According to Maslow, one of the four foundational human needs is belongingness and love. If a person lacks constant access to meaningful interpersonal connections, they’re missing a key part of the human experience.
Danni and the Vampire, the directorial debut of Max Werkmeister, is a darkly comedic case study in a person’s desperation for acceptance and acknowledgement. The film follows Danni (Alexandra Landau) as she tries to recapture the feeling of nabbing the legendary Jersey Devil by any means necessary. By way of a random hookup, she becomes entangled with two cryptid activist groups fighting over the fate of the vampire Remy (Henry Kiely). Chased by the leaders of the two activist groups (Caron Clancey and Scott Viermeire), this unlikely duo hits it off and together they go on a journey to fulfill each of their burning desires: Remy hopes to find a vampire sanctuary and Danni has a burning urge to just feel anything at all.
At first glance Danni and the Vampire is nearly an outright comedy — the color palette is reminiscent of a mini-golf course, the visual gags come hard and fast, and the overall tone is a blend between Buzzfeed: Unsolved and a Lonely Island sketch. Yet despite its funky, neon-encrusted exterior, Werkmeister isn’t afraid to get really deep really fast. Danni is a disaster in the shape of a woman: her only motivation even before her accidental cryptid-snatching was to be acknowledged and maybe gain a meaningful relationship or two. Since her fleeting taste of acceptance after her story went viral, she’s obsessed with recapturing that rush resulting in a months-long manic state. That’s why she jumps at the opportunity to jailbreak Remy, despite claiming to have no interest in the gig when offered to her hours earlier. She’s hell-bent on the idea that helping another monster, especially under the pretense of this being the start of a monster-saving campaign, will give her the exact feeling she’s been craving for months.
Initially, Remy appears along the lines of the standard, bad boy, vampires reminiscent of The Lost Boys and Near Dark: he’s leather-clad, he’s suave, and he’s got no qualms about ripping the flesh off someone’s neck or sucking on a tampon like a spaghetti noodle. However, he’s not actually a morally corrupt, sexy, bad boy of the 1980s. He prides himself on being an ethical vampire. Remy knows his life’s been boiled down to sucking blood and the occasional fling, but he refuses to randomly kill and his dream is simply to have a safe place to live and thrive with his friends in immortal bliss. Danni, on the other hand, is so desperate to chase the combined high of capturing a legendary beast and having a meaningful connection with someone that she’s willing to ruin lives and salt the earth behind her to satisfy her needs. She suggests blowing up a hospital to get Remy his favorite blood type, actively ruins a priest’s reputation to acquire his church for the vampire sanctuary, and accidentally kills the only other vampire Remy still had contact with. She bypasses or twists Remy’s needs into their most extreme derivation. In her search for acceptance and praise, Danni relinquishes any empathy she might’ve once possessed to satisfy her needs first. While Remy might be the bloodsucker, it’s Dani who shows more monstrous qualities.
Overall, Danni and the Vampire is the epitome of a dark comedy. It’s endearingly snarky, but it’s also not afraid to get deep. Its quirky style and bright aesthetics are balanced with genuine, Frankensteinian debates on the subjective nature of humanity and how much destruction a person can bring in an attempt to satisfy their goals. It’s an interesting take on the concept of monster hunting and a worthy addition to the pantheon of horror comedies.
