Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)

Sasha finds herself in a predicament: As a young vampire she is introduced to a clown who is supposed to be her first kill, but instead she experiences empathy and is deeply traumatized by watching her family kill the clown who moments before had been entertaining her. From that moment on, she is in a state of arrested development—her teeth refuse to drop and she lives off IV bags of blood that her mother harvests. However, her family has reached a breaking point, and it is intervention time. Sasha is sent to live with her ruthless cousin Denise who is supposed to train Sasha to kill, refusing her any blood until she learns to fend for herself. However, it seems Sasha would rather starve or even kill herself than take the life of a human.

Enter Paul, a depressed teenager whom Sasha keeps running into. At a support group meeting for people experiencing suicidal thoughts, Paul offers himself up to Sasha. From there a night of adventure begins as the two attempt to cross off items on Paul’s bucket list before Sasha feeds on him. There are echoes of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), another vampire film that centers a “young” female vampire protagonist caught in a budding relationship with someone who doesn’t understand her true nature. Sasha and Paul see themselves in each other—two hopeless teens who don’t fit in. However, the spell is broken, at least temporarily, when Paul asks Sasha how old she is and she answers 68. 

This movie is a lot of fun despite the portrayals of bullying, depression, and suicidal ideation. It is punctuated with humor throughout and offers a simple delight whenever Sasha slurps her blood bags like a juicebox. The movie also puts a new spin on the vampire trope: Vampires age and live into their 300s, their teeth drop at a certain age, and they have inherited skills from “their blood.” For example, when the young Sasha is gifted a keyboard, she immediately knows how to play it despite never having a lesson. There is also a whole vampire society that runs in parallel with human society as Sasha’s parents take her from vampire doctor to vampire specialist to diagnose and fix Sasha’s problem. And the film plays with another vampire rule: If you don’t fully drain a body, that person will turn into a vampire, which is how Denise winds up burdened with the ridiculous J.P., a drunk bro who made an easy target, but whom Sasha tried to save by interrupting Denise’s attempt to feed. Ultimately, Sasha does find a way forward, keeping true to both her vampire and humanist natures. 4 out of 5 sacs of blood.  

—Gina Myers