Movie Review: The Transfiguration
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Indie horror drama gives viewers a deliberately paced and disturbing new entry in the vampire genre to bite into.
In high school, I had a friend that was totally obsessed with werewolves and talked about lycanthrope lore as if he was the world’s leading authority. If I had seen Michael O’Shea’s new indie vampire film, The Transfiguration, back then, which centers on a similarly strange teen obsessed with vampire lore, I never would’ve spoken to my friend again out of fear for my life.
The Transfiguration centers on 14-year-old African American Milo effectively played with an unsettling calm demeanor by Eric Ruffin. Milo lives in the Bronx with his older brother, Lewis, a veteran who spends his days sitting around watching TV. An orphan left to his own devices, Milo spends his days watching VHS tapes of old vampire movies, and especially admiring the ones he sees as more “realistic,” such as the similarly themed Let the Right One In. Living in a tough neighborhood in New York City plagued by gang activity, Milo ends up being the greatest danger of all as he spends his nights hunting people to harvest their blood, then jotting down entries in his notebook about how to improve and become a more effective vampire. Soon, Milo meets Sophie (Chloe Levine) a troubled and abused girl that senses a kindred spirit in Milo. But can Milo curb his bloodsucking tendencies?
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What’s so notable about The Transfiguration is the way it asks viewers to imagine what it would be like to be a vampire in the real world. Forget the garlic, crucifixes, and coffins. What would it be like to be someone compelled to go out and harvest the blood of others? The Transfiguration asks us this intriguing question while also touching on themes of gang violence and mental illness. Attention should also be brought to the unsettling score by Margaret Chardiet, which, reminiscent of Mica Levi’s score for 2014’s Under the Skin, made me uneasy while it played over the film’s shocking murder scenes. Slow, yet deliberately paced, the film is intense, dark and riveting. While the plot may be somewhat familiar, namely with the aforementioned Let the Right One In, the film welcomingly brings new blood to the vampire genre.
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