Do you like vampire movies? That alone should fuel your desire to watch “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” which is Montreal director Ariane Louis-Seize’s first feature length film and pardon the pun but a “bloody” good one!
Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a 68-year-old teen vampire living with her vampire family but she has one problem. She has no desire to hunt and kill her human victims! Her mother and father visit vampire specialists who find somehow Sasha’s brain has not developed in a killer fashion. So a viewer is flooded with a huge wall of absurdity with a vampire that drinks blood from baggies stored in the refrigerator by her cousin Denise and the rest of the family.
While Denise focuses on young men for her dinner late developer Sasha just can’t do the same. She then meets suicidal teen Paul (Felix Antoine Bénard) bullied and miserable by the high school crowd. He is willing to give his life to Sasha suicidal that he is. At this point the vampire genre gives way to a classic coming of age film. Sasha and Paul are on the fringes of a milieu they should be comfortable with. Much of the film is death focused but it takes a twist to a love of life and as a teen, even a 68-year-old one, can find a comfortable character niche. After all what is wrong with a vampire seeking consenting suicidal persons for their dinner?
Both Montpetit and Bénard have a convincing cloud of alienation and hope swirling about them and in this (please forgive me director!) Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) and Tim Burtonesque “Bettlejuice”) fashion deliver at times haunting perfection.
Theatrical release is on October 13th! A Monty Python streak in the film in my mind. Love that “Men in Black” final scene!
RKS 2023 Film 89/100.
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