Much like the title suggests, the act of kicking something means to do without. Here we get two sides of addiction trying to be conquered. There is Robbie, played by Luke Bilyk, a human alcoholic, who gets kicked out of living at his pregnant sister’s house after one too many debauched nights and is left homeless and jobless due to his addiction. He meets Anna, played by Alanna Bale, a vampire who works at a library with senior citizens (people closer to her real age). Robbie is laying on the street in the middle of winter asking what death is like. Anna lets him give his suicidal speech before Robbie follows her home. Anna is about to feