‘Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person’ Review: Teen Horror so Sweet it’s (Not Even) Scary
variety.comJessica Kiang The unkillable vampire legend gets one of its frequent cinematic resurrections (this Venice Film Festival alone boasted three more: “El Conde” in competition, “En Attendant la Nuit” in Horizons and “The Vourdalak” in Critics’ Week) with Québécois director Ariane Louis-Seize’s sweetly gothy Venice Days winner, a film wittily — if too comprehensively — described by its title: “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person.” The idea of a vampire who doesn’t want to kill is hardly without precedent.
But Louis-Seize’s eager debut, intentionally or otherwise, plays to a relatively vamp-starved demographic, providing continuity to kids who have long outgrown the “Sesame Street” version, but are still a bit young for the emo lustiness of the “Twilight” franchise.
It’s more fairy tale than scary tale. It is, however, a fine showcase for the witchy charisma of star Sara Montpetit who, after playing the doom-fixated object of a first crush in Charlotte Le Bon’s terrific “Falcon Lake,” seems hellbent on cornering the market in gloomy Francophone teenagers navigating an entree into adulthood in which sex and death are intertwined.
Only here as Sasha, the 62-year-old vampire who presents as a teenage girl, she is not only death-obsessed but actually undead, and has been, it is implied, since birth.
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