In Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, a young vampire with an empathy problem finds help from a human teen suffering from depression.
Québécois filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize’s darkly playful feature debut is truly a vampire film unlike any other. Its particular brand of deadpan dark comedy is applied effortlessly alongside the film’s serious treatment of its subjects.
Within the first few minutes, we’ve been introduced to a young vampire girl struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and have witnessed her parents’ disagreements on how to help her, including a visit to a vampire psychologist and an attempt at exposure therapy. All serious issues, all treated with legitimacy and, simultaneously, absurdity.
Sasha (Sara Montpetit, a familiar face to TIFF audiences), now a teenage-presenting vampire, is in a difficult predicament: she feels too much compassion for humans to kill them. Images of human fear and horror inspire sympathy and anxiety instead of hunger. After years of relying on her family to provide her with a steady flow of blood bags, they finally hold an intervention and cut her off. Without blood, Sasha knows she will die—but she’s suffering enough to contemplate doing just that.
Meanwhile, human teenager Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) is also contemplating death. A socially awkward and quiet guy, Paul is subjected to constant bullying at school and at the bowling alley where he works, and he has long struggled with suicidal thoughts. When Sasha and Paul meet, it seems to both like the perfect match: Sasha needs a willing victim to eat, and Paul wants to die—it’s the resolution they both want. Or is it?
Despite Paul’s apparent willingness to die for Sasha, she is still sympathetic to his situation and struggles to bring herself to kill him. She decides they must first fulfill Paul’s final dying wish.
One simple wish turns into an extended adventure for the duo. As they weave in and out of trouble, Sasha and Paul learn more about each other and themselves. They help one another manage their anxieties and inner conflicts, and find that forging a meaningful friendship might unlock a path forward.
Although predictable at times, the film is nevertheless astute in its storytelling and the cast strongly delivers. The ensemble is fantastic, and the two lead actors complement each other so well. Montpetit and Bénard feed off each other’s eerie mannerisms and perfectly-timed furtive glances, reacting with subtle expressiveness to the other’s movements. They also nicely capture the characters’ gradual expansion of trust and friendship in an organic way, demonstrating a natural connection.
Sasha’s dark aesthetic also enhances the playful nature of the film. She’s a little reminiscent of Wednesday Addams in her black outfit and long black hair complete with bangs, but it sets Sasha up as the perfect foil to Wednesday given their opposing temperaments. Where Wednesday’s all-black look embodies her threatening penchant for violence, Sasha’s reflects her desire to fade into her nighttime surroundings rather than join or confront them. Despite a similarity in appearance and even their arguably similar moody dispositions, Sasha has a coming-of-age awkwardness and an eerie, delicate empathy that sets her apart.
At its core, Humanist Vampire is a coming-of-age story that deals with sensitive topics like teen depression within the scope of dark vampire comedy. Louis-Seize wrote in her director’s statement, “the inner dramas of Sasha and Paul are certainly tragic, but I wanted light and hope to emerge from their encounter.” To this end, Louis-Seize is careful to allow the film to hold space for serious themes while simultaneously wielding smart, deadpan humour. Her thoughtful intention and a brilliant execution make the film shine.
Louis-Seize is a familiar face at Venice and TIFF, as several of her short films have screened at both festivals. Humanist Vampire arrives with heightened anticipation at this year’s TIFF after its world premiere days earlier at Venice, where it won the coveted Giornate degli Autori Award.
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