SHELF LIFE

On Earth, in addition to the human race, there lives a species of vampires that, over the centuries, have adapted to our way of life and gradually transformed by copying and absorbing human manners and appearance. They live among us, with us, they resemble us in every way, but every night they seek someone to feed on. A young couple, one night like any other, hit a man who turns out to be one of the 12 killers trained to kill these creatures. They take him home, host him, and the next day their life will change radically and a new and terrifying world will open up before their eyes. This low-budget product of Canadian origin has in its lack of means perhaps its only strong point. Canadian independent cinema is making its way into the horror genre, sure the results are debatable, but there is a will and a certain enthusiasm, as well as a certain "madness" productive that will help many young talents to emerge. Forget the classic vampires, with fangs and yellow eyes, this is a race of predatory parasites, similar to the cockroaches of "Mimic", they imitate the human being in order to approach and feed on him: more insects than legendary figures. A shadowy secret society that gathers all the most important religions funds with dollars mercenary hunters who, under the effect of drugs and alcohol and armed with knives, take care of thinning the ranks of bloodsuckers that infest the world. As you will have understood, the story has a certain originality at its core, the director Mark Tult had to make up for the obvious inconsistencies of the screenplay with long surreal dialogues and sometimes so pretentious as to make you laugh, if it were not that the lead actor William Mcdonald in the role of Martin does his best to characterize a tough "son of a bitch" with blunt manners and the air of a crazy ex-soldier. The other two protagonists do a diligent and professional job, unlike their subhuman counterparts, bland and anonymous. Therefore, the film stands at the level of watchable, one dozes on bar philosophy, Greek philosophers are even quoted and Martin's monologues leave one astonished; it is clear that filling all the pages of a script having at disposal few effects, no chase and two locations makes the director's job arduous who here is also screenwriter. The vampires are repeatedly decapitated in scenes with ridiculous makeup, cheap fake heads and liters of blood pumped to excess, two CGI scenes almost non-existent to show how the vampires feed on us humans... Martin thinks to describe it to us in detail during the endless monologue at the couple's home after the accident. The subhumans of the title all look alike, they look like the Agent Smiths of "Matrix", they sport ridiculous hairstyles and all dress the same. In conclusion, despite the excessive length, the plot holes and even if we are faced with a series Z film that could have made us play with the fast-forward of the DVD player, strangely the film accompanies us to the end, sure without leaving too much trace of itself, but considering the obscenities that accompany billion-dollar budgets, this "Subhuman" can be watched from another perspective.