Canadian vampcom about teenage relationships
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The Canadian melancholy dramedy “A Humanist Vampire Seeks a Desperate Volunteer” is being released in Russia – a story about the acquaintance of a bloodsucker girl and a suicidal teenager. The debut film by director Ariane Louis-Seize fits into the line of near-horror films about teenagers in puberty, and its mood is reminiscent of a simple American movie from Sundance.
When Sasha (Lilas-Rose Cantin) was little, her caring parents (Steve LaPlante and Sophie Cadiot) brought a clown to her birthday party. But not for fun – the not particularly funny artist was supposed to become a symbolic first meal for Sasha, because she, like all her relatives, eats not human food, but people themselves. But the girl refuses her own heritage – her fangs don’t even extend, which forces her parents to send her for examination to a pediatrician. The diagnosis is disappointing – she is a humanist, and human suffering causes Sasha not appetite, but pity. A disgrace to a decent vampire family!
Several decades later, Sasha (Sarah Montpetit) still refuses to drink blood, and is alive only thanks to bags of donor substance, which are obtained by her parents, who are quite tired of their daughter’s teenage quirks; Even though she’s 68 years old, she looks like a high school goth girl. Now mom and dad decide on a radical act of separation – they send her to live with her older sister Denise (Noemi O’Farrell), who has long been feeding on random men she meets in a bar without the slightest hesitation. But instead of following in Denise’s footsteps, Sasha goes to an anonymous suicide group, where she meets shy schoolboy Paul (Felix-Antoine Benard), who dreams of giving up his life and is ready to become food for a starving friend.
Puberty and the inevitable bodily and psychological transformations have long been strongly associated with horror and thrillers about werewolves (Teen Wolf), vampires (Twilight) and cannibals (“Raw”). Canadian debutante Ariane Louis-Saiz, whose full-length film was loved by critics at a number of festivals (the premiere took place in Venice in 2023), follows the same path, but rejects almost everything hard, dirty and scary. “Humanitarian Vampire Seeks a Desperate Volunteer” is still a kind and sentimental movie, something from the category of quirky American indie dramas; in the dub, it’s easy to miss the fact that this film actually comes from Canada, because it wouldn’t look out of place at Sundance. Given: a pair of cute teenagers with obvious social anxiety tendencies are trying to find their place in a world they don’t really like, growing closer in the process and creating an awkwardly romantic vibe. We have seen this more than a dozen times – and vampcom Louis-Seiz is hardly capable of surprising even the least well-watched viewer.
Another feature of the film is the categorical lack of showstoppers in the blood. Even though “The Humanist Vampire” can hardly be called a real horror or, conversely, a comedy, there are genre signs in the pedigree, and in such films shock numbers always play an important role. Alas, not in this case. Would the film have been brightened up by the presence of a few gags about, for example, how bloodsucking traditions coexist with modernity? Perhaps yes, and cult vampire comedy Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement are the best proof of this. But Louis-Seize seems to deliberately avoid any attempt at humor and focuses on the atmosphere – no sunlight or other bright light, the mise-en-scène is buried in cozy twilight, and one of the most hypnotic scenes takes place in an evening bowling alley, where the faces of the players are illuminated by the blue and reflections of a disco ball .
“Vampire Humanist” is a film with a specific mood, something between the sociopathic romance of the series “The End of the F***ing World” and a familiar love story a la Twilight, if you remove the pretentious lines from there. One can complain that Louis-Saiz’s film could have been a little more radical or depressing (see the recent dark horror drama about an unusual family “My Heart Will Not Beat Until You Order”), but for a debut it turned out well – and the duo of the main characters (Sarah Montpetit – well, the spitting image of Wednesday!) turned out to be quite romantic. Perhaps more is not needed, because, as the classic bequeathed to us, as much blood can be shed as we like, but only lovers will survive.
In theaters from April 11
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