Summaries

Synopsis

Boya Zsekely [Gordon Currie] is a vampire. He can live forever...if he chooses.Sometimes he chooses to sleep for awhile. Last time he went to bed was in1969, when Neil Armstrong destroyed the romanticism of the moon by walkingon it. Boya stuffed his personal effects into a suitcase, buried it in acemetery, then wrapped himself up in a burlap bag and went to sleep in theceiling of an abandoned building in Toronto. Twenty-five years later, anerrant golf ball wakes him up.

Molly [Helene Clarkson] works the night shift at Bernie's 24-hour donutshop. Theirphilosophy is "Any jerk deserves a well-made donut and a safe place to eatit." Anyone, that is, except for Earl [Justin Louis], whose problems are like bacteria.Breathe on them, and they multiply. Yet, when two neighborhood thugs,Pierce [Frank Moore] and Axel [Hadley Kay], come into Bernie's looking for Earl, Molly takes out herbaseball bat, and Bernie sends them packing. Earl's not there anyway. He'sout riding taxi. He just dropped off Boya Zsekely at the cemetery,commenting that the guy looked more like a customer than a visitor. [Okay,so ask yourself how you'd feel/look waking up from a 25-year sleep.]Lugging his suitcase, Boya rents a room at the Insmore Hotel, finds a ratfor dinner, and then goes down the street to Bernie's to ask where he canget some fresh liver. Molly directs him to an all-night grocery store, buthe buys a kiwi donut instead and sits down in a booth.

In the meantime, Pierce and Axel have found Earl and pressed him intodoing a little service for them. They're going to collect 'rent', and theyneed someone to drive them there and back. When Earl hears a gunshot,however, he hightails it out of there. While Earl sits at a red light,rehearsing his excuse for driving off, a middle-aged lady hops in the backseat and asks to be taken to the cemetery. Must be the tourist season.Rita [ Fiona Reid] goes to the spot where Boya had buried his suitcase, seesthat it's been dug up, and knows that Boya's back.Earl returns to the donutshop to have a cruller ("They're not readyyet")...ok, a glazed...when Pierce and Axel come in. They take Earloutside and start beating him up. Just as they're squeezing lemon juiceinto Earl's wounds, Boya joins them. He tosses Axel against a fence, thenscratches his neck and licks off the blood. Pierce and Axel leave, andEarl and Boya go back inside the donutshop. After Earl tells Boya aboutall his problems, Boya offers to let him bed down in his room. After all,Boya doesn't need a lot of room...he sleeps in the closet.

Boya and Molly have been eyeing each other all night. When Molly isscared by a rat, Boya stalks it [in a crawl that's every bit as creepy asDracula crawling like a lizard headfirst down the wall of the castle],drinks its blood, and tosses it in the garbage, leaving just a hint ofblood on his lower lip. "I worked as an exterminator once," he explains toMolly. When Molly's shift is over, Boya walks her home, then he goes homeand takes a bath while she sleeps fitfully in a scene that is probably themost erotic as I've seen in years, and the two of them aren't even in thesame house! The next night, Boya goes back to the donutshop. While sitting at thecounter, he looks up Rita's address in the phone book. Molly notices andasks if it's an old flame. It is, but it's a flame that burned 25 yearsago. "Just reminiscing," Boya explains. "Each time you turn your back, afew more gone. Makes you want to withdraw." Molly understands, but "Youcan't go through life afraid to connect because the thing might end,right?" Boya replies simply, "Not 'might'."

Pierce and Axel, under orders from the crime boss to teach Boya athing or two, come into the shop with a baseball bat, intending to roughhim up. When Axel swings the bat, Boya grabs it and breaks it in two. ThenBoya's face suddenly metamorphs into a monster with red eyes and longteeth. It does the trick, and the boys go running. "I worked in the circusonce," he explains to Molly.After Molly's shift ends, Boya walks her home again. This time hekisses her, just as Rita is passing by in a taxi. She confronts Boya in ajealous girlfriend scene from which Glenn Close could take a few lessons.Rita is now in her fifties. Her skin is starting to sag, and she's nolonger the beauty she was when she and Boya were together. She's spent thelast 25 years stewing over what might have been hers if Boya hadn'tdisappeared and begs him to take her now. He refuses, so she runs a stakethrough his chest from behind. He pulls it out, says, "Don't believeeverything you hear," and goes home to take a bath.

Earl, as brainless as he comes across, has figured out that Boya is avampire. When he sees Boya in the bathtub with a hole through his chest,he offers to take him to the hospital, but Boya says that he heals fast.When Earl asks why Boya hasn't drunk from him, Boya explains that blood-drinkingfrom humans is, for him, like donut-eating for humans. "You don't have tosubmit." Although Earl and Boya have become friends and seem to really careabout each other, Earl figures that it's best to move out. Rita drops byand finds Boya sleeping in the closet ("You're really not a day person,are you?"), and begs him again to give her the gift. If he had done it 25years ago, she could have kept her beauty and had all the time in theworld. Boya still refuses, so she pulls out a gun and puts it to her head.Boya stops her from killing herself, but the bullet does graze her temple.

Boya has to get out of there even though it's daytime. He racesacross the street to the donutshop as his body starts to steam in thesunlight. By the time he reaches the door, he is crawling on the groundand his skin is charring. He manages to reach up, open the door, and crawlinside. Molly rushes to help him. Molly has figured it out, too. She cutsher own palm and lets him feed from her. He feeds and feeds until Mollyhas to pull herself away. "I thought I could control it," Boya moans andthen passes out. Molly sits beside Boya while he sleeps on the donutshopfloor until sundown, when he wakes up and walks out wordlessly.

Meanwhile, Pierce, Axel, and the crime boss have captured Earl andare about to cut out his tongue. Somehow, Boya can sense this. He leapsonto the fire escape and enters the room through an open window. As Boyadrains the crime boss of his blood, Earl backs out the window onto thefire escape and falls off, landing on his back on the pavement below. Hurtbadly, Earl crawls into his taxi as the thugs take shots at him. Boyatumbles through an open window into the taxi and helps Earl drive away.But Earl is in a bad way. Boya stops the car and helps Earl onto theground. "I'm not afraid to die," Earl says, and dies.Just then, Molly drives up in Bernie's car. Not knowing how Earl diedor how long ago, she rigs up a makeshift cardiac defibrillator out of ascrewdriver and jumper cables. After being zapped several times, Earlbegins to breathe again. Boya carries Earl to her car and, since the sunis rising, Molly tells Boya to get into the trunk. As the trunk closes,Molly drives off. Only after she gets back to the donutshop and opens thetrunk does she find that Boya did not get in.At that very moment, as the sun is rising, Boya is lying on top ofEarl's taxi, allowing himself to die. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]