Halloweeniness! Films reviewed: Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Killer, Suzume
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto Fall Film Festival Season continues with Rendezvous with Madness, showing and discussing films about addiction and mental health, on now through November 5th. And on the horizon are Cinefranco, showing great French- language movies from Canada, Europe and Africa starting Nov 3rd; and ReelAsian Film Fest, celebrating its 27th incarnation, featuring pan-Asian cinema, events and media artists beginning on Nov 8th.
But this week I’m talking about three new genre movies — an action- thriller, a horror and an animated fantasy — just in time for Halloween. There’s a hitman tying up loose ends, a night watchman guarding animatronic beasts, and a Japanese schoolgirl closing doors.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
Co-Wri/Dir: Emma Tammi
(Based on the game by Scott Cawthon)
Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a night watchman at a crumbling, former kids’ pizza emporium. He’s working there because, since their parents died, he needs to take care of his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio). Abby is withdrawn and introverted; she spends most of her days drawing pictures. Mike is especially protective of her, since their brother Garret was abducted by a stranger years earlier and never found. Now he’s worried social services will take her away and give custody to their sinister aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). And without a steady job, he’s a lost cause.
The thing is, Freddy’s is a weird and creepy place, filled with rusty old animatronic figurines — Freddy, Foxie, Bonnie, Chica, and Cupcake — life-sized robotic creatures that once welcomed kids to the restaurant… until children started disappearing in the 1980s, and the place was closed down. Luckily, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) a friendly local cop, is always dropping by to make sure Mike is OK. (Is there a possible romance brewing?) But once ghosts of the abducted kids start appearing in his dreams — and he wakes up with real-life wounds — Mike starts to question the entire job. And when Abby gets involved 
and is playing with the animatronic creatures, things start to look ominous. Can Mike protect Abby from her new “friends”? Will Aunt Jane take her away? And will he ever discover what happened to their brother Garret?
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a light kids’ horror movie about a haunted restaurant, a sort of a Chuck E Cheese from hell. It’s based on a computer game from the early 2000s, which dictates a lot of the characters, plot and even the images. Which gives an ultra-simplistic feel to the movie. The movie mainly takes place inside the dusty pizza emporium, filled with retro video screens and pinball machines; and the scenes with the animatronic characters are uniquely creepy and cool. But in general, the film is predictable, repetitive and not terribly original. But I’ve never actually played the game. The audience where I saw it was screaming and yelling at every line, revelation or scene-change, so, clearly, if you’re already a fan, you’ll love it. Personally, I enjoyed watching it, but found it instantly forgettable.
The Killer
Dir: David Fincher
A self-described ordinary man (Michael Fassbender) who likes egg McMuffins and 70s sitcoms is camping out in a Paris office building, across from a hotel. He enjoys listening to The Smiths whenever he needs to relax. He normally lives in a palatial estate in the Dominican Republic. So what is he doing in Paris and why is he sleeping on a table? He’s a hitman assigned to assassinate a stranger through hotel window. Don’t take it the wrong way; he’s not a bad guy, it’s just his job. But when the assignment goes wrong, everything falls apart. Now he thinks killers are tracking him, and his girlfriend is attacked and almost killed inside his home. Who can he trust? So he sets out to discover who exactly has turned on him, and once he figures that out, he plans to systematically kill them all. But will he succeed in his revenge plot?
The Killer is an action/thriller based on a graphic novel and told from the viewpoint of a sympathetic murderer. There are chase scenes and stake-outs, fistfights and shoot-outs, everything you’d expect in a thriller. It’s chock-full of violence and death, but the twist is it’s narrated in a light and breezy voice-over by the killer himself. 
Fassbender is a great actor, here at his wiriest, and surrounded by a top-notch cast: including Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell and Arliss Howard. And it’s directed by David Fincher who brought us Fight Club and The Usual Suspects. And it has recurring gags, like the killer using fake names taken from 70s sitcoms (Archie Bunker and Richie Cunningham) to hide his identity. So why isn’t it very good? The problem is the story is more pointless than it is funny or exciting or interesting. It’s lots of action, not so many thrills. The plot itself is plodding, going from numbered chapter to chapter about the next person he’s going to encounter and possibly kill. It just leaves you feeling hollow — killers killing killers. Sure, The Killer is totally watchable as an action movie, it just doesn’t live up to its potential. Instead it elevates mundaneness into mock profundity.
