It Starts With Drinking Blood

The Transfiguration (2016) Dir. Michael O'Shea

Milo, a young teen struggling to deal with the loss of his parents, has a dangerous and unhealthy obsession with vampires. He finds an unlikely friendship in fellow teen Sophie, another orphan who is living with her abusive grandfather. 

“Whatever it is you’re doing— There’s someone doing a whole lot worse.” - Lewis

Vampires. As with zombies, they cycle in and out of the popular zeitgeist. Some people make a distinction between vampirism and cannibalism. I’m not entirely sure there’s a huge thematic difference. Both are about feeding on other humans for power/life. Both can have a sensual, seductive quality that makes them perfect metaphors for sexual desire. And both can be used to explore addiction.

“Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” - Marx

One aspect of vampirism I feel gets overlooked is the class warfare of it all. Dracula, let’s not forget, was a rich aristocrat who fed on the poor of Transylvania, before deciding it was time to exploit a new market.

“We become as him. We henceforward become foul things of the night like him — without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best.” - Mina Harker

I feel like this is one aspect of the vampire mythology that could stand  to be mined further. For a horror story that has been told, retold and reimagined more times than I can count, I’m surprised more anti-capitalist interpretations don’t exist.

While I wouldn’t say The Transfiguration is doing exactly this, I think it’s important that the film decides to focus on poverty and those left behind by America. Milo lives with his brother Lewis and they are just about keeping their heads above water. Both dealing with unimaginable grief and trauma and unable to speak to each other about it. It’s no wonder that Milo aspires to the vampiric life. Vampires have all the money and power. Vampirism is the aspirational American Dream. 

The film is set in New York, but this is the New York we don’t see in romantic comedies. Filmed primarily in Rockaway, Queens where writer/director Michael O’Shea grew up. Almost everything is shot with an out-of-view long lens camera that makes you feel like a voyeur, peeking in on everyday lives. All beautifully, and naturalistically, photographed by cinematographer Sung Rae Cho.

“The class element in the script is simply because that’s what I know, that’s how I grew up. I was bullied, beaten up a lot.” - Michael O’Shea

Not everything about the film feels entirely authentic. Some of the gang scenes feel rote and unbelievable. Similarly, I could never shake a sense of poverty tourism, despite the well meaning intentions of the film and O’Shea’s working class background. Perhaps that’s unfair. I had similar reservations about Sean Baker’s The Florida Project but softened on that film over time. Maybe it’s not the film/filmmakers that leave me feeling conflicted, maybe it’s the arthouse audiences?

Where the film really sings is in the burgeoning and sweet relationship that develops between Milo and Sophie. Two broken teens who find solace in each other and who, in different circumstances, might have been able to help each other more. Both Eric Ruffin and Chloe Levine are magnetic in their roles and managed to carry me through the films’ muddier and more problematic aspects.

Ultimately the film is about a child that has been abandoned by the system and left to deal with grief, trauma, bullying, and mental health issues alone. That that results in a serial killer is maybe an artefact of the film’s genre trappings, but it can present a misleading conclusion.

It’s perhaps my least full-hearted recommendation of the month, but there’s still something about this film that haunts me and has lodged itself in my mind. I’ve found so little written or spoken about it and I want more people to see it if only so I can hear what they think.

Where can I watch it in the UK?

You can stream it for free on Mubi or rent it for £3.49 on Apple.

Pairs well with

Martin (1977, dir. George Romero, available to rent for £2.49 on YouTube/Google) is such a presence in this film that even Milo references it. Romero’s classic about a disturbed man who believes himself to be an 84 year old vampire is one of his finest.

Further Reading

• O’Shea on Debunking the Myth of Overnight Success. A great piece about how he eventually made his debut feature almost 20 years after graduating from film school.
• An interview with O’Shea and Cho about filming The Transfiguration for No Film School.
• Another interview with O’Shea where he talks about his inspirations from seventies cinema.
• Alice Capelle on the parasite class and capitalist vampirism.

Other Recommendations

• I really liked this video about Death, Grief and the Internet by Ro Ramdin. Not exactly horror, but close enough.
• Vaguely related to vampirism/cannibalism - a piece on Electric Lit: There’s Nothing Scarier Than a Hungry Woman.
• Brilliant poet Chrissy Williams writes about her one day poetry workshop (this Saturday, 28th Oct) - Short Controlled Bursts - which is built around James Cameron’s 1986 masterpiece Aliens. She discusses using pop culture in poetry and her love of the film.