The Being

Miriam Blaylock is a vampire, seen in flashbacks drinking blood from victims in Ancient Egypt, who promises eternal life to humans chosen as her vampire lovers. Her current companion is John, a talented cellist whom she met in 18th-century France. In a nightclub in New York City, they connect with a young couple whom they bring home and feed upon by slashing their throats with bladed ankh pendants. The victims' bodies are disposed of in an incinerator in the basement of Miriam and John's elegant New York townhouse, where they pose as a wealthy couple who teach classical music. Now, 200 years after he was turned, John begins suffering from insomnia and ages years within only a few days. John realises Miriam's promise – that killing and feeding upon human victims would give him immortality – was only partially true; he will have eternal life, but not eternal youth. He seeks Dr. Sarah Roberts, a gerontology researcher, who, with her colleagues Charlie and Tom (also Sarah's boyfriend), are studying the effects of rapid ageing in primates. He hopes they can reverse his accelerating decrepitude. Sarah assumes that John is delusional and ignores his plea for help. As the angered John leaves the clinic, Sarah is horrified to see how rapidly he is ageing and offers her help, but John rebuffs her. One of the Blaylocks' students, Alice Cavender, drops by the couple's townhouse to say that she cannot attend the next day's lesson. In a last attempt to regain his youth, John murders and feeds upon Alice, whom Miriam was grooming to be her next consort once she came of age. However, Alice's blood does nothing to restore him, so John begs Miriam to kill him and release him from the agony of his decrepit body. Weeping, Miriam tells him there is no release. After John collapses in the basement, Miriam carries him to the attic, which is filled with coffins, and places him in one. Like John, Miriam's former vampire lovers suffer an eternal living-death, helplessly moaning and trapped in their coffins. Sarah comes looking for John at his home. Miriam claims her husband is in Switzerland. Sarah asks to be updated on John's condition. Later, a police official comes to the residence, looking for the missing Alice. Miriam feigns ignorance. Sarah returns to Miriam's home to inquire again about John. Miriam, who feels alone after losing both John and Alice, initiates a sexual encounter with Sarah, during which Miriam bites her arm, and some of Miriam's blood enters Sarah's body. Sarah returns home and goes out to dinner with her boyfriend Tom, who becomes argumentative when she rejects food and is evasive about her three-and-a-half-hour disappearance at the Blaylock residence. Later she feels sick and vomits. The next day, at the lab, the team investigates Sarah's blood and finds that she has an infection, in the form of a foreign and inhuman type of blood, that is taking over her own. Confused, Sarah returns to confront Miriam, who attempts to initiate Sarah into the necessities of life as a vampire, but Sarah is repulsed by the thought of subsisting on human blood. Still reeling from the effects of her vampiric transformation, Sarah allows Miriam to put her to bed in a guest room. Tom arrives at Miriam's home, looking for Sarah. Miriam shows him to the upstairs bedroom, where Sarah, starving and desperate, kills and feeds upon him. Miriam assures her that she will soon forget her old life. As the two kiss, Sarah drives Miriam's ankh knife into her own throat and holds her mouth over Miriam's, forcing Miriam to ingest her blood. Miriam carries Sarah upstairs, intending to place her with her other boxed lovers. A rumbling occurs, and the mummies of Miriam's previous lovers, including John, emerge from their coffins, driving her over the edge of the balcony. As Miriam begins to rapidly age, the mummies become dust. The police investigator returns to find a real estate agent showing the townhouse to prospective buyers. Sarah is now in London with two new companions, standing on the balcony of a flat in the Barbican Estate's Cromwell Tower, admiring the view as dusk falls. From a draped coffin in a storage room, Miriam continuously cries Sarah's name.