Suzume
Wri/Dir: Shinkai Makoto
Suzume is a teenage girl in Kyushu, Japan. She has lived with her aunt since her single mom died when she was four, but she’s still troubled by nightmares. One day, on her way to school, a handsome young man asks her for directions to an abandoned part of town. Intrigued, she follows him and discovers a strange, freestanding door and a small statue of a cat. After she walks through the door, everything seems the same… and yet somehow different. She can now see things other people can’t — like a huge red plume rising into the sky. The cat, Daijin, comes to life and starts talking. The stranger, named Souta, explains what’s going on. He’s a closer, one of only a few people who can close those doors using a special key. The red plume is actually a giant worm — it’s what causes the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan. And it will be a disaster unless he closes these doors wherever they start to open. But when the cat turns Souta into a little, three-legged chair, things start to get more complicated. Can Suzume do Souta’s work? Can she turn him back into a human? Can they stop Daijin the cat from causing any more problems? And what will Suzume’s aunt do if she just takes off?
Suzume is a beautiful fantasy-adventure about a girl trying to save the 
world. It’s a picaresque story that spans Japan’s islands, historic sites and the very diverse people at work — from a hostess bar to a bath house — she meets on her journey. It’s fascinating, exciting, and full of surprises. Beautiful images and a nostalgic soundtrack — full of Japanese pop songs from the 70s and 80s — make it a pleasure to watch. It’s especially meaningful in Japan because it takes place in 2023, exactly 100 years after the Great Kanto Earthquake flattened Tokyo. Add to this a semi-romantic story full of world-altering decisions (no spoilers) and you’ll get why it’s so good. The director Shinkai Makoto who brought us the smash hit Your Name again deftly handles tricky stuff like time and space and alternate realities and unrequited love.
If you like Japanese anime, Suzume is a must-see.
Five Nights at Freddy’s and Suzume both open this weekend in Toronto — check your local listings — with The Killer showing exclusively at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Jeff Harris about #TIFF23!
PART 1
(13m 51s)
Films discussed include: Woman of the Hour, Poolman, Gonzo Girl, Dream Scenario, Dicks the Musical, Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, and more…
PART 2
(15m 04s)
Films discussed include: Fingernails, Hitman, Green Border, Wicked Little Letters, Breaking Ice, Perfect Days, and more…
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
#TIFF23 brought us a different festival than any we’ve seen before. Hollywood actors and writers were on strike, with release dates still uncertain. Geopolitics cut many countries off the usual lists. And some filmmakers who usually send movies were still recovering from the lethargy of COVID. But the movies — and I mean lots of them — were there, including tons of great ones.
So, to help me with a post- TIFF roundup and analysis, I’m very pleased to welcome back friend-of-the-show Jeff Harris. Jeff has covered TIFF for more than two decades, in photos and features for publications like
Macleans, The Walrus, and culturalmining. Jeff is also known for his photographic art — including an ongoing series of others taking pictures of him — which have won many prestigious awards.
We cover films we love, indies, turkeys, and some films that just aren’t getting enough coverage… plus noticeable changes at this year’s festival, and the whole TIFF experience.
I spoke with Jeff in person.
Photographs from TIFF 2023 by Jeff Harris
Sharks! Films reviewed: NYAD, Dicks: the Musical
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Toronto Fall Film Festival season continues with three festivals on this weekend: ImagineNative, showing indigenous films from around the world, including an art crawl! Toronto After Dark, with action, horror and fantasy and a devoted audience of fans like you’ve never seen; and Planet in Focus showing some great ecological documentaries, including world premiers.
But this week I’m talking about two more movies that played at TIFF and are now opening theatrically in Toronto this weekend. There’s a long-distance swimmer battling sharks, and two Wall Street sharks searching for their hidden history.
