Living Among Us (2018)

Just perfect...

Good concept, poorly executed.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

So no spoilers here. The films cinematography was really great. Found footage films are kind of despised now but this one wasn't bad in terms of camera shakiness and the overall camera work. The actors were good. The script was not. I could see the actors trying to do the best they could with what they were giving. Certain characters like Blake and Andrew, were good in bringing creepiness to their respective parts. Then other characters like Mike and Benny, while good were not very good protagonists and I actually caught myself wanting the vampires to come out on top by the end of the film. ***************************Spoiler******************** What happened to Carrie???

LIVING AMONG US opens with a small collection of news broadcasts announcing the "discovery" of a vampire "virus". Essentially, vampires are real and vampirism is caused by a virus and this virus has been around for quite some time. One news piece even quotes one "expert" claiming that the phenomenon was first reported as far back as 1811.One particularly juicy (pun intended) element of the news stories is an exposé suggesting that many blood donation organizations have been supplying the erstwhile not-commonly-known vampires with blood. It is supposedly this vampiric use of blood donation facilities that really drags the existence of vampires fully into the limelight.Apparently, one particular vampire "family", part of the local vampire "section", has come forward and offered to allow a news crew to come visit them in their home to interview them over the course of a few days. Of note is the fact that the particular news crew that is invited is headed up by the "documentarian" that discovered and broke the vampire/blood donation organization connection.Disturbingly, however, the interview invitation comes with a few strings attached. Where most documentary crews consist of anywhere from 7 to 10 people, a maximum of 3 is all that will be allowed on this gig. Additionally, certain items are not permitted, to wit: holy water, crosses, rosary beads or wooden stakes. AND there are rules about where the crew can and can't go in the household and limitations on filming.The documentary crew arrives at the home of the vampire family and it doesn't take long for things to go horribly wrong. Vampire oriented horror ensues.This is a "found footage" style film, although it should be noted that it has a far more professional look and feel than your typical found footage junker. It even features at least two well-known and exceptionally well-established actors, William Sadler and John Heard. (More on this point later.) Production values are high and it's definitely a visually polished film. Unfortunately, this is where the list of positive elements comes to an end.Bluntly, while the film has many superficial plot elements for being a failure, at its most basic level the film fails because of its fundamentally unworkable concept. On the face of it, the idea of the story seems intriguing: having been thoroughly outed, some vampires seek to put a positive PR spin on things by volunteering to create a documentary that shows them to be just regular folk. Just regular folk that have a virus that makes them vampires that need to drink human blood. Why, it's really a story about a tragic kind of disability, right? And we all know how we should be understanding of people with disabilities, right?But, realistically, how is this movie idea ever going to pan out? If the vampires are successful with their scheme, then nothing happens that's horrific and the movie is uninteresting. If it DOESN'T pan out, as it doesn't, the vampires, some of whom are supposedly hundreds of years old and are quite good at blending in with humanity without being noticed, simply come off as looking like idiots or the monsters they are.So the movie suffers from bumps and warts that just stick out all over the place.Some examples....After giving a list of the above-mentioned forbidden items, in a subsequent interview about such items, the family head vampire claims that no, that's just superstition, they don't really react to crosses or holy water. The next natural question is to wonder why those things were then forbidden to be brought, and that question never happens.During the course of the movie we encounter a rather large pile of previously vampire-noshed people. Somehow this hasn't attracted local attention? Scores of local people disappearing doesn't attract attention but a subtle connection between blood banks and vampires DOES?Supposedly, the family of vampires is trying to keep a low and normal profile for the documentary for obvious reasons. But the juvenile delinquent family member, Blake, takes the opportunity to engage in extreme vampire behavior at every opportunity. You know, ripping random people's heads off, tearing innocent people limb from limb and drinking their blood, and so on. You know... so that such interesting things can be filmed for the documentary. Huh?One of the other vampire family members, Selvin, is clearly mentally deranged right from the onset. And yet the vampire family leaders don't do anything to conceal him.The entire family participates in a "ritual" for the edification of the documentary crew in which a living and shackled woman is cut up and fed upon on the dining room table while she screams bloody murder. The vampire family leadership attempts to pass this off as a "public service" because the victim supposedly is a prostitute who has AIDS who is knowingly infecting other people so she can get money for her drug habit. Right. THAT'S going to be a PR hit.Remember, the whole idea of granting this interview was putting together the documentary to put a positive spin on the existence of vampires, your friendly neighbors and upstanding citizens. And yet virtually nothing that happens from the moment the film crew arrives is ever going to put the vampires in any sort of positive light. The whole idea for the movie is simply ridiculous. It couldn't, and doesn't, work as a storyline.On an anecdotal and somewhat sad closing note, John Heard plays a major role in this movie. While you might not know him by name off the top your head, as soon as you see him you recognize him as a namebrand actor; after all, you have been seeing him on screen in innumerable movies and on TV for a bit more than 4 decades. LIVING AMONG US, based upon its IMDB listing, is either the last or one of the last movies he made. Considering the dubious quality of the movie, this is rather unfortunate. It is unclear to me why he would even make such a movie. Did he have the worst agent in the industry?There is a quote from Heard in which he refers to himself as having been an "arrogant jerk", that he had become "a hack actor" and that he had "dropped the ball". Clearly he was unhappy with how his career had eventually panned out, though he in fact had played in many major and respected, successful movies in his career. Having LIVING AMONG US as his final or near-to-final work feels almost as if fate conspired to put a emphatically depressing punctuation on his own theme of disappointed self-assessment.

