[rating=5.00]
As tired as we are of vampires in movies, there’s a reason why we keep coming back. As lore, vampires speak to our basest, most primal fears about our own natures. Are we, humans, little more than bloodthirsty animals, hiding our darkest secrets from the light of day, allowing our true selves to come out only at night? The vampire exists, in some form or another, in almost every mythological tradition on earth, and as long as we’re telling stories, a bloodsucker won’t be far behind.
Cinematically, we’re more than due for a new take on the vampire mythos. We’ve nearly exhausted the reservoir of tales from which to pull new stories of blood and fright, and we’ve grown weary of what’s come before. A new angle would be an exciting prospect, and The Transfiguration very nearly delivers.
For a brief period in the 90s, the media made a Big Deal about a certain subset of troubled teens who became so obsessed with vampires and vampire lore that they began to act is if they were vampires. Talk shows and tabloids inspired a rash of media features about these lost souls who dressed in black and talked about drinking blood. A few isolated cases even resulted in murders, leading to renewed angst about the dangers of role playing games.
The Transfiguration clearly takes its inspiration from this; this isn’t a horror movie about vampires, this is a horror movie about a young boy whose obsession with vampires blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. In itself, it’s an intriguing idea which lends itself to a multitude of possibility. Unfortunately, the execution of the idea leaves much to be desired.
The film follows Milo (Eric Ruffin) a young, vampire obsessed youth growing up in a New York ghetto. He’s derided as weird by the gangs who control his building, and admits he has no friends. What no one knows is that young Milo secretly stalks the streets, killing strangers with a pen knife and drinking their blood. He’s perfectly content to exist outside the realm of normal humanity until Sophie (Chloe Levine) moves into his building. With the prospect of adolescent love raising its head for the first time, Milo begins to question why he does what he does, and wonders if it’s possible for him to ever regain his humanity.
Premise aside, writer/director Michael O’Shea never rises to the potential of the idea. This could be a case of first-timer jitters; there’s enough good in The Transfiguration to suggest future greatness from its maker, and as far as first efforts go it’s not terrible. That’s provided, of course, you can overlook its missteps.
As a vampire fan, Milo is obsessed with authenticity in his vampire lore. He derides works like Twilight or True Blood for not being “real.” In his head, those works and work like it fail to meet the standards of reality that he thinks vampires must exist in. For a movie as obsessed with authenticity as this one is, it certainly is lacking in that department.
Much of Milo’s problems feel remarkably like what a white author thinks must be the problems facing a young black male. The film is steeped in clichés of life in the ghetto, unnuanced and inarticulate. The social commentary is laudable, and certainly O’Shea is earnest in his intentions, but it feels more caricature than reality, which lessens its impact considerably.
Still, O’Shea does manage to instill his film with genuine moments of tension. The juxtaposition of a young child vampire always manages to disturb viewers and, in this context, the repulsion is heightened due to the fact that Milo isn’t a vampire. He could be any kid, his innocence hiding the darkest of secrets. We feel sorry for him as he begins wanting redemption, knowing that he’s come too far in his fantasy to ever have hope for normalcy, which adds an interesting dynamic, to be sure.
It’s never enough to make The Transfiguration a great film, but it’s a perfectly okay film, especially for fans of vampires and horror. While flawed, it’s an intriguing debut from O’Shea, one which hopefully inspires the filmmaker to bigger and better heights in future movies.
The Transfiguration is now playing in limited release.