NYAD
Dir: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Diana Nyad (Annette Benning) is a long-distance swimmer, at the top of her game. A competitive swimmer since she was a teen, she broke world records for marathon swimming, starting in 1970. She swims in Naples, Lake Ontario, the English Channel, and other challenges around the world. But her biggest dream is to do something no one has ever done before: swimming from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. But those are shark infested waters, so they build a special metal shark tank to save her from being eaten. Sadly, the swim proves to be a washout, and after that failure, she gives up competitive 
swimming altogether, becoming a TV sportscaster instead.
Thirty years later, on her 60th birthday, she has an epiphany: looking at herself in the mirror she just sees a “bag of bones”. But with the encouragement of her best friend (and ex-lover) Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), she decides to give it one more try… but only if she agrees to be Diana’s coach. This time, they’re going to do it right. Bonnie finds a guy who knows how to scare away approaching sharks, and a captain who never speaks but knows how to handle a boat. Most important, she finds her a navigator (Rhys Ifans) who knows how to read the gulf stream and the weather to avoid swimming against the tide.
After extensive training they all go to Cuba to start the journey. Diana is armed with a playlist of hundreds of songs inside her head to keep swimming to the rhythm, and Bonnie has food and water to drop into her mouth all along the way 
(Diana is not allowed to board or even hold onto the boat for a short rest.) Can a woman in her sixties accomplish something no one in the world has done before? Or is it just a delusion?
Nyad is an inspirational biopic about the famous long-distance swimmer and her many tries at accomplishing a seemingly impossible goal. In general, I hate biopics, sports movies, and inspirational stories. But in this case, it totally works. I wanted to see it mainly because it’s directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, a husband-and-wife team of documentarians who specialize in movies about driven individuals trying to accomplish the dangerous and impossible. Like Free Solo, their Oscar-winning doc about a mountain climber who wants to scale a sheer cliff without nets or other safety measures. But this is their first try directing actors. Annette Benning plays Diana realistically, as a sometimes difficult, self-centred woman with a 60-year-old body without the usual Hollywood nips and tucks. Jodie Foster and Rhys Ifans deliver reserved but supportive performances. And the underwater photography is brilliant, all the way through.
If you feel like giving up, watch Nyad for some reasons to keep on trying.
Dicks: The Musical
Dir: Larry Charles
It’s present-day Manhattan. Trevor (Aaron Jackson) and Craig (Josh Sharp) are dicks — in the sense they are selfish, insensitive and obnoxious. They both sleep with beautiful women on one nights stands and make big bucks in sales, due to their ruthless ambition — they’re Number One in their respective regions. They live next door to each other, but they’ve never actually met. Until Gloria, their hard-ass boss (Megan Thee Stallion), brings them together in a company-wide competition. It’s hate at first sight… until they make a startling discovery: they’re not just cut-throat rivals, they’re identical twins, separated at birth! They were each raised by one of their parents.
With their sudden ties, they put their careers on hold in favour of a new goal: to meet each other’s parents discover why they did it, and perhaps to bring them together again. Since this is a musical comedy, they switch places using wigs and
disguises. Turns out, both their parents are totally whack. Harris (Nathan Lane), their Dad, is gay and has no interest in remarrying a woman. Furthermore, he keeps a pair of tiny demons with pointy teeth in his apartment; he calls them the sewer boys, Backpack and Whisper. Evelyn (Megan Mullally) has been a recluse since her vagina fell out, and presumably ran away. Can the two dicks ever get their parents back together again?
Dicks: The Movie is a funny, very campy musical-comedy based on the play of the same name, written by the two stars. Each song is more ridiculous than the one before, featuring an amazing number with Megan Thee Stallion. And there’s a thread of absurdity running through the entire film. It simultaneously makes fun of musical comedy while totally embracing it. And it really is hilarious, like a Parent Trap without kids, or a Fringe comedy with a bigger budget. It’s 
directed by Larry Charles, best known for Seinfeld, Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm, so expect lots of ribald, in-your-face comedy. Bowen Yang narrates the story playing God as a gay man, while Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally are hilarious as the eccentric parents. But it’s mainly all about writers and stars Jackson and Sharp.
