Vampire

From the director of two of the best films about teenagers ever made, All About Lily Chou Chou and Hana and Alice, Vampire is an idiosyncratic art film. It was Iwai's English language debut, premiering at Sundance in January of 2011. It was so poorly reviewed that it barely even got released theatrically anywhere (only in Japan, as far as I can tell), and only recently became available in America via Amazon download. The truth is, it is a disaster. Thankfully, though, it's a very interesting disaster. With expectations adjusted accordingly, I liked it, at least a bit. Kevin Zegers plays a high school biology teacher who has a secret life as a serial killer called the Vampire because he drains his victims' blood. His victims, though, are consenting, wishing him to help them commit suicide. His pretenses are generally false - they believe he's going to commit suicide alongside them (or, alternately, that he's going to use the blood for scientific research on suicidals), but he is a gentle man. He actually believes himself to be a vampire, or maybe he wishes he were one, and he drinks the blood afterward. The film is often lovely - aided by a gorgeous, ethereal musical score by Iwai himself. There are a couple of killer sequences, particularly the film's only real horror sequence, where Zegers is forced to accompany another serial killer (Trevor Morgan) as he hunts and murders a woman by suffocating her with a plastic bag. Of all the deaths I've encountered in movies this past month (I only watch horror films in October), this was by far the most terrifying to me, with the woman just left to stumble around trying to escape her plight. The real failure of the film comes with the subplot involving Zegers' Alzheimers-ridden mother (Amanda Plummer), whom he keeps from wandering out of his apartment by attaching giant, white balloons to her. This feels like something out of a terrible indie comedy (well, it did premier at Sundance!) and it just never works. There are a lot of other instances of people just not acting like real people ever would.

I'm always interested in vampire films that are original and stay true to the complexity of a blood sucker surviving in the modern world and yet is able to refrain from being whatever Twilight was all about. 'Vampire' is definitely an interesting take on the genre, which focuses on a young science teacher who preys on girls looking to commit suicide. The most interesting thing about this film is how the vampire himself seems to be surrounded by crazy people and I'm not talking about his victims. The sane characters are the depressed people looking for death and the other characters all seem to have personality disorders or are psychopaths, which then makes the lead seem that much more of a nice guy. The film starts out really interesting and has a very cool cast of actors that are well known in connection to the horror genre, but the film begins to fizzle out when it goes from drama to art-house drama about halfway through. Then, the film continually drags with scenes that are unnecessarily too long to be entertaining. The weirdest part is the long list of Horror veterans with crazy small parts throughout the film that go nowhere. Kind of a huge disappointment, but Vampire doesn't deliver the horror as much as it smothers you with drama.

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about solitude, death and relationship. a parody, a social analyze or only new image of serial killer. in fact, only a mirror for the importance of life, for the new forms of dialog, emo generation, internet importance and a poetic form of happiness.a Japanese air and almost unrealistic/confuse story. only an exercise to define a world. interesting, amusing, cold, realistic. a film who can be really bad for the expectation of young viewers or only metaphor for another. a story who not seduce but can be an inspired picture for many usual situations. and this is important. a Kevin Zegers who does a not bad role, exploring many of his character nuances, dialogs as smoke circles, crumbs of a kind of documentary and bizarre end. a film about a vampire. the only victim, different by usual definition/ expectations.

Iwai steps out of his Japanese comfort zone to produce an all-English film that never sparks to life. A young teacher with a thirst for blood helps wannabe suicides to die, at the same time taking payment in blood to satisfy his craving.

Iwai goes after lyricism and visual poetry but forgets plot and character. These dull, droll people - they are all too sharp, witty, beautiful, young and clear-eyed to in any way convince that they are clinically depressed - wander through the frame, spouting little clunky monologues that are forgotten as soon as heard. There are some nice images here, you'd expect no less from Iwai, but the master storyteller who gave us Swallowtail and Love Letter does not inhabit this film. The subtlety and youthful longings that permeated Hana and Alice are also conspicuous by their absence. There is no dramatic tension, no empathy, no persuasive on-screen relationships - Martin and his mother never really convey a sense of shared history. A relationship with a cop seems forced in order to introduce an equally wooden stalker character. The script is badly under-realised, and everything after that can't move beyond that initial failure.

Iwai on top of his game is one of the world's best filmmakers, so it is deeply disappointing to see this flat, facile film in his oeuvre. Brief glimpses of his visual prowess remain, and allied to a stronger narrative, give hope that the old Iwai will show up in his next film. It's small consolation for having to sit through this.

To those that enjoy the Dracula vampire movies, don't bother with this one. This is not a fantasy. This is a true modern day sanguinarian vampire drama that is very enjoyable and very believable. While some may consider if bordering on horror, only due to a second vampire within the story, it is a well written and portrayed drama of true vampirism, where people truly are addicted to drinking human blood of others. Most will enjoy this as it fails to be as predictable as it first appears, and everyday life drama is well portrayed. It is disappointing that that many gave this a low rating, most likely as they simply wanted to see the typical fantasy vampire horror movie. This isn't it - this movie is real life, and truly could be based on a true story.