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| Freud (Karl Fischer) analyzes Count Geza von Kosznom (Tobias Moretti) in David Ruhm's Therapy for a Vampire (2014) |
Okay, it's official. I just do not like horror comedies. So many of them are just plain sexist, and women are often the brunt of the joke. This film is not that offensive, but it's not that memorable either. David Ruhm's
Therapy for a Vampire is an amusing little film that brings out the occasional chuckle, but it's really just a trifle. A little bite-sized concoction that is momentarily delicious, but then rather forgettable and not very satisfying. White chocolate instead of some 80% dark chocolate (Fair Trade) from Madagascar. Okay, I clearly need some chocolate in order to write this review...
The best thing about this film is Freud, who happens to be hanging around a vastly underpopulated Vienna in the 1930s. I'm not going to go into the fact that real Freud is way older than this character by this point, etc., etc. It's Freud (Karl Fischer), and he's just some schmoe instead of a world famous psychoanalyst, and he just happens to be a therapist to Count Geza von Kosznom (Tobias Moretti). The Count is bored and sick of immortality, mostly because he hates his wife, the lovely Countess Elsa (Jeannette Hain) and all he can think of is killing her. Elsa's not too happy either. She can sense that the Count is not really interested in her, and over hundreds of years has become more and more insecure because she cannot see herself in any mirrors (of course), and thinks she's not beautiful enough for the Count. By the way, she's completely, utterly gorgeous, and I wanted to own all her fabulous costumes. To turn this elegant woman into an insecure nag is just unjust.
The Count is also pining away for his one true love, Nadila, a woman he lost in the past (a villagers-with-torches tragic scenario). Coincidentally (or not), she happens to look just like the girlfriend of Viktor (Dominic Oley), a struggling artist hired by Freud to illustrate Freud's dreams. Every woman that Viktor happens to paint or draw looks like Lucy (Cornelia Ivancan), but an idealized version of her--a blond, elegant, sensual sophisticate rather than her smart, spunky brunette self. Lucy, following up on the "women are insecure" theme in this film, transforms herself into the slinky blonde of Viktor's dreams, and catches the eye of the Count, who now sees his reincarnated lost love.
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| Countess Elsa (Jeannette Hain) gets Victor (Dominic Oley) to paint her portrait |
The Count decides to take care of two problems at once. In order to steal Lucy away from Viktor, he convinces his wife that the painter has a special technique that will be able to capture her beauty on canvas. While Elsa is busy with Viktor, the Count tries to seduce Lucy. Hijinks ensue.
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| Countess Elsa attacking Lucy for stealing her man. Eye roll and yawn. |
So, in this film we have two women who struggle to gain the attention of the men in their lives, are obsessed about their appearance (because of said men), and the men see them as nagging wives or girlfriends who they actively manipulate and/or successfully get to change. Nice. And so hilarious!!
As I said before, the interactions with Freud were the only moments that I found really rather funny, and that's because of all the sly asides to Freud's writings (
Totem and Taboo,
The Wolfman,
The Interpretation of Dreams). Likewise, the Count's "Renfield" character, Ignaz (Anatole Taubman) steals quite a few scenes away from the key players as he bumbles around and messes thing up. I was pretty disappointed by this film, but I should have known better. After all, Sigmund Freud referred to femininity as the "dark continent"; it looks like this film is pretty clueless about women as well.
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| Nicholas Grimshaw (Jason Flemyng) confronts a curse from the past in Kevin McTurk's The Mill at Calder's End (2015) |
In fine Fantasia form, the short screened before
Therapy, Kevin McTurk's
The Mill at Calder's End (2015) is a really fantastic and beautifully-made puppet film. Created through a successful Kickstarter campaign, this powerful little short follows Nicholas Grimshaw (Jason Flemyng) as he tries to end a curse that has plagued every male Grimshaw, and may come for his newborn son as well.
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| The Inimitable Barbara Steele voices the Apparition at the Mill--looks just like her! |
The puppets are incredible and really lend to the Uncanny and unsettling atmosphere that permeates this film. The lighting and soundtrack truly enhance the film's tangible dread, and the puppets' emotional realism is conveyed through sophisticated expressionistic lighting. In a casting coup, the apparition that haunts all these male Grimshaws (and other men that fall into her "web") is played by Barbara Steele, looking like she just made a side trip out of Mario Bava's
Black Sunday (1960). McTurk has made a really cool
making of documentary in case you're interested, and hopefully the film will be widely available once it rakes in the awards on the festival circuit. It's a truly unique and wonderful film.
