Steven's illness?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Immortality
Mo-95 — 21 years ago(January 11, 2005 04:44 PM)
I figured that the reason he drank the blood was due to the illness (the same reason his cut didn't heal up). What is that illness? Is that a real illness? Not that it makes what he did OK, but it at least explains the reason why he started to kill all the girls
Any ideas? -
indie_scarlet — 21 years ago(January 25, 2005 03:39 AM)
i don't think it is real, it's some kind of wierd hemophilia.
(here's an interesting, probably useless piece of info) there's some really interesting ideas about how 'vampires' came about. somewhere in europe, a few centuries ago, the royal family believed that they should interbreed to keep their blood pure. the inbred offspring got some really wierd diseases. with one disease, they became photosensitive and couldn't go out in the light or their skin would crack and they would bleed and because they lost so much blood they were encouraged to drink it.
also the word hemophilia (delay or inability of the blood to clot) literally means blood lover, so maybe it was associated with vampires too.
loved the movie! it was quite beautiful -
vampiredav-1 — 20 years ago(July 02, 2005 07:39 PM)
that's a weird vampire story. that'd be funny if it really influenced later vampire stories. if you really go back, you can trace vampiric type monsters to india, thousands of years ago. they don't have the same characteristics that we associate with vampires today, but those characteristics could have been added to by stories like that royal family one. but you can usually find some kind of vampire in almost every culture, every religion, throughout history.
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froske1 — 20 years ago(December 08, 2005 12:30 PM)
hey,
Haemophilia is indeed one of the diseases that can appear in cases of inbreeding, but this is something that happened also ages ago, to the pharaons of Egypt for e.g.! A certain Hungarian queen used to bathe in blood because she thought that would keep her young & make her skin soft & that nonsense, but I have never heard of haemophilic people being encouraged to drink blood! It wouldn't make much sense either, maybe blood transfusions could work in this case but I kind of doubt that too.
Anyway, I don't think that disease had anything to do with haemophilia, it was rather a metaphor of vampirism, i.e. if the vampire doesn't feed he starts to break down, "disintegrates." Besides, this vampirism had more of a spiritual aspect, he drank the blood only because blood was supposedly the material carrier of love & emotions. He said he was actually feeding on love, which love was in the blood Quite an odd idea! Makes me think of hormones & the like! I guess it could've been more interesting to see him feeding on neurotransmitters.
God is real unless declared integer. -
Bladerunneru0095 — 17 years ago(December 22, 2008 07:03 AM)
That "certain Hungarian queen" you speak of was Elizabeth Bthory, and she wasn't a queen, she was a countess.
I think he was a strange type of vampire, a mythic, supernatural vampire. Remember his super human speed and strength in his fight with the thugs that attack him and Anne. Also, remember the strange crystal rod he coughs up after he kills her? Those are her non-perfect emotions he was speaking of.
I hope the DVD has a commentary track on it so we can find out if the director meant him to be crazy, a hemophiliac, or a new, weird type of vampire.
"nothing is left of me, each time I see her" - Catullus -
frikusa — 20 years ago(July 25, 2005 06:21 AM)
It is a real illness, its called Sleep Apnoea and you can read more about it here: http://www.healthyresources.com/sleep/apnea/faq/snore/osa.htm and it has nothing to do with blood drinking
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kg-20 — 17 years ago(March 12, 2009 11:03 PM)
He was a vampire. I suspected he was 'turned' by someone who saw a young boy dying from a fall perhaps, but he was the most neurotic vampire ever. lol Or maybe the director just liked to play with medical science - IE reptilian brains, predator, all these metaphors feeding off each other.
The director fed off the vampiric explanations by making it appear he had real illnesses, like hemophilia, sleep apnea, even diabetes. (The acetone on the breath.)
