Movies
[Fantasia ’15 Review] ‘Therapy For a Vampire’: A Clever Two-Fanged Comedy
We’ve already had one uproarious vampire send-up this year, What We Do in the Shadows. Do we really need another one? Oh hell yes. And its name is Therapy for a Vampire. Anything that stokes the burning stake of whiney teen vamp drivel should be welcomed with open arms, but it also helps that this Austrian offering from director David Rühm is a seductive and hilarious take on vampire lore with a script and cast that nails the coffin tight.
In 1930s Vienna, the thrill is gone for centuries old vampire Count Geza von Közsnöm. As his existence drags its feet, so does his marriage to the Countess Elsa. He finds no pleasure in feeding on the innocent anymore, so he swigs from a blood-filled flask when his wife isn’t looking – like some hapless alcoholic. He seeks the assistant of Dr. Sigmund Freud, who’s not at all alarmed when the Count insists their session happen at night. “What do you do during the day?” Freud asks.
“I’m…a count?”
During one of their sessions, the Count sees a vision of Nadila, his long-deceased true love. But it’s really a painting of Lucy, the girlfriend of Freud’s assistant Viktor, an amateur artist. Regardless, the Count is determined to make Lucy his bride by any vampiric means necessary. While he woos Lucy, Elsa hires Viktor to paint her portrait. Decades of not being able to see her own reflection is driving the vain Countess mad and if Viktor can’t deliver on a painting, there’ll be hell to pay.
The script, also written by Rühm, is very clever and crackling with intelligent humor and subtlety. His approach to vampire parody feels fresh – he’s not just playing on tired gags we’ve seen before. A vampire’s obsession with counting, for example, leads to some great moments. Many of the jokes start out small and suggestive, only to lead to even bigger punch lines later on.
The lush production design and costumes are a big part of the fun and go a long way in adding weight to the atmosphere. There’s a ton of small details everywhere – from the Count’s cemetery to Viktor’s cluttered studio apartment. Putting this great group of vibrant actors in this rich environment leads to one hugely entertaining dance in the dark. Tobias Moretti brings deep sophistication and astute comedic timing to the Count. His constant sparring with the seductive Jeanette Hain (Elsa) is hilarious to watch. As Lucy, Cornelia Ivancan truly steals the show. She’s warm and strong and radiates leading woman whiz-bang charisma. Here’s hoping she gets a chance to break out internationally soon.
Therapy for a Vampire (or, Der Vampir auf der Couch) takes relentless jabs at vampire lore and, most piercing of all, relationships and the vicissitudes of marriage. It does so in an invigorating way with heaps of wit to spare. But don’t worry, it’s not all top hats and snappy quips. There is enough blood splashed around to paint the walls.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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