The Transfiguration

African-American orphan Milo (Eric Ruffin) thinks he's undead in writer/director Michael O'Shea's fiercely independent first feature, a minimalist anti-horror movie that wears its bleeding heart too firmly on its sleeve. To escape his miserable life, the teenager has drenched himself in vampire lore gleaned from such referenced movie classics as Nosferatu, Martin, Let the Right One In, The Lost Boys and Near Dark and has taken to sublimating his morbid fantasies into sucking the blood of strangers. It's when he befriends equally troubled Sophie (Chloe Levine) that a clear course of action presents itself, providing liberation and tragic redemption. With no supernatural elements, only the barest neo-realist approach to the horror, this nihilistic meditation on teenage angst and the defence mechanisms needed to protect the vulnerable spirit will disappoint genre lovers. Overdoing the deadpan noir approach and crude philosophical heaviness does this gritty underground Twilight no favours either.