Hey folks, Harry here with Copernicus... one of the old school, longtime vets of AICN's Austin Branch. He's still out in San Francisco working an observer of celestial bodies... like Salma Hayek, Jennifer Connelly and you, yes you, when you're in the shower! Just kidding. Salma and Jennifer aren't being watched, but sun, he's just waiting for you to go bang! Anyway, whilst searching far and wide for these beautiful things to appear, he still does special agent work in the area for me. Now excuse me, I have a message for Copernicus. "The Rabbit Is Out Of The Hat. The Hat Belongs On The Rack. Check Out Her Rack!" Sorry, had to send him on a mission. Now those of you that remember Copernicus' work, well, ya know how tough he was on films. Well, he seemed to dig the hell out of the following film!!!

VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS

Copernicus here with my first review from the Cinequest, the San Jose Film festival. Before I start, I just want to say that I have had a great time at Cinequest – I’ve seen some great movies which you’ll be hearing about in the next few days. Plus, the staff and volunteers here have been wonderful. If you live in the San Francisco Bay area you should certainly check it out. Onto my first review of the festival, VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS.

Just when I thought that Buffy had sucked all of the fresh ideas out of the universe of vampires and left it for dead, VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS comes along and proves that there is still life in the hoary genre. The new film by director Michael Keller and writer Jay Srinivasan is charming and funny, more like a situation comedy than the horror or drama you might have come to expect from a chronicle of the undead. This film is to vampires what ANALYZE THIS is to mobsters. In fact, VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS is in some ways the flip side of Buffy. As in the Buffy universe, here mostly male Vampires are pursued by a blond- haired fashion conscious slayer, but this story is told from the perspective of the poor Vampires. Sure the vampires are blood-sucking monsters, but they are trying to change, they really are. After sucking the life out of his girlfriend (literally), the main character, Vic Weller (Paul Popowich) enrolls in a 12 step program to learn to get his blood lust under control. He quickly finds a mentor in another on-the-wagon vampire who also happens to be a mobser, played by Michael Madsen.

Pretty soon, Vic finds himself relocated the rural North Carolina, restricted to an all-sheep diet. Altercations with sheep-loving local hillbillies (yes there is implied sheep-fucking in this movie), the fuzz, and the slayer Taffeta Monroe (Michelle Stafford) ensue. Then there is the inevitable relapse and intervention, and complications with the love interest Maggie (Nicole Forester).

If Buffy is the feminist take on vampire lore, where the blonde doesn’t get it in the end, but instead vanquishes her demons, then what does that make this move? Here we are rooting for the vampires to get away from the slayer. Does that make this movie anti- feminist? Not really – once you turn a genre on its head like Buffy did, if you then turn that on its head you don’t end up where you started from. Besides, the main focus of them movie is Vic and his struggles to kick the nastiest habits of vampirism (that being the tendency to eat his loved ones or meddlesome rednecks that get in the way).

VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS is the first feature by director Keller, and in some small ways it shows. The mobster storyline, after a great introduction, goes nowhere. It is a shame because we always want to see more of what Michael Madsen is up to. At the post-screening Q and A session, the writer and director revealed that they shot much more than ended up on screen, so I’m sure there was initially much more to the mobster subplot. Even though we feel its absence, the filmmakers almost certainly made the right decision in cutting it, since the final film’s pacing just works. Another minor annoyance is that one character plays the movie with an accent like some Adam Sandler character. It is grating, but not enough so that it detracts from the rest of the movie.

Even if you can tell that film is a first-time effort in some minor respects, it seems extremely polished in others. The film looks great, is shot well, and the sound and music are better than in most high budget movies. Keller has shown he can take a small budget and make it go far.

Maybe my favorite thing about the movie is Paul Popowich in the lead role as Vic. He’s done lots of work in Canada, and made some appearances on American TV, but why haven’t I seen him in more movies? He has the charisma to carry the movie, and the comic timing to make the jokes work. We believe it when he’s dying for a fix, but he doesn’t take it so far that we’re afraid of him either (after all, we’re supposed to be on the killer’s side here).

Similarly, the filmmakers show that they are no slouches at comic timing either. Each scene is intercut with a title card announcing which step of the 12 steps Vic is on. These never failed to get a laugh. In fact there were few jokes that bombed in the movie – a difficult feat when you are making a movie for the first time and can’t afford to test it on audiences and reshoot.

Here’s hoping that we see more of Paul Popowich, and more movies from the director Michael Keller and his writing parter Jay Srinivasan. The latter two had had the dream of this movie for years, and they finally just made it happen. They made fewer mistakes on their first time effort than most, but the minor mistakes hardly matter because Vampires Anonymous shows such enthusiasm and charm that you can’t help but leave the movie theater impressed.

If Harry gets this review posted in time, be sure to catch the final screening of the movie at Cinequest at 11:30 pm on Saturday, March 8. The filmmakers will be there.

Copernicus out!