THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE (2014 - German)

Studio:       Music Box Films
Director:    David Ruehm
Writer:       David Ruehm
Producer:  Franz Novotny, Alexander Glehr, Christof Neracher, Christian Davi, Thomas Thumena
Stars:     Tobias Moretti, Jeanette Hain, Cornelia Ivancan, Dominic Oley, David Bennent, Karl Fischer, Erni Mangold, Lars Rudolph, Anatole Taubman

Review Score:

---

Summary:

A vampire seeks the help of Sigmund Freud when his nagging wife complicates an attraction to a reincarnated lost love.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

1932 – Vienna – Brunette Lucy becomes upset when her artist boyfriend Viktor Huma once again paints her portrait as a blonde woman. Viktor later gifts the slightly damaged painting to Dr. Sigmund Freud, for whom Viktor illustrates patients’ dream descriptions.

Count Geza von Kozsnom, a vampire, begins seeing Dr. Freud to work through issues with his vampire wife Elsa, who is obsessed with her beauty since she is unable to see her own image. Geza openly pines for his lost mortal love Nadila. When Geza sees Viktor’s painting in Freud’s office, he comes to believe that the woman depicted is Nadila reincarnated.

Playing into her misguided belief that Viktor fantasizes about her as a blonde, Lucy changes her hair and wardrobe to resemble the woman in the portrait. Geza tracks down Lucy and when she becomes upset with Viktor, Geza convinces her to come back to his manor. Based on an old letter left by Nadila, Geza believes Lucy is Nadila reincarnated, and he can fully bring about her transformation by drinking her blood during the first full moon after meeting her, as long as she offers herself willingly.

To distract his wife, Geza tells Elsa that Viktor is an artist who is able to paint her portrait, something that all other artists have been unable to do because of the vampire curse preventing their images from being recreated. To quell her urge to feed, Elsa leaves her portrait sitting abruptly when Viktor cuts himself.

Elsa’s early return home interrupts Geza’s spellcasting on Lucy. As a result, Lucy accidentally falls in love with Geza’s servant Radul. Geza berates his servant and is forced to erase Lucy’s memory before returning her to Viktor.

Before their next portrait sitting, Viktor brings Elsa to dinner at the restaurant where Lucy works in order to make his girlfriend jealous. Geza comes to the restaurant to try seducing Lucy a second time, but she is drugged and kidnapped by Radul, who is now obsessed with her.

Geza finds Radul attempting to hypnotize an unconscious Lucy. Geza throws Radul down a well and brings Lucy back to his home to continue his attempt at entrancing her.

Viktor discovers that Elsa is a vampire. When his brushes refuse to cooperate, he also realizes that the only way to paint Elsa is by doing so blindfolded. Viktor ends up painting Lucy as a blonde once again, although Elsa thinks it is she.

Elsa brings the painting back home and finds her husband with Lucy. Realizing that Lucy is the woman from the portrait, Elsa flies into a rage and bites Lucy. Geza fights off Elsa.

Viktor comes to Freud in the middle of the night over his fright of discovering Elsa is a vampire. Geza brings Lucy to Freud for safety while he goes in search of Radul to perform a blood transfusion on her.

Lucy wakes and begins biting Freud. Viktor interrupts her. After Lucy and Viktor argue over Lucy’s newfound desire to fully transform into a Nosferatu, Elsa captures them both.

Geza finally escapes a counting trap set by his wife and comes to Lucy and Viktor’s apartment. Elsa moves to attack Geza and accidentally stakes herself when nosy neighbor Mrs. Sedlacek opens the apartment door. Elsa disintegrates.

Geza wants Lucy to undergo a transfusion to remain human. Lucy wishes to become a vampire. Viktor finally realizes that he is truly in love with Lucy, although she feels he does not appreciate her for who she is, but rather desires an ideal of her. Lucy drops out the window and Geza follows.

Radul performs a transfusion on Lucy. Viktor tricks Freud into giving him the count’s address. After confirming that Geza is only trying to turn her into another woman, Lucy storms outside and finds Viktor fighting with Radul. Dr. Freud also arrives.

