Insane Like Me? – review

Director: Chip Joslin

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

This indie vampire film has some heart, I’ll give it that. It also has some logical faux pas in its narrative that undermines it but, when it concentrates on the basic premise of the vampires, without thinking too deeply about the narrative it is not unwelcome. The biggest faux pas in the narrative is one I won’t spoil but I will point others out.

Samantha and Jake

The film starts outside a building with a car parked there. In it is Will (Paul Kolker), the son of the local Sheriff (Eric Roberts), and his girlfriend Erica (Marie Wetherell). They are waiting for Will’s sister Samantha (Grace Patterson) and her boyfriend Jake (Britt Bankhead), who has just been discharged from the military – they are late. They pull up and Will apparently wants to visit the “Murder Mansion” because it is Halloween and “they say” 200 people have been murdered there. However, when they go through the door it is a surprise party for Jake.

the host meets fans

Samantha has a secret, she’s pregnant from Jake’s last visit on leave and she intends to tell him. She gets upset with Will when she hears he mentioned the party to their dad – he dislikes Jake and has busted people who party in the abandoned hotel. Also there, is a host from a haunted buildings show and his cameraman – clearly not expecting to find a party. However they get lured to a room by some friendly fans – meanwhile Jake and Samantha find somewhere private.

vampire women

Having been told the disappearances from the building are continuing to the day, with authorities turning a blind eye, the host and cameraman are attacked by the two, now fanged, women and this starts a wholesale slaughter by vampires. Samantha gets interrupted telling Jake her news by Will, pranking, and then the chaos reaches them. In the attack we discover that Mace does not affect vampires and that a crowbar can be an effective stake. The scenes are pretty good but some of the stake lines are off (more shoulder than heart, for instance) and the use of CGI blood splatter jars. Eventually Samantha is dragged off and Jake is injured.

the asylum

Handcuffed in the Sheriff’s office we get a telling comment to Jake that it was supposed to be him and then the Sheriff roughs him up whilst asking where she is repeatedly. Jake does not know but does mention vampires. Eventually he signs Jake to an asylum. We get the idea that he was named as a suspect and fugitive, with the Sheriff not revealing that he was in the asylum. He spends nine years there in squalid conditions, being roughed up and drugged but is eventually released. All the while he hallucinates about Samantha, who berates him for not coming to rescue her.

Crystal and friends

He heads back to the town – though he spends time learning about vampires, partly through kidnapping one (Erica Muse) – so we eventually learn that garlic and silver slow them, though a silver bullet to heart or brain will kill. They can be staked generally, immolated and we see him pour a liquid that burns one and I assume that was holy water. He also meets Crystal (Samantha Reddy), Samantha’s little sister, who at first believes he is her sister’s murderer but subsequent encounters with vampires soon changes that perception.

vamp out

So, I mentioned narrative issues and the first is in the number of murders hushed up. Whilst they were through the centuries, there are so many, in what seems like a small town, that a blind eye would likely not be turned. This is even more so when the Sheriff’s daughter is missing, declared murdered. He clearly knows it wasn’t Jake and is framing him – beyond his telling opening line to Jake, if he could evidence at all he would have had him face judge and jury rather than sequestering him in an asylum. There is also all the other murders at that party, too many missing to allow for the slaughter to be ignored, surely? The biggest logical flaw I’ll not spoil as I said.

Britt Bankhead as Jake

The basic story is cliched – lover avenging the apparent murder of his love. The inclusion of Crystal and her friends allows for some teen stereotypes and adds a layer of peril. Samantha Reddy makes for a personable damsel in distress (who knows how to use a shotgun) and Britt Bankhead is fine as the stoic hero. Mostly the effects work – some of the blood is a combination of practical and CGI and, as with the earlier scene, the CGI is poor and often unnatural looking in its splatter. Yet, I wasn’t bored and it held my attention. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.