Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person – a Taste of Bloodletting

Is there a journalistically appropriate way to say I love this film and it was very sweet of Ariane Louis-Seize to make it for me?

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person—is a pretty plot-explanatory title. Main character Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a vampire that happens to be impotent when it comes to tearing into people’s throats. This defect is symptomatic of a deep psychological impairment: empathy. She can’t grow fangs, a defect that has rendered her an outcast in her tight knit vampire family. She depends on ‘baggies’ supplied by family members to survive (an unintentionally cutesy blood bag, drank like a Capri-Sun).

The secondary main character Paul (Felix-Antoine Benard) wants to kill himself. He’s a teenage boy with a rock collection, he works at a bowling alley, he happens to be the first person to spark any need-to-kill in Sasha. The conflict ensues from this coupling.

A relationship between a vampire and a mortal is a common trope in vampire media. See Twilight—or debatably Trouble Every Day, which I reviewed earlier in the festival. A pretty regular staple of what makes a vampire narrative compelling is a doomed dynamic.

One participant is consistently attempting to stave off harming the other. It’s a fascinating concept to a lot of writers because navigating the character’s connection means constantly pitting compassion against instinct. I think Sasha and Paul are delightfully refreshing additions to that commonly trod conversation.

Arguably, the newer concept the film introduces is its use of vampirism to explore suicidal ideation. Because It’s a direct exploration, a lot more medical than martyrly. I won’t reveal the direction the film ultimately turns, but where it goes with the subject matter is something. Something good that is. I can say it’s a massive positive to see a subject this tentative not condensed to solely the tribulations teen angst but severe mental-health issues.

Suicide isn’t the easy punchline it could be here. Paul legitimately struggles with suicidal thoughts and attends group meetings to seek support for that struggle. The writers clearly understood the experiences of those struggling. I think that’s evident in the writer’s knowledge of support systems in place for suicidal ideation. Therefore, the tone the film addresses those aspects in is crucially rather normal.

That’s a good balancing act considering the film’s genre. Choosing horror-comedy and coming-of-age is definitely the perfect realm to put something this bloody but humorous. Even if the age Sasha is coming to is 68.

More on age actually because this film does something new with it. On my current vampire kick (obsession. concerning obsession.), one of my favourite things to peer into is what a film does with or for vampire lore. I mean, vampires may be ancient, folkloric and literary in origin, but when it comes to the ‘rules’, the original Nosferatu set the sunlight one down, and society ran with it. So, it’s fair to say the details of monster-building in a work of fiction are pretty important.

Louis-seize’s vampires age, presumably for a finite number of years. When Paul asks how long they live, Sasha simply says, “That depends on several factors”. In light of that decision, the film’s vampires have an edge of realism. Her family fears and frets over survival the way many nervous families do, albeit through a very bloodstained, brutalised mirror. 

Another aspect of this particular world is its cartoonishness. I think a large part of that is helped by its brilliant casting. It’s genuinely some of my favourite—there are shots where the main characters just stand next to each other and I feel like I could draw them both with a couple of shapes. Bénard plays Paul with this permanently shell-shocked expression, and Sara adopts this wonderfully pained look as her resting face (Sasha and her family’s styling in general is just so authentically vampiric—Ugh—I LOVE IT). 

The chemistry of these two is so delightfully awkward, but never unwatchable. A good example of that is in a scene in which Sasha plays Paul ‘Emotions’ by Brenda Lee. The two play a game of staring tennis. She looks at him whenever he looks away from her. It appears to be out of sadness or longing (I want to say hunger, but at this point, she is still stunted). The characters exist in a restrained, quiet chemistry for the film, yet somehow still prove dynamic to watch.

There isn’t much romantic appeal given to vampirism itself in the film. Most likely because one of the most alluring traits is immortality. Modern vampires have evolved to border on the duality between desirability as well as horror. I think all modern interpretations of vampire tales involve a mortal begging to be turned for a reason.

I will say no more on where the film takes that commonality specifically. The film’s take on immortality is especially interesting given its ‘victim’ is making the decision to end life rather than supersede death but, as I said earlier in the review, the film still makes interesting turns.

Anyway, when it comes down to it. I didn’t know there was this much of a need for an awkward, vampire-failure, sweetheart friendship film, but I’m glad the demand was supplied. Even if it’s an entirely selfish demand on my part personally.