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Film: Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant)
Year: 2023
Director: Ariane Louis-Seize
Writers: Christine Doyon and Ariane Louis-Seize
Starring: Sara Montpetit, Félix-Antoine Bénard and Steve Laplante
Review:
This was a movie that caught my attention when I saw it playing at the Gateway Film Center. The title made me chuckle. Ahead of seeing this, I did ensure that this was a wide 2024 release, so that adds to my yearly total. Something that caught my eye were the elements of dark, coming of age comedy. That also piqued my interest to see how it would balance that with the horror elements. I decided to give this a second watch to see where I sat with it.
Synopsis: a young woman vampire is unable to kill to meet her need for blood but may have found a solution in a young man with suicidal tendencies.
We start this at a girl’s birthday party. Her name is Sasha (Lilas-Rose Cantin). In attendance are her parents, Aurélien (Steve Laplante) and Georgette (Sophie Cadieux). Also, there is her cousin, Denise (Noémie O'Farrell), and her aunt, Victorine (Marie Brassard). Her parents got her a keyboard and a beginner’s book to learn how to play. She is a prodigy though as she’s never had formal lessons and plays complicated pieces from the start. Victorine also has a surprise. A clown who does magic is hired. It is here that we learn this is a family of vampires.
This is where the first concern starts. Sasha is taken to a dentist and then a psychologist. For whatever reason, Sasha’s fangs aren’t coming out. She has them. There are obvious concerns from her parents, but more so for Georgette, who does the hunting. A funny interaction stems from this where Aurélien makes a comment that he does as well. This plays on the troupe within the family dynamic akin to her cooking.
We then shift to the present where Sasha is now an adult, played by Sara Montpetit. She solely drinks from blood bags and her mother has had enough. An intervention is staged. She is told to live with Denise, to help her learn to hunt. Until then, she’s cut off. It is around this time that something strange happens. While she’s playing outside of a store, she sees Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) on a roof across the street. He’s a troubled teen who is bullied by Henry (Arnaud Vachon) and others at school. Paul is contemplating suicide. Sasha follows him, causing him to run into a wall. It draws blood. Her fangs came out, causing her to panic.
There is then another interesting meeting between the two. Paul is sent by his mother, Sandrine (Madeleine Péloquin) to group therapy. It is for depressed individuals or ones having suicidal thoughts. Sasha also shows up. She is struggling and this could lead her to her first victim. The two become friends, when he sees a way to end his life, but doing good in the process. This is a dark, coming-of-age comedy from there as Sasha helps Paul with his ‘last wishes’, which complicates things further.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I’ll then start is that this is more of a dark comedy with horror elements. I do think that they go to places in the genre with the vampire aspects. I’ll come back to this when I get to the effects. What works best here is the allegories that they’re using with Sasha and her family to things that are real in the world, especially with the younger generation. I don’t fully buy into that thought process, but it is what the older generations claim for sure.
Now that I’ve set that up, let me delve into aspects of social commentary. The first would be with Sasha, since she is our lead. There is something different about how her brain processes information so the doctor believes that she has post-traumatic stress from what happened to the clown in front of her. Georgette wants to leave her in the care of the doctors to figure out a way to help her. Aurélien won’t allow that so it creates tension between them. They have different approaches to parenting and it creates issues. What I like here is that when Sasha is an adult, they have an intervention with her. It feels like she’s using drugs or considering suicide, but they demand that she learns how to hunt. Her parents want her to be self-sufficient, in case something happens to them. I see a correlation here to what older generations think about Gen Z. What I’m getting at is the consideration that this younger generation doesn’t want to work. Sasha refuses to hunt as she doesn’t want to take the life of someone. She has a good reasoning, being a humanist. I thought that Montpetit was great in her role in bringing this awkward character to life.
This then becomes an interesting situation when Paul and her meet in this support group. I feel horrible for him. He’s bullied. His teachers and principal are harder on him than they should be. It is the point where he doesn’t see joy in the world and wants to kill himself. This is a real and heavy subject. What I like here though is that he sees a chance allowing Sasha to get her first kill with him. I knew this would then become a budding romance between the two. How it was managed was solid though. As a counterpart to Sasha, I thought that Bénard had good chemistry. This is a growth tale that I appreciated for both of our leads.
The last bit for the story is that I love how they oversee the vampires here. When you’re using a creature with as much lore as this one does, you need to be creative for it to work. What we get is that these vampires’ fangs extend when they’re going to kill. We’ve seen this before, but it adds to fear that they could be among us. They burn in the sunlight. They’re allergic to garlic and to religious icons. They can be killed with a stake to the heart and what not. This film then shows them as they have normal jobs like dentists and doctors. That is what made me smile. Creating a secret society is great, especially when you make it as normal as true life.
Let’s then go into the rest of the cast. Laplante and Cadieux were good as Sasha’s parents. What I like is that the normal gender roles are seen, even though they are monsters. Georgette doesn’t cook, but she hunts for victims more than he does. It feels like she is still going to the store and preparing their meals since she fills blood bags so they don’t hunt every night. They are opposites that feel like a real couple. O’Farrell is good as this more villainous vampire, but only because she embraces what she is and forces Sasha to hunt. I like Brassard as her mother who is stern as well. Vachon was good, as was Cantin, Péloquin and the rest of the cast to round this out for what was needed.
All that is left then is filmmaking. What I’ll say is that this is well-made. I liked the cinematography. Framing helps to hide effects. I believe that they were mostly practical, which I appreciated. I don’t recall any CGI or if I did, it looked good and was used seamlessly. The subdued look of the vampires is a good touch. That helps them to blend in. The blood we got looked good. How things happen adds to the comedy, it even got me to laugh. That does prevent it from building tension though until things that happen late unfortunately. The soundtrack also fit what was needed, with credit to using the music that the Sasha character plays. That was a good touch.
In conclusion, this is one that I think is more dark comedy than horror. That could be a reason for people to avoid this. This type of story is another one as we’re following ‘teens’ that are finding themselves. I like the allegories that were used with Sasha and her issue with hunting to show commentary on things that are thought about younger generations. It was creative, but not in your face. The acting was good. Montpetit and Bénard lead the way with the rest of the cast pushing them to where they end up. This was also well-made. Although I enjoyed what this was doing, this won’t be for everyone. I’d probably recommend this to more non-horror fans to be honest.
My Rating: 8 out of 10