Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)

“Here, take a wet wipe…”. It’s a messy business being a vampire, unless you are the accomplished piano-playing busker “Sasha” (Sara Montpetit) who has absolutely no inclination to hunt or feed. Instead she relies on her parents filling the fridge with bags of blood. Eventually, though, they decide that she has to be able to fend for herself and so pack her off to stay with “Denise” (Noémie O’Farrell) who has promised that she won’t get a drop. Meantime, “Paul” (Félix-Antoine Bénard) is having a tough time working at a bowling alley where he is bullied relentlessly by “Henry” (Arnaud Vachon) to the point where he repeatedly considers jumping off a (not very high) roof! “Sasha” spots “Paul” and reckons that they can quite literally kill two bats with one stone if they enter into a mutually agreeable pact. Thing is, even with a willing victim she just hasn’t the fangs for it, so what can she do before she just dies of hunger? I think this might actually be my favourite block-sucking film, as both of these hapless characters are engagingly delivered and supported by a solid cast depicting frustrated and bemused family members. The dialogue is really quite good fun, especially from the drippy “Paul” and the vision of a full grown distant cousin of Dracula sitting on the sofa drinking blood from a pouch as if it were one of those isotonic power drinks would make Christopher Lee turn in his own six feet of earth. Their solution isn’t so very daft, either, and I reckon there could be space for a sequel here. Good fun.