LandLord

Screens Saturday, October 18 at 2pm

by George Wolf

Remember the simple genius of 30 Days of Night? Vampires were roaming Alaska, in a town with no sunlight for a month! We all wondered why we didn’t think of that.

LandLord is built on a similarly clever foundation. Vampires have to be invited in, right?

Not if they own the property.

Go on.

Writer/director Remington Smith could have steered that premise toward a basic bite-fest, and it might have been good fun. But here he has something more ambitious in mind, with a patient, understated approach that makes sure the wounds go a little bit deeper.

A Black Bounty Hunter (a terrific Adama Abramson) cuts quite a figure as she travels alone, on foot and dealing only in cash. The bills she throws at the manager of a rundown apartment complex get her some keys with no questions asked, and plenty of time to surveil a man who carries a valuable briefcase.

But a chance meeting with a bullied youngster named Alex (Cohen Cooper) slowly draws the Bounty Hunter away from her mark, and toward Alex’s outrageous claims about a white vampire stalking the housing community.

The apartment setting coupled with the teenage perspective calls to mind 2016’s excellent The Transfiguration, while the prevailing subtext of a disposable population echoes Jorge Michael Grau’s masterful We Are What We Are. Still, Smith is able to make sure his own voice his heard.

LandLord is a story of survival. Getting out alive is going to take wits, courage, and a good friend watching your back. You’ve just got to know who the bloodsuckers are.

And some of them might even be vampires.