JMO -
QuickySilver2005 — 19 years ago(August 17, 2006 04:45 PM)
Hey, I just read this because I recently watched the movie the other night. I had never heard of it and I liked what I saw of it. Sadly, I didn't get to finish it. I took A&P last year in school and we discussed how certain diseases brought about myths of vampires and warewolves. The disease that possibly could have brought about the idea of vampires was called Porferia(I know that isn't spelled right, sorry). Basically, the infected person has a very pale skin tone due to the lack of hemoglobin in their blood and no pigment in their skin. They couldn't go out in daylight (just like a vampire) because the sun would cause their skin to severely burn, also due to something about the lack of hemoglobin. So as they aged, they would become very deformed looking from the sunlight. Also, their teeth would also grow very long and sharp, though I can't remember why at the moment. Back hundreds of years ago when this was a new and unknown disease, people didn't have medicines for it and the only thing that would make it any better was consuming blood. Infected people would usually drink animal blood, but they learned that human blood worked better. The blood would increase their hemoglobin amounts and basically make them well for a while.
This doesn't really explain the whole bleeding to death thing when he cuts his finger, but it does explain the need to drink blood or else his body would break down. I figure whoever created this disease took characteristics from porferia, as well as hemophilia. Not too sure about the sleep apnea thing. He said he had to remember to breathe. People with sleep apnea have no problem remembering to breathe, they just unconsciencely stop breathing in their sleep. This is usually due to obesity. -
projectoblivion-1 — 19 years ago(October 07, 2006 03:16 AM)
Porphyria is a group of different disorders caused by abnormalities in the chemical steps leading to the production of heme, a substance that is important in the body. The largest amounts of heme are in the blood and bone marrow, where it carries oxygen. Heme is also found in the liver and other tissues.
Multiple enzymes are needed for the body to produce heme. If any one of the enzymes is abnormal, the process cannot continue and the intermediate products, porphyrin or its precursors, may build up and be excreted in the urine and stool.
The porphyria disorders can be grouped by symptomswhether they affect the skin or the nervous system. The cutaneous porphyrias affect the skin. People with cutaneous porphyria develop blisters, itching, and swelling of their skin when it is exposed to sunlight. The acute porphyrias affect the nervous system. Symptoms of acute porphyria include pain in the chest, abdomen, limbs, or back; muscle numbness, tingling, paralysis, or cramping; vomiting; constipation; and personality changes or mental disorders. These symptoms appear intermittently.
The porphyrias are inherited conditions, and the genes for all enzymes in the heme pathway have been identified. Some forms of porphyria result from inheriting an abnormal gene from one parent (autosomal dominant). Other forms are from inheriting an abnormal gene from each parent (autosomal recessive). The risk that individuals in an affected family will have the disease or transmit it to their children is quite different depending on the type.
Attacks of porphyria can develop over hours or days and last for days or weeks. Porphyria can be triggered by drugs (barbiturates, tranquilizers, birth control pills, sedatives), chemicals, fasting, smoking, drinking alcohol, infections, emotional and physical stress, menstrual hormones, and exposure to the sun.
Porphyria is diagnosed through blood, urine, and stool tests. Diagnosis may be difficult because the range of symptoms is common to many disorders and interpretation of the tests may be complex. Each form of porphyria is treated differently. Treatment may involve treating with heme, giving medicines to relieve the symptoms, or drawing blood. People who have severe attacks may need to be hospitalized -
pyle0102 — 15 years ago(May 03, 2010 07:26 PM)
it is a metaphor, his condition is not meant to be looked at in a factual medical manner (in my opinion). it's the mind producing a reaction in the physical (lack of love in body causing death, crystals from the body being physical manifestations of various negative emotions).
"today is the kind of day where the sun only comes up to humilate you" -
silentidominus — 15 years ago(May 12, 2010 05:34 AM)
The crystals didn't come out of his mouth? Where was he getting them then? I thought he regurgitated the love crystals after he drank them from their blood but maybe I and the other guy saw it wrong.
I think the problems he was having were due to him running out of time. All the "disease" symptoms were his body breaking down and dying unless he fed. Or maybe just in general after living for a long enough time it was going to happen even if he did feed.
I thought they were trying to go for an American Psycho serial killer kind of vibe. It went pretty well. Martin is the other vampire movie I would closely tie with this. They both sort of leave you guessing as to whether or not the guy's just out of his mind or really a vampire. -
pyle0102 — 15 years ago(May 15, 2010 02:26 AM)
the way i understood it, which could be totally wrong (i didn't make the film) was that the crystals were coming from his genitalia (out of his penis just the way the kidney stones he was discussing would have).
"today is the kind of day where the sun only comes up to humilate you"