphere and humor of the movie does keep the viewer spellbound.It really is a shame that this isn't on video because I'd love to have this in my collection.