Taking place in 1932 Vienna, David Ruhm's Therapy For A Vampire is a highly entertaining comedy about renowned psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, taking on his newest patient, an older gentleman who happens to be a vampire. Like any good film of a similar ilk, Therapy For A Vampire succeeds far more than it doesn't due to its ability to play with the various tropes of the vampire lexicon, providing creative comedy out of pop-culture knowledge of what a being a vampire entails. For starters, this vampire who visits Freud is deeply depressed, struggling with the fact that he doesn't have the same existential crisis as all humans, pining for a love he lost while he feels entrapped for eternity with his wife who he has grown tired of. His wife is terribly vain, incessantly complaining about not being able to see herself in the mirror, even resorting to pestering her husband for complements about her looks in an attempt to fulfill her narcissism. When this deeply unsettled couple meets another young couple in Viktor, a young painter who specializes in portraits, and his girlfriend, Lucy, who bares a striking resemblance to Viktor's past love, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins. Therapy For A Vampire is just as much about relationship dynamics as vampires, being a film about two characters in Viktor and Lucy who clearly care for each other, but constantly squabble due to their various insecurities and oppressive antics. An artist, Viktor is a character who strives for perfection, an inherently selfish individual on some levels, who drives Lucy crazy due to his pre-conceived notions of what she, as a woman should be. Through their insane encounter with the Count and Countess, Luke inevitably realizes that there is no normal, as it becomes apparent that Therapy For A Vampire was cleverly using the vampire figure as a storytelling device related to the fallacy of normalcy in humanity. Make no mistake though, Therapy For A Vampire is a lot of fun, where even if you don't want to look beneath the surface you are bound to have a good time. It has very little violence but when it comes to gore the film doesn't hold back, delivering comical levels of blood splatter in a few memorable scenes. Considering the supernatural qualities of the story, and what I perceive was a rather small budget, Therapy For A Vampire also features some great examples of economical filmmaking throughout, whether it be through use of composition or off-screen action. Featuring one ongoing gag centered around Vampires' compulsive desire to count, which pays off in spades comedically during the back half of the film, Therapy of A Vampire is a charming, funny piece of filmmaking that uses the vampire mythology to deconstruct the very idea of normalcy.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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