Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Irishchatter At the beginning of the film, you would get to be interested in this movie straight away because you don't know how the biology teacher Simon attacks his victims so he can get their blood without being caught. I found it actually shocking that he didn't get caught at all in the end. Nor his lovesick physopath friend Renfield. I thought it was horrendous and disgusting that he raped a poor defenseless woman to just off Simon that he's a vampire too. Seriously, he needs to be electriculed by an electric chair to see how he likes the pain!I would call this movie a very sick and disturbing film to watch. I think it would be best if it was banned to tell you the truth.

zetes From the director of two of the best films about teenagers ever made, All About Lily Chou Chou and Hana and Alice, Vampire is an idiosyncratic art film. It was Iwai's English language debut, premiering at Sundance in January of 2011. It was so poorly reviewed that it barely even got released theatrically anywhere (only in Japan, as far as I can tell), and only recently became available in America via Amazon download. The truth is, it is a disaster. Thankfully, though, it's a very interesting disaster. With expectations adjusted accordingly, I liked it, at least a bit. Kevin Zegers plays a high school biology teacher who has a secret life as a serial killer called the Vampire because he drains his victims' blood. His victims, though, are consenting, wishing him to help them commit suicide. His pretenses are generally false - they believe he's going to commit suicide alongside them (or, alternately, that he's going to use the blood for scientific research on suicidals), but he is a gentle man. He actually believes himself to be a vampire, or maybe he wishes he were one, and he drinks the blood afterward. The film is often lovely - aided by a gorgeous, ethereal musical score by Iwai himself. There are a couple of killer sequences, particularly the film's only real horror sequence, where Zegers is forced to accompany another serial killer (Trevor Morgan) as he hunts and murders a woman by suffocating her with a plastic bag. Of all the deaths I've encountered in movies this past month (I only watch horror films in October), this was by far the most terrifying to me, with the woman just left to stumble around trying to escape her plight. The real failure of the film comes with the subplot involving Zegers' Alzheimers-ridden mother (Amanda Plummer), whom he keeps from wandering out of his apartment by attaching giant, white balloons to her. This feels like something out of a terrible indie comedy (well, it did premier at Sundance!) and it just never works. There are a lot of other instances of people just not acting like real people ever would.

rjzm I write as a fan of Shunji Iwai's cinema: he is a master. An auteur.The slander written of this film, by previous reviewers, should be ignored. What has been crafted is unique, cerebral, and very disturbing. A must see for fans of cinema, especially followers of Shunji Iwai.The story, casting, cinematography, and editing, all feel like his previous outings, but the one difference is the obvious: the topic on display is not one routinely viewed in American cinema, which makes this film all the more important. Vampire belongs in-line with the great films Hanna and Alice, and All About Lily Chou Chou.No need to explain the storyline, because this film should be watched carefully.-RJZII

johnnywrjackson Sure feels like Vancouver, BC during the dreary days, which creates the appropriate mood for the flick. Its title unfortunately associates it with some real stinkers. It is not one of those. I don't know where the movie fits, but it leaves a significant after-taste. I use these user reviews to help decide whether or not I will watch the movie. If you do too, then it's a watcher, but strangely so. It feels Canadian, as in raw and hand-held sort of. Acting is solid, and the story keeps your attention. Vampire, no. Sanguine something, perhaps. It should not be castigated just because it is not polished to the extreme, and all tricked out with CGI.