Geza flies Lucy into the air. She asks him to choose either her or Nadila. Geza goes to bite her neck but ends up biting an ornate necklace of Nadila’s that he gave Lucy. Geza breaks his fangs and dissipates into black smoke. Lucy falls into Viktor’s arms.

Some Time Later – Dr. Freud is now part vampire. Radul is one of his patients. Viktor still lives with Lucy, who is now a vampire.

---

Review:

You know the seven-year itch said to develop in the humdrum doldrums of a marriage gone cold?  Imagine the agony of its seven hundred-year equivalent as experienced by a depressed Austrian vampire.

Count Geza von Kozsnom is fed up to his fangs with the neverending nagging of his wicked wife Elsa and he hopes the sage counsel of Dr. Sigmund Freud can set him straight.  Softened by centuries of routine romance, Geza pines for a bygone past spent with his long-lost love Nadila.  Alas, Geza’s wistful wishes are incessantly interrupted by Elsa’s demanding desires for Geza to validate her beauty.  She has never been able to see her own face, after all.

A chance glance at a portrait in Freud’s office turns Geza’s gargoyle gaze toward Lucy, a working class woman caught in a fizzling relationship of her own.  So obsessed with some ideal blonde beauty is Lucy’s artist boyfriend Viktor that he can’t even be bothered to depict her brunette hair correctly.  Lucy is willing to fulfill his fantasy by becoming the blonde in the painting anyway, but her timing couldn’t be worse.

Convinced that Lucy is Nadila reborn, Geza puts a spark of life in his undead eyes with the idea that a little full moon magic and a nibble on the neck can make Lucy his.  To occupy Elsa in the meantime, Geza sets her up for a sitting with Viktor the artist to see if someone can’t finally capture the shrew’s image on canvas.  New light is about to be shed on what everyone really wants from their respective relationships as both couples contend with the comedy that comes from mixing nuptials and Nosferatu.

“Therapy for a Vampire” doesn’t drain its comedic blood from the easy prey neck of a typical horror-humor hybrid involving creatures of the night.  Writer/director David Ruehm’s script includes one gag about garlic, another about daylight, etc., yet checks off expected ha-has in individual instances before digging up new dirt on the notion of undying ennui being a curse worse than immortality.

Refreshingly, “Therapy for a Vampire” eyes untapped veins for its unique wink at the troubles of a formerly fearsome count fighting to find a figurative beat for his heart.  Deeply-deserved applause particularly goes to hilarious use of the seldom-seen-onscreen superstition about vampires having an obsession with counting.  And you thought Sesame Street’s arithmomaniac monster earned his name for its Dracula connotation alone.

Part of the film’s refusal to dive into familiar depths is due to vampire satire being a secondary target to the straight aim at playfully parodying love and marriage.  If you’re expecting another “What We Do in the Shadows” (review here) or even a companion comedy along the lines of Mel Brooks’ “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” this isn’t it.  “Therapy for a Vampire” uses its frame as a reflective mirror, semi-pun intended, to humorously examine how humans, and vampires, handle their significant others when stale bonds starve for a bite of fresh excitement.

Of less enthusiastic note, “Therapy for a Vampire” is also a case of wanting more from a concept.  Much material can be mined from the creative setup of 500 years of marriage having dulled a vampire’s lust for undead life, though the screenplay only takes Count Geza von Kozsnom partway down that path.  Sigmund Freud’s perfunctory presence is more novelty than necessity and a conclusion in need of a more graceful glide leaves some limp laughs for a last impression.

Flipping that Pro/Con coin one final time, “Therapy for a Vampire” nevertheless comes away with enough room to remain enchanting.  With more subtlety than slapstick, clever characters ably acted by a carefully tuned cast pepper personality into even the drabbest of moments.  Layer in a period perfect score of violin strings with the affectingly odd aura of soundstages mixed with CGI backdrops, and the movie’s moderate charm and mild quirks are enough to keep those susceptible to sentimentality spiked with snark spellbound.

NOTE: The film’s German title is “Der Vampir auf der Couch.”

Review Score:  65

---