VAMPIRES ANONYMOUS is the story of Vic (Paul Rudd lookalike Paul Popowich), a 500+ year old vampire who decides to kick the habit. This leads him to the titular support group where he meets a variety of weirdos, including his sponsor, mobster Geno (the scene-stealing Michael Madsen). After Vic's placement exam, it's determined that he is best suited for sheep's blood, so he's relocated to a sleepy North Carolina town with sheep farms. It's there that he makes friends, falls in love, terrorizes the farm animals and is hunted by a slayer.
Popowich is quite charismatic in the role, which works in the film's favor -- with a lesser actor, the movie certainly could have been disastrous. Madsen devours the scenery and manages to upstage his costars at every given opportunity. Steve Monroe also deserves a mention for his charming characterization of the (possibly mentally challenged) drunk who Vic befriends . The premise is pretty original, the direction's quite good, the locations made for some nice visuals and the acting far surpasses what one would expect from a no-name film. Okay, now that the praise is out of the way...
There'e some unevenness and serious errors in logic, and I can't quite figure out if it was in the script or a result of the editing. I tend to think most of it's the latter. SPOILERS AHEAD. In addition to the sheep, Vic relapses and kills several people. Yet through the rest of the movie, these missing persons seem to go unnoticed by the townsfolk -- and trust me, these are the kinds of people who you'd notice were absent. Instead we're treated to insert after insert of missing sheep posters. I might be okay with that if not for the discovery of the bodies. It's not suspending disbelief to think that Vic could dump the sheep where he did, but I have a bit of trouble believing he could have dragged the people -- and a totaled vehicle -- to this location. Next up, after one date, we keep seeing Vic in his girlfriend's bedroom fighting off the urge to bite her. It's unclear if he sneaked in or if he was bedding there, though one would would assume it's the latter when he handcuffs himself to a chair opposite her bed. This seems hard to believe considering she lives with her overprotective father. The finale of the film is perhaps the most illogical. Vic is impaled, but miraculously he's undead and well in the next scene. No explanation. The rest of the film is riddled with Vic's narration but here, where we could truly use it, nothing. Also, there's a shift in tone during the transitions from support group to N.C., and it's never quite clear why V.A. members are showing up in N.C. (though according to an extra who posted on the message boards here, a huge chunk of the footage that was shot with the V.A. members in N.C. wound up on the cutting room floor). Sadly the DVD features no extras whatsoever, so if there's any explanation to these inconsistencies, it remains a mystery.
Despite the handful of problems I had with the logic (or lack thereof), I was entertained by the movie and found myself liking the characters. That's more than I can say for a lot of no-name indies.