Let me start out by saying I HATE found footage films in general. Dark, grainy, you can't see anything, shaky handheld crap with a bunch of people (not actors) who can't act. So when I got talked into seeing this with a friend I was VERY pleasantly surprised. But this is not a typical found footage film nor does it play by the rules of one. Known actors are used. The camera work is nicely done and I don't get dizzy as hell where I have to look away. I actually get to know the characters really well - especially the vampires. The premise is strong with bits of political influence. Everyone knows now that found footage is fake anyways. So why use people that can't act? It's insulting to watch alot of these films.I just saw Phoenix Lights and before that only because Ridley Scott produced it and I was like yep, same typical crap with footage I can't see and everything pitch black with boring interactions until the last 10 minutes. But this film actually entertained me the whole way through. Yes, the acting in this is far superior to any other found footage film I have seen, especially Andrew Keegan, who manages to outshine the rest of the cast playing the sociopathic vampire. That being said, most of the cast is still solid. The weird and silent Selvin guy is a perfect opposite for Keegan. John Heard, who passed away, is very convincing as the patriarch. Esme Bianco is very elegant in her role. The weakest actors are the camera crew minus Mike or Thomas Ian Nicholas who does manage to pull off an arrogant director that tries to take all the credit for himself. I like him in this because I have never seen him actually play this before. Carrie and Benny tend to be a little stale and boring. Writer/director Brian A. Metcalf can actually direct and write. It is apparent in his composition, use of blocking and camera angles to make the shots far more interesting than it should be for being stuck inside a house all the time. He does not cut away from any important action. His writing is very witty and the actors know how to tell their lines. I get to learn each of the characters' personalities without spending an overly amount of time on each of them. There was entertaining music. It even felt at times like Clockwork Orange with the use of classical music and some of the shots.This film is fun, entertaining and witty which is something that movies these days seem to miss. And while I expected certain things to happen, they were done in an entertaining way that I did not expect. Loved the ending as well! I give this 10 stars because it's the ONLY enjoyable found-footage film I have seen in quite a while. But then again, I don't consider this really a found footage film.

Living Among Us is a refreshingly entertaining horror fantasy with comedic undertones. It concerns a documentary camera crew sent in to interview a family of vampires living in suburban L.A. They are welcomed with open arms as long as they bring no crosses, holy water or stakes. The "family" are interviewed one by one and offer explanations for their vampiric nature claiming they are people with feelings just like anyone else and have been infected by a vampiric virus which makes it impossible for them to live in direct sunlight. They also claim that due to technology they don't need to kill humans but can survive on donated blood. Soon however things take a much darker and sinister turn and the documentarians find themselves fighting for their lives after witnessing the true nature of the vampires (Blood Sacrifices, Ancient Rituals, Hunting and Dismemberment of Humans etc).The acting is good all around especially by William Sadler, Andrew Keegan, Esme Bianco and the late John Heard as the Vampires. The documentary crew played by Thomas Ian Nicholas, Jordan Hinson and Hunter Gomez all act decently as well as do the rest of the supporting actors. There are some tongue in cheek lines such as "I'm really excited to have you" "we have been dining with humans for years...and on them." and "you honestly thought we live there?" In regards to a derelict house next door and "we have been entertaining for centuries, we do know how to make you guys a meal." There are certain issues such as the shaky camera found footage, but in this case it does work. Also the vampires trying to convince humans they are harmless should have taken greater care in not exposing their true nature. Other than that Living Among Us is a very good film that i will probably watch again.