#POLISH PREMIERE | horribly funny | vampires | humanist | vegan | macabre | suicidal thoughts | love story | romance | teens | rebellious | over sensitive | comedy | Amelia with fangs | ambience | fear | Montreal at night | oniric | melancholic | funny | touching | romantichorror
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON
comedy, horror | Canada | 2023 World premiere: Venice Film Festival 2023 Polish premiere: Splat!FilmFest
THE DESCENDENT OF „MY HEART CAN’T BEAT UNLESS YOU TELL YOU TO”, „ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE” AND A „GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT”
First impression? She’s like Amelia but with fangs and a taste for human blood. Sasha is a 68-year-old teenager (time flows differently for vampires) who is a huge concern for her entire family. No matter how hard they try to talk her into killing people, she’s just not into it. She’d rather starve herself to death than drink warm and pulsing blood from a human vein. Instead, she drinks it from a plastic bags, which meets great disapproval of her parents, aunt, and cousin.
One day, however, she meets Paul — a teenage boy who feels lost and suicidal, and who would very gladly donate his blood to Sasha.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a Canadian comedy horror which will take you to the surreal world of vampires that have adapted throughout centuries to the constantly changing reality. Sasha’s concerned parents aren’t that different from any other parent; they only have slightly different things to worry about. Sasha is also just the same as any hypersensitive yet rebellious teenager, who has to confront her true nature and the urge to live up to the expectations of others. Will she ever be able to win that battle?
The film is the feature directorial debut of Canadian director Ariane Louis-Seize. It is a story of first love, which is touching and romantic to the bone, but at the same time doesn’t feel cheesy as it adds this vampiric twist to it. For obvious reasons, the action takes place mostly at night, which allows the audience to admire this dreamlike view of the city of Montreal. The film will certainly surprise you with its subtle yet sophisticated humour, as well as its rather pensive mood. However, more blood-thirsty horror fans will not be disappointed with the amount of bloody and gory images — after all, it is a movie about vampires, isn’t it?
Sasha, with her grumpy looks and dark, symetric bangs, is impersonated by Sara Montpetit, who previously appeared in films such as Falcon Lake or Maria Chapdelaine. She forms an excellent duet with her partner on the screen, Félix-Antoine Bénard, in the role of Paul. Apart of that, any loyal Splat!FilmFest fan will certainly recognise the figures of Patrick Hivon and Steve Laplante in the supporting roles. You could see them both in last year’s premiere of the truly wicked film called Babysitter.
director: Ariane Louis-Seize screenplay: Ariane Louis-Seize, Christine Doyon starring: Sara Montpetit, Félix-Antoine Bénard, Patrick Hivon, Steve Laplante cinematography: Shawn Pavlin music: Pierre-Philippe Côté editing: Stéphane Lafleur language: French subtitles: Polish, English duration: 1h 30min recommended age: 16+
