Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

Despite its darkly supernatural package, however, Louis-Seize’s film adheres to its idiosyncratic tone of purposeful excitement for a future that’s hardly assured––death can be a beginning too. Rather than adhere to the status quo by taking people’s lives, maybe Sasha can somehow take their deaths instead.

What’s special about Humanist is how Louis-Seize maintains an easygoing atmosphere despite the heavy material, and despite the determined stillness of Shawn Pavlin’s photography.

The deadpan tone recalls the drollery of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and What We Do in the Shadows. Montpetit channels the teen angst of a young Winona Ryder. The effect reframes this dark comedy as a species-swapped, harder-edged, very French Edward Scissorhands.

In keeping with this trend, Ariane Louis-Seize's delightful “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” drives a wooden stake of complexity through vampire mythology, offering a fresh new take through a pacifistic protagonist.

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person isn’t a wholly new take on the subgenre. But it is a charming one — a rom-com for teenagers (and teenagers at heart) who swoon when cute boys talk about death.

It’s stylishly shot by first-timer Louis-Seize, a bit reminiscent of an early Jim Jarmusch movie with its deadpan sense of humour, never trying too hard, just a little bit too cool for school.

“Humanist Vampire” doesn’t want us to think too deeply, and aims mostly to charm. Largely it succeeds, which is its own kind of critique in this post-“Titane” and -“A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” era, when some viewers might expect provocation or transgression from their horror archetypes.

In her debut feature, French-Canadian director Ariane Louis-Seize explores teenage depression through two unique characters: a **** who refuses to kill to live, and a bullied boy who wishes he were dead to end his suffering. The result is a delightful coming-of-age film that, while stagnant at various points and ending on a somewhat conventional note, offers a fun twist on the nature of the legendary supernatural character.Visually inspired by Wes Anderson and Tim Burton, and channeling the characteristic melancholic nature of suburban Quebec, 'Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person' constructs a comforting discourse about the joy of living alongside those strange as us.