Full to brim with charm, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person strikes the perfect balance between being a touching coming-of-age story and a wonderful dark horror comedy. Sara Montpetit shines in Ariane Louis-Seize’s excellent debut—a triumphant and heartwarming film.

Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is not your typical vampire. She’s a young vampire with a serious problem: she’s too sensitive to kill! When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha’s life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she meets Paul (Félix Antoine-Bénard), a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies who is willing to give his life to save hers. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfil Paul’s last wishes before day breaks.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Persons is ass light-hearted as its lengthy title suggeste. This isn’t going to be a Let the Right One In or A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night type of film, instea,d it aims to be a horror-comedy full of compassion, which in the end works terrifically well, as you begin to have a fondness for our two leads in this coming-of-age film.

Sara Montpetit has that presence about her that she has only strengthened from her top-notch performance in Falcon Lake. You feel the conflict within her portrayal of Sasha. Although her character is 68 years old in human years, she yearns for a more human life. She is utterly miserable, living predominantly in the shadows with her family. So, when she finds someone who should be an easy target and sets her on the road to being a “proper” vampire, she struggles because she finally has found a connection with someone out of her circle. Her scene with Paul as they both listen to one of her records is all you need to be won over by her. She sees everything she is feeling in those couple of minutes as the pull to try and bite his fights with her need to keep him around, a truly lovely anxiety-filled performance that is topped off with excellent little subtle notes.

Félix Antoine-Bénard has the difficult task of matching the work of Montpetit, and in Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, he knocks it equally out of the park. Complimenting Montpetit’s performance awkwardly well. They have chemistry in spades and can tackle both the comedy and drama their roles offer. It could be easy to keep Antoine-Bénard’s character a male version of Winona Ryder’s Lydia from Beetlejuice (You almost sense that both Montpetit and Antoine-Bénard are channelling that character a little here). However, he brings far more heart to the role than you would expect, so his performance comes together perfectly.

Despite some themes in Ariane Louis-Seize’s film leaning towards the heavier side, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person always seems to tilt back to the lighter side. We have both leads thinking of suicide in their own ways. Paul is in a constant depression-filled hole, and Sasha is constantly thinking of ending her own undead life by eating human food, which is poisonous to vampires (one instance leads to a darkly humorous “Are you okay?” chats with her parents as they find a food item in her room).

It is that thin line that Louis-Seize manages to balance throughout her film that you gravitate towards. Yes, there are discussions of assisted suicide, and they are rightfully not taken lightly in the least. Yet, the writing from Louis-Seize and co-writer Christine Doyon combined with the performances of Montpetit and Antoine-Bénard give the film outs from going too dark and moving away from those comedic beats it thrives in the middle ground.

Filled chiefly at night (for obvious reasons), Shawn Pavlin’s cinematography is filled with luscious yellows that give a pleasant warmth to the film. Everything is done in Louis-Seize’s film to pull us into these characters and their story, as not only does the cinematography work wonders, the lengthy static shots of the duo together, be it dancing awkwardly beside each other or sitting/lying on a bed talking, we are lured into their narrative. You don’t want to escape it. Add into this the fantastic score from Pierre-Philippe Côté, which assists with drawing the audience in further. The warmth is there, but he is also able to zone us right into how our two characters are feeling: alone and dispirited. Everything combines to work so well here.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person spends a lot of time building up to our eventual night, and you wish it was able to give us more time with Sasha and Paul on his “final” night so we can see their relationship build further. It feels as if we have missed out on some parts to really fall for both characters and the relationship that was growing. This comes from the film’s lean 90-minute runtime and becomes one of those rare instances where an extra 15 minutes wouldn’t have harmed the overall movie at all. Which is a shame because there is so much here that could be tapped into that you sense the film has shortchanged itself from being something truly special.

Regardless, this is still a heartwarming film that will be a great watch for those leaning into horror for the first time and an utter joy for those well embedded into the genre. When the only negative to a film is that you wanted to see more of its characters and the world they reside in, then you know you are onto a firm winner. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a sublime viewing.

★★★★

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