Never heard of them before, but I can’t wait for the next thing they do.
Dicks the Musical and Nyad both open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Magical kids. Films reviewed: The New Boy, Butterfly Tale, Once Within a Time
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
You’ve heard of Peter Pan, right? He’s most famous for not growing up and for believing in fairies. And it’s true, kids are more likely to believe in magic than grown ups. This week, I’m looking at three new movies about the innocence and magic of childhood. There’s a disabled, teenaged butterfly that wants to migrate with his flock; an indigenous boy with magical powers sent to a church-run school; and a group of kids forced to face a fairytale apocalypse.
The New Boy
Wri/Dir: Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country)
It’s the 1940s at a remote Australian Benedictine monastery. Sister Eileen (Kate Blanchett) is excited because there’s a new student arriving soon. She runs the place, ever since the head Benedictine monk died — she keeps this detail a secret from the outside world. The new boy (Aswan Reid) is indigenous, can’t speak English, and has had virtually no contact with white Australia. He has blond hair and brown skin. He sleeps on the floor, not on a bed, and finds forks and spoons a mystery. At the same time, he can conjure up glowing particles to light his way, using just his hands. And he has magical powers: he can speak to trees, and cures people bitten by poisonous snakes.
The sisters teach him out to use an outhouse (which he finds both funny and revolting), and about western ways and foods. Above all, Sister Eileen wants to convert him to Christianity — she lives him deeply, and wants to save his soul. She uses a life-sized wooden statue of Jesus writhing on the cross as the catalyst. She hopes to change him completely, and ultimately to baptize him and give him a Christian name. Will he convert? And what will happen if he does?
The New Boy is a gentle, bittersweet look at religion,
colonization, forced assimilation and residential schools (known as boarding schools in Australia), as seen through one boy’s eyes. I found it both inspiring and tragic. Kate Blanchett is wonderful as the scheming but good-hearted nun, while young actor Aswan Reid is remarkable as the unnamed new boy. (The movie opens with a violent fight between him and a soldier in the bush, just one of many surprising scenes he manages to convey without uttering a single word.) Director Warwick Thornton based it partly on his own experiences as a boy in Alice Springs, and those personal details and feelings come through.
I liked The New Boy a lot.
Butterfly Tale
Dir: Sophie Roy
Patrick (Mena Massoud) is a young monarch butterfly who recently made the transition from caterpillar. He and his best friend Marty are looking forward to joining his village on their annual migration to Mexico. He is especially excited about spending quality time with the girl he’s crushing on, Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany). But there’s a problem. Patrick emerged from his cocoon with mismatched wings, so he’s disabled and can’t fly. And Marty is still a caterpillar. They are teased and bullied by the bigger butterflies as “butter fails”.
Worse still, Patrick’s mom, a leading flier in the “flutter” (what they call their butterfly community) wants him to stay home in the winter. But Patrick and Marty are determined to get there by hook or by crook. Jennifer, a strong flier, is pulling a leaf filled with milkweed so they can all eat on the way. Patric and Marty stowaway aboard that leaf! Little did they know they’ll face tornadoes, big box stores and angry birds posing life threatening dangers on the way. Will Patrick ever learn to fly? Will Marty ever make the transition from caterpillar to butterfly? And will Jennifer get over her hangups?
Butterfly Tale is an animated, coming-of-age road movie 
about anthropomorphic butterflies. They’re basically people, with human hair, faces, and bodies but with big butterfly wings coming out of their backs. They wear T-shirts and hoodies, and worry about adolescent insecurities. (They even have to stop the flight along the way to take a leak.) Little kids might really identify with the characters and like this movie; it has good role models for children with disabilities, and deals with environmental issues. The thing is, it’s not original or funny or risky or challenging anywhere, just a typical adolescent drama, where the people happen to be butterflies. I’m not saying it was uninteresting — it kept my attention the whole time — there just wasn’t much to it.
