Afflicted
***
When I read about how “horror is dead” and such nonsense, I
see a cool little flick like Afflicted and consider such fatalistic thinking
hogwash. From Canada, a country quickly becoming a burgeoning horror
juggernaut, releases this found footage “evolving vampirism” flick about two
childhood buddies in their twenties embarking on a global tour (mostly Europe),
encountering an absolute nightmare. Derek Lee has always been a traveler, but
for five years he was working behind a computer and yearning to return to his
adventurous ways. Documentarian pal, Clif Prowse plans to shoot their “ends of
the earth” odyssey, but this set of fun trips is cut horribly short when Derek
is urged to find a girl to shag at a club where two of their musician buddies
are currently touring / performing. The girl he finds is actually a vampire
(not of Bram Stoker legend; it isn’t the least bit romantic; the vampirism of
this film is presented as a type of infestation that ruins your life, causing you
to feed from humans or else turn into something rabid and uncontrollably
monstrous) who attacks him, leaving Derek afflicted with the thirst for blood
and aversion towards sunlight.
What I appreciated about this film was the use of the “strap
on” camera as it gets a first person presentation of Derek “in flight”, “in
speed”, and “under fire” while trying to avoid police from Italy and Paris.
Even when engaged in a fight with Audrey, the female vampire that turned him
after he is able to find her phone, text her, and coerce her into meeting him
(after he kidnaps and nearly kills her human “trophy” she uses as her
Renfield), you literally feel him leaping around and taking a beating from her.
It can be jarring, but it is appropriate considering action shouldn’t feel
smooth and steady. The way the camera captures Derek leaping from the street to
a wall/balcony/roof, and the use of cameras as a guide into Derek’s vampiric
unraveling/transformation (and Clif’s dilemma and eventual tragic fate during
his filming of Derek’s turning) provide a unique take on vampires. The blood
thirst (looked at as a damned problem that must be dealt with or else; the
rabid lack of control after going without blood is also shown as Derek
eventually loses the ability to choose who he feeds from) and power that
derives from the vampirism of Afflicted seen through the cameras’ lenses are
uniquely elaborated in a format that gives Derek’s plight an uncomfortable / anxious
/ alarming quality, where being in the wrong place at the wrong time [natch]
costs him dearly. Both Derek and Clif are quite likable and have good senses of
humor, with neither deserving what happens to them. That is really important,
to me, the fact that the victims were undeserved of what befalls them. Too
often, the characters are pricks or obnoxious tools with little redeeming
qualities, with the audience against them almost from the start. Here, the guys
are fun-loving and accessibly honest with us. So to see their trip suffer after
only a few days is disappointing, because the guys didn’t embrace danger at
all. Danger just embraced them unexpectedly.
With some good special effects (flesh frying under the sun,
an unsuccessful shotgun suicide leading to a nasty head wound, Derek in serious
degrees of woe due to malnourishment and the hunger, and a victim of his in a
severe state of vampirism due to a full transformation due to not feeding
properly), and sound design (the carnivorous sound of Derek at his most
ferocious vampiric form, gunshots at Derek’s direction while fleeing or
engaging police trying to kill him) only add value to the found footage
aesthetic. The immediacy and awareness of how the need to feed can land Derek (and Clif when he's filming him looking for fresh blood--such as his hunting for a stray, choosing a pig in a backyard pin, raiding a blood bank, and the disastrous confrontation with an ambulance--or overcome by sickness due to the vampirism's blossoming) in heaps of trouble and excellent effects where Clif astonishingly captures Derek's supernatural powers / strength as they film the change for their audience online, Afflicted allows vampirism to be seen as this startling sequence of events that usurps intentions for a good time. Canada has another neat sleeper on its hands here.
http://brianscarecrow88.tumblr.com/post/86570828576/afflicted
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