Old Houses Breed Monsters: Atun-Shei’s "The Vampires of New Orleans"
October is almost at an end, but the spooky season is just getting started! Though there are a bevy of horror films currently in theaters to whet one’s infernal appetite for corpse-centered cinema (Resident Evil, Other Mommy, Clayface, etc.), we at Cinemasters would like to take a moment to highlight a film that is likely to have flown under the average cinephile’s radar. The second feature film from Writer/Director/Actor Andrew Rakich (better known by his Youtube handle: Atun-Shei Films), The Vampires of New Orleans is a heady blend of documentary filmmaking and low-budget narrative horror that educates and entertains in equal measure.
Investigating the phenomenon of real-life Vampire culture in New Orleans, Vampires presents talking heads and street interviews alongside a fictional narrative about a Cajun vampire living in the basement of a hospital abandoned during Hurricane Katrina. Together, these separate elements are woven together to form a unique account of the role of slavery and racial discrimination in the formation of a distinctly American Vampire mythos. While the narrative sections provide the blood, guts, and mystery, the talking heads and street interviews strike a surprisingly robust balance between historical context and humorous man-on-the-street antics.
Despite the very significant differences in structure, Vampires truly does feel cut from the same cloth as Rakich’s feature debut The Sudbury Devil, a film perhaps best described as The VVitch for PHD students. Both films are nominally horror, but contain plenty of the oddball humor and attention to historical detail that characterizes much of the Atun-Shei Youtube catalogue. However, unlike Sudbury Devil, which could be criticized at points for its methodical pace, Vampires does an excellent job of keeping itself moving while keeping the audience engaged despite a 2 hour & 34 minute runtime. The film also contains an intermission, which, while not entirely necessary, adds to some of the tongue-in-cheek “gravitas” of the film’s low-budget aesthetic and provides a logical dividing point for those who might want to split this film into two, more easily digestible chunks.
Fans of The Sudbury Devil and the Atun-Shei Films Youtube channel will recognize many of the narrative’s actors (and a few non-narrative participants) from previous projects. Notably, Linnea Gregg, Josh Popa, Kendra Unique, Carl Sailor, and Matthew Van Gessel all return from Sudbury Devil to lend their skills to the narrative section of the film, and frequent YouTube collaborators Dr. Justin Sledge of Esoterica and Karl Kasarda of InRangeTV made for a delightful surprise as talking heads. Most notably, Rakich appears as the titular Vampire of this film, and while his Vampiric Cajun Maître makeup and costuming was highly impressive, and his commitment to period-accurate linguistics remains steadfast and as entertaining as ever, I felt that, at points, his accent was not quite up to the standards set by his famed Received Pronunciation in projects such as Sudbury Devil or his Witchfinder General series. Linguistic quibbles aside, much of the dialogue felt refreshingly natural or aptly grandiose depending on which characters were speaking.
I found Linnea Gregg’s performance as a vampiric southern belle to be especially entertaining, as her dialogue and delivery oozed with the pointed subtext characteristic of southern aristocratic speech. The decision to have certain characters featured in both the documentary and narrative sections of this film struck me as a particularly gutsy move, and while it doesn’t quite hit hard enough to make the audience question how much of this film is truth and how much is fiction, it does serve to help gel the two disparate parts of the film together.
Unfortunately, I have one major gripe with The Vampires of New Orleans. By the end of my time with the film, I was struck by a sneaking suspicion that making this film half narrative and half documentary may have actually weakened the project. Instead of marrying the best of both worlds (though thankfully avoiding the worst), Vampires provides audiences with an excellent short documentary about vampire culture in New Orleans that, at times, feels grafted onto a compelling short film about an actual Vampire living in the city. Though we may never truly know if these projects would have been able to stand on their own when separated, I have been continually revisiting the idea in my mind in the time since my initial viewing - Such are the pitfalls of using an unusual, experimental format in one’s second ever feature as writer, director, and editor.
Criticism aside, no one can say that Mr. Rakich and his collaborators are anything other than ambitious in their approach to filmmaking. The Vampires of New Orleans is devilishly entertaining, and an unashamedly unique film whose cast and crew’s passion for the project permeates every aspect of production. If you’re looking for something different this spooky season, and don’t mind a bit of academic edutainment to go with your blood-stained romp through the Big Easy, give The Vampires of New Orleans a try. Who knows? Once you sink your fangs into it, you may find it fiendishly difficult not to keep coming back for more…
You can find The Vampires of New Orleans to rent or buy on the Atun-Shei Films website (https://atunsheifilms.vhx.tv ), or on the Atun-Shei Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/atunsheifilms) starting October 31st.