Once Within a Time
Wri/Dir: Godfrey Reggio
Once upon a time, a bunch of happy kids follow the beckoning voice of a goddess onto a stage. After riding a merry-go-round they start to notice strange happenings. An Adam-and-Eve-like young couple in wire masks take a piece of fruit from a sinister looking apple-man, unleashing terrible events. Smart phones generate robots, a chimp in a monkey suit and another in a VR helmet, huge industrial power-towers, a baobab tree exploding into a mushroom cloud. Ecological and geopolitical devastation is at hand! Can we survive the end of this world… or maybe start a new one?
Once Within a Time is a phantasmagorical, magic-lantern fable performed on a two dimensional stage beneath a prominent proscenium arch. It’s equal parts live-action, documentary 
footage, still images, and 3-D stop-motion animation.
I first saw Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanasqatsi as a teenager and the barrage of apocalyptic images of corporate uniformity combined with Philip Glass’s pounding music left deep marks in my psyche. This one is kinder and gentler but still effective. It’s co-directed and edited by Jon Kane with amazing vintage special affects from irises to rear projections to dual spectroscope photos. There are tinted black & white shots, shadow puppets, grotesque masks, and dancing robots 
that evoke everything from Georges Méliès to Guy Maddin to the late Peewee Herman’s Playhouse. Who knew the apocalypse could be so beautiful? It’s less than an hour in length, but provides about three times that in intensity. If you can, see it on a big screen and just let the images and music overwhelm you.
Great movie.
Butterfly Tale is now playing in Toronto; check your local listings. The New Boy is a feature at the ImagineNative film festival starting next week. And Once Within a Time is playing tomorrow (Sunday, October 15th, at 5 pm) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Kitty Green about The Royal Hotel at #TIFF23
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photograph by Jeff Harris
Hanna and Liv are two American friends in Sydney, Australia, living it up on their work/study visas. But when their money runs out they realize its time to get a job. They land one at a pub in a remote mining town called The Royal Hotel. But Royal it ain’t. It’s a ramshackle enterprise, run by an alcoholic who never pays his workers, and is patronized by rude and rowdy miners, almost all male. There’s no wifi and nothing to do. And as the tension grows, Hanna and Liv wonder if the men around them are just boisterous… or potentially dangerous. And how long can they survive in this dingy pit of misogyny, dirt and snakes?
The Royal Hotel is a new Australian film about two women surviving in the Australian outback. It’s the work of award-winning Australian filmmaker Kitty Green, know for her feminist take on a range of issues from protests to workplace harassment in film like The Assistant. The Royal Hotel had its Canadian Premiere at TIFF. I last spoke with Kitty a decade ago at CIUT about her documentary Ukraine is not a Brothel .
I interviewed Kitty on site and in person at #TIFF23.
The Royal Hotel opens in Canada this weekend.
Genre movies. Films reviewed: Relax I’m from the Future, Strange Way of Life, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in October with Toronto After Dark, showing New Horror, Sci-Fi and Action movies from Oct 18-22 at the Scotiabank Theatre in front of huuuuge audiences, the perfect things to watch as Hallowe’en gradually approaches.
This week, I’m looking at strange new takes on traditional genre movies — a science fiction comedy, a western, and a vampire movie — two of which played at TIFF this year. There’s a reluctant vampire in Quebec, two old friends in the old west, and a misbegotten traveller… from far in the future.
Relax, I’m From the Future
Wri/Dir: Luke Higginson
Casper (Rhys Darby) is a guy from the future dressed in a purple lycra onesie. He jumped through a wormhole into the present but isn’t exactly sure what to do now. He doesn’t need anything fancy, he just wants to experience this era, one he considers great musically, artistically and all around cool. The one catch? He can’t go back to the future — he’s stuck here. Luckily he meets a compatible friend named Holly (Gabrielle Graham), a self described black, queer vagina-muncher. She agrees that right now is the best of all possible worlds for her. Though she thinks Casper is a homeless nut bar, she humours him and his strange stories. But everything changes when he proves to her he knows things he couldn’t know unless he travelled in time. Like what’s the next winning lottery ticket or predicting a strange phenomenon falling from the sky. So they agree to team up, to make some money and then save the world. What he doesn’t realize is there’s an assassin sent back in time by the government to disintegrate people just like him. Doris (Janine Theriault) is a ruthless killer who enjoys zapping miscreants like Casper. Then there’s Percy (Julian Richings), a suicidal waiter at a diner who is always doodling weird punk cartoon sketches. In the future, long after his death, Percy will become a famous folk hero, and Casper really wants to meet him before he dies. But will his actions upset the cosmic balance?
