‘Habit’ Takes New Bite Out of an Old Tale

If an attractive member of the opposite sex with “kind of a timeless quality” came on to you at a hip New York party, would you wonder if this was one of the undead or just be pleasantly surprised? If the best sex of your life resulted, how much would it matter if you started feeling weaker and began noticing what look suspiciously like bite marks on your body? Would you assume the worst or just think your tired mind was playing odd little tricks on you?

Larry Fessenden’s impressive “Habit” takes a great deal of pleasure in ambiguously playing around with the vampire tradition. It allows viewers to experience these dilemmas in the same way the protagonist does, gradually but surely imprisoning us and him in an obsessive situation from which escape may not be possible or even desired.

An adroit arty/spooky example of what’s come to be known as no-budget filmmaking (projects under $200,000), “Habit” helped win Fessenden--who wrote and edited the film along with starring and directing--last year’s Someone to Watch Award from Swatch and the Independent Feature Project.

Though his work has rarely surfaced in theaters, Fessenden has been making films for more than a decade, and his experience shows in how confidently he and cinematographer Frank DeMarco create an air of haunted and unsettling menace out of the rather pedestrian streets of Lower Manhattan.

Sam (Fessenden) is a heavy-drinking restaurant manager, a guy known among his friends for getting wasted early and often. A shambling and feckless wastrel who’s never bothered to replace a front tooth lost in a mugging, Sam thinks he’s hipness personified, but in fact he’s just another lonely boy in the big city, more of a psychological soft touch than he can imagine.

Having just lost his father and opted for a trial separation from his artist girlfriend Liza (Heather Woodbury), Sam is at greater loose ends than usual when Anna (Meredith Snaider) seems to materialize in front of him at a Halloween party. There’s an immediate connection between them, but Sam is too drunk to effectively capitalize on it, and as hard as he tries once he sobers up, he can’t find her.

Then, just when he’s given up hope, Anna finds him at a Little Italy street fair, holding out two Ferris wheel tickets and offering “the ride of your life.” They have an intense sexual encounter that very night, and when Sam wakes up alone in Battery Park the next morning, there is a prominent wound on his lower lip.

The pattern of that voraciously physical first encounter becomes the norm for this relationship. Appearing unexpectedly, Anna teases Sam into having sex in unlikely public places, even in a hospital morgue, while steadfastly refusing to reveal anything about herself. “The less you know about me, the longer you’ll be interested,” she tells him. “Men like to fall in love, not stay in love.”

While his friends ineffectually worry about how strung out he’s looking and how physically wrecked he’s become, Sam, completely intoxicated with Anna, doesn’t care to hear it. The question “Habit” asks is not so much can he escape Anna’s influence, but does he even want to.

Though many of the performances in “Habit” mark time at best, Snaider makes a powerful impression in her film debut as the direct, soft-spoken, preternaturally composed Anna. Her assured, attractive characterization is the critical element in the film’s success, and she manages to be so genuinely otherworldly you start to wonder if she only worked after dark.

Part of the spooky fun of “Habit” is noticing how Fessenden has discreetly sprinkled traditional vampire film paraphernalia throughout his story. We catch glimpses of a derelict ship and a pack of wolves, a Van Helsing-type character makes a brief appearance, and Anna is troubled by the smell of garlic.

Some of these elements pay off in expected ways, some do not, but all fit with a satisfying smoothness into a ‘90s urban environment. Imagining you’re seeing the undead all around once you leave the theater is a hazard of watching “Habit.” You might even be right.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: intense sexual scenes and some traditional horror elements.

‘Habit’

Larry Fessenden: Sam

Meredith Snaider: Anna

Aaron Beall: Nick

Patricia Coleman: Rae

Heather Woodbury: Liza

A Glass Eye Pix presentation, released by Glass Eye Pix in association with Passport Cinemas. Director Larry Fessenden. Producer Dayton Taylor. Screenplay by Larry Fessenden. Cinematographer Frank DeMarco. Editor Larry Fessenden. Costumes Loren Bevans. Music Geoffrey Kidde. Art director John Arlotto. Sound Bill Chesley. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.

*

* Exclusively at Music Hall Theatre, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., (310) 274-6869.