{"id":12521,"date":"2018-12-21T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=12521"},"modified":"2018-12-20T14:35:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T19:35:23","slug":"video-visions-embrace-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/video-visions-embrace-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Visions: Embrace of the Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This will be my sixth Christmas without my father. I miss the son of a bitch something fierce, but the hurt always gets a little more tender during the holidays. <\/span><\/p>\n

What gives me comfort, especially at night after a long day, is the video shelf of movies he bought for me every Christmas. He was a huge movie buff and liked to pick out offbeat “classics” he knew I would enjoy like <\/span>The Rounders<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation<\/span><\/i>. He would spend the year curating special movies for the family, but I don\u2019t think anyone enjoyed his staff picks as much as I did. <\/span><\/p>\n

And then there were the movies he knew I\u2019d dig for very different reasons. One of them was the Alyssa Milano vampire erotica flick, <\/span>Embrace of the Vampire<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Why would a guy who doesn\u2019t really dig vampires (other than, say <\/span>Near Dark<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>The Hunger<\/span><\/i>) ever care to watch such a movie? Because dad knew all about my obsession\/crush on Alyssa Milano, and like many child actors crying out to be seen as an adult, she gets very naked in this fine piece of ’90s cinema. He told me he searched far and wide to find the unrated DVD. \u00a0Remember hellions, this was the time before the Internet where everything is at your gnarled fingertips. I can only imagine how many seedy video stores he visited in New York City to unearth this treasure. Now that\u2019s love.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So, with the Christmas lights on and the house all warm on a cold night, I decided to pop <\/span>Embrace of the Vampire<\/span><\/i> in to connect with the old man. Now, before I blather on, let\u2019s go back twenty-plus years to when I first got this under the tree (well, actually at a dinner party). I had called my friends and set a date for them all to come over for an Alyssa viewing party. Every red-blooded male I knew turned green with envy. My father had given me the holy grail of DVDs. I think all of our crushes began with <\/span>Who\u2019s the Boss<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Commando<\/span><\/i>. What I remember from that initial viewing party was a lot of jabbering and beer swilling, with pauses every time there was a nude scene. And there are a startling number of nude scenes. I mean, like long, lingering shots of Alyssa topless, as if to say, \u201cYou want to see them? Well, here they are! Now leave me be already!\u201d It got so extreme, we actually started to feel a little uneasy. There had been a collective gasp the first time her shirt popped open, and then a slight shifting of the eyes from the screen during her final scene where she\u2019s tied up naked on a bed and has two men and a woman going to town on her. It was one of my first lessons in the ‘less is more” school. At the end of the night, I put the movie away and it proceeded to collect dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, fast forward to today. My wife is sick and asleep on the couch, daughter number one is at work and daughter number two is watching <\/span>Good Mythical Morning<\/span><\/i> in her room. It\u2019s a perfect time for me revisit one of my presents of Christmas past. Here are some things I learned, watching now as an older, more—ahem—responsible man:<\/span><\/p>\n