Relax, I’m from the Future is a funny low-budget science fiction comedy
about ordinary people bungling there way through time. I admit it, I’ll watch any time-travel movie, no matter how bad. Luckily, this one’s pretty good, both quirky and funny, with some clever, new time-travel twists, and minimal special effects. The costumes are great and the director make good use of split screen technology. It’s shot around Toronto and Hamilton, featuring local hardcore punk band PUP, with a mainly Toronto cast including horror stalwart Richings as Percy and featuring kiwi comedy star Rhys Darby from Flight of the Concords in the title role. If you want something light and silly, check out Relax, I’m from the Future.
Strange Way of Life
Wri/Dir: Pedro Almodóvar
Silva (Pedro Pascal) is a rancher in the Old West. He lives in a homestead in the mountains with his incorrigible, adult son. Jake (Ethan Hawke) is the sheriff of a small town who lives in a simple room. The two once were close but haven’t seen each other for 25 years. Until Silva walks through the police station door one day. Why is he there? Perhaps it has to do with a recent killing, whose shooter is still unknown (though Jake has his suspicions.) Or maybe it’s something totally unrelated to that. Soon enough, they’re up in Jake’s apartment for some hanky-panky as if they never left their wild young days. They were lovers once across the border in Mexico a quarter of a century earlier. Can that relationship be rekindled? Or will the recent murder make that impossible?
Strange Way of Life is a short western about old friends meeting once again. It has showdowns and shootouts, horses and blankets, basically everything you’d expect from a western, just abbreviated and distilled. It’s instantly recognizable as the work of Almodovar: he uses primary colours to push a blue sky, red bandana or green denim jacket into the centre of your vision. It’s all done in the style of a 1960s spaghetti 
western, complete with panoramic scenery, twangy orchestral music, the whole shebang, but with a new, gay twist. This includes a frankly erotic — though not explicit — flashback to a scene involving red wine and Remingtons in a Mexican hideaway. He manages to pack a lot into 30 minutes but it still feels like the preview to a longer feature. But it’s showing along with another 30-minute short by Almodovar, so you’ll get your money’s worth.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant)
Co-Wri/Dir: Ariane Louis-Seize
Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a teenage girl who lives with her cousin in an abandoned warehouse in a small Quebec City. She’s pale with long straight black hair and bangs who dresses like Wednesday Addams. She was traumatized at a childhood birthday party in the 1970s when her parents ate the clown. Now, half a century later, she’s still a teen and still can’t bring herself to kill people. Though a vampire she exists by sipping blood out of plastic medical pouches not jugular veins. Her dad and mom (Steve Laplante, Sophie Cadieux) sympathize with her, but think it’s time for her to grow up and kill some people. Otherwise her fangs may never emerge. That’s why she’s living with her cuz.
Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard) goes to the local high school and has a part-time job at the bowling alley. He’s shy and withdrawn. He is brutally bullied both at school and at work by classmates who call him nacho boy and pour cheese whiz into his running shoes. If life is so miserable, why bother living, he thinks. And when he meets Sasha at random in a railway stockyard one night, something clicks. She needs to suck blood, and he’s willing to die. But as they get to know each other better they 
realize there’s something more between them. But how long can it last?
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is a very sweet coming-of-age romance in a semi-supernatural setting. It has a retro-goth feel to it with a fair amount of kitschy nostalgia woven in. This movie really grabbed me for some reason. I wasn’t expecting much, so was pleasantly surprised by how nice it is. Sara Montpetit and Félix-Antoine Bénard make a lovely couple of depressed misfits. And, despite occasional blood and horror, it’s mainly a sweet and vampiric rom-com.
Strange Way of Life and Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person both played at TIFF, with Strange opening this weekend, and Humanist next weekend both at the TIFF Bell Lightbox; And Relax I’m from the Future is also opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
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