The Vampire Next Door – review

Director: Sean King

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

This is a film that really can’t make up its mind. A vampire film, with only a tad of vampire action. A romance, with no romance. A comedy, but leaving out the raucous laughs. A high school film, with no high schoolers – I’ll come back to this. It definitively isn’t a horror film, though there is a modicum of blood.

Cameron (Alex Matthews) wakes next to Diane (Bella Chadwick). He has to go to work but she had a great time the night before and wants him to call in sick… which he will do until he wakes up and its been a dream. He heads downstairs and his dad (Josh Kay, Super Hot), wants him to decide what he will do with his life – he gap-yeared the previous year. It’s the start of summer though and he’s late for work at an ice cream parlour. Mom (Rachel Petsiavas) has dad back off, until she realises that he’s only having a coke for breakfast.

Bella Chadwick as Diane

So, he gets to work and the boss (Taylor King) says he’s late and asks him to close up that night. He says no, he has a date with Diane… which the boss, rightly, doesn’t believe. He does go round to Diane’s house, who he has had a crush on since high school, and she is sunbathing. He decides to text her, rather than approach her, and is collared by a couple of bullies, Chad (Seth Kerrigan) and Jason (Elijah Golden), and accused of photographing her – his phone gets destroyed in the fracas.

Victoria spots Cameron

Back at home he notices a light on opposite his bedroom and sees a woman, Victoria (Jessica Ferguson), changing – she notices him watching her. At dinner the doorbell goes, saving him from a berating over the broken phone from dad, and he goes to answer it – he sees Victoria through the spy hole. The doorbell rings again and, when he opens it, Diane is there. She got his text about pizza and they go on out. Turns out that, yes she’s his crush but they are actually friends and she’s just home from college. When eating he spots a friend, Martin (Andrew Larkin), and waves to him. Diane is mortified and Martin can barely speak… she later tells Cameron that she asked Martin to Senior prom and he stood her up.

Liz and Cameron at work

Let us talk themes for a moment. This models itself on High School films. Cameron is the lovable central geek, Diane (obviously) his hot crush, there are a couple of bullies and a Jock, in the form of Martin, who fancies Diane (he stood her up because her looks and brains intimidated him) and wants Cameron’s help to get with her. Except, Cameron is pitched at twenty – so not high school though Alex Matthews looks younger than pitched and Victoria later suggests she was 16 when turned into a vampire, though she looks much more mature than that (perhaps vampire’s age in this, the lore is almost non-existent). The romance side of the film maintains a level of unrequited love with a side dish of lust-based hook ups.

Victoria's vamp face

Anyway, Cameron is in bed when Victoria is stood above him and demands he drives her or she’ll tell his parents about his voyeurism. He can’t drive as he has no insurance but is forced to. They get to the destination and she is let in by a man who, not long after, is running out injured. She catches him and bites his neck, her face all veiny. Cameron realises what she is and he is stuck ferrying her around – his dad thinks it is a great idea for him to drive the lady who is house sitting next door. She pays his insurance.

blood on fingers

So, there isn’t much lore – the veiny face is almost all there is. She can go out in sunlight and no apotropaic methods are mentioned. The people she attacks, she says, are vampires from a rival clan who killed her lover/master. She is looking for a powerful female vampire in the town. We do notice a bite turns, which is revealed at the end of the film. She has an ability to simply appear in places (like his bedroom). She does try to seduce him but he has his unrequited love and that’s a whole thing – it is also clear that his co-worker, Liz (Margaret Race), likes him too and his crush on Diane makes him blind to that.

Cameron and Diane

The film is longer than it should be and could do with some editing. It clearly reaches back to some of the eighties high school vampire films and also includes a Cyrano de Bergerac plot. The vampirism is under-explored, the “hunts” are over quickly (and the vampires just look like regular guys, sometimes they are working, such as the rather wizened security guard). What kept me watching more than anything was the fact that Alex Matthews is genuinely engaging. But the whole thing felt plot light and not tight. The acceptance was unbelievable – not just of Victoria being a vampire and that he should help her, but in the resolution of the primary plot. Tightening the plot, deciding what it wanted to be and, dare I say it, some horror would have helped this tremendously. 3.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK