Overlook Film Festival 2024 ‘Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person’ Review – A Lesson In Half-Hearted Bloodletting

Chris Sawin   |  

Apr 24, 2024

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Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a Canadian French-language dark comedy-drama. The film is co-written and directed by Ariana Louis-Seize and also co-written by Christine Doyon.

Raised by a family of vampires, Sasha (Sara Montpetit) has been compassionate towards the human race since she was a little girl. Choosing to drink human blood out of a glorified Capri-Sun for all eternity, Sasha refuses to kill and lets her parents do the killing and bloodletting.

As Sasha ages, her family encourages her to start hunting by forcing her to move in with her human-hating, blood-consuming cousin Denise (Noemie O’Farrell). Still convinced that she will never use her fangs, Sasha finds the perfect victim in Paul (Felix-Antoine Benard) – a bullied high school student who works at a bowling alley and wants to end his life.

With Humanist Vampire, it can’t seem to decide what not to take seriously. It’s already digging at suicide with the title and one of the main characters flaunting his desire to kill himself to everyone within earshot. But the film is neither funny enough to be considered a comedy nor bloody or scary enough to be a horror film.

There’s very little blood in the film apart from the liquid in the bags they drink or the tubes/straws they drink from and the occasional splash on someone’s forehead during a fistfight. Truth be told, Humanist Vampire is a drama with hints of comedy, and one of its leads happens to be a vampire.

Sasha struggles with being a vampire who can support herself independently. Paul is all for dying to feed Sasha, but he has a dying wish that Sasha feels obligated to fulfill. She’s coming to terms with having to kill and take life to survive, while Paul is getting revenge on everyone who has ever treated him like dirt, which is everyone in town besides his Mom.

The film is being touted as this new, unique vampire film; unfortunately, it isn’t one. Apart from struggling with self-identity and the story element of suicide, Humanist Vampire is a wholly predictable film. Its lack of originality is perhaps the most disappointing aspect since it has the opportunity to be something refreshing or even a decent film with something to say.

Considering who the characters are and what they’re going through in the film, it’s as if they have a reason to be withdrawn and show little to no emotion. Sasha is incompatible with the living and the dead, while Paul doesn’t get along with anyone who is living and wants to be dead. Both Sara Montpetit and Felix-Antoine Benard show vague signs of complex emotion but mostly seem to be on autopilot.

Steve Laplante portrays Sasha’s father, Aurelien, and he seems to be the only person in the cast attempting to perform a memorable performance despite his limited screen time. Sasha’s father stands up for her when she’s incapable of hunting. He also seems to be the one with her best interest in mind whenever he makes a decision about her.

Humanist Vampire wallows around in the confines of the definition of an indie film; it’s quirky and awkward but doesn’t have much else to offer.

This criticism isn’t going out of its way to be an insult or even a compliment; it merely explains what to expect from the film. Humanist Vampire is a weird little vampire film inspired by Beetlejuice and Let the Right One In if both of those films were sucked dry of creativity.

A vampire that refuses to kill isn’t a new idea, but that familiar concept is Humanist Vampire’s most intriguing aspect. The execution of that concept falls flat since the film only seems to go in a familiar direction. Much like Sasha can’t kill, it’s as if Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person cannot take a route we haven’t traveled before.

NEXT: ‘Abigail’ Review – A Vampire Comedy That Bleeds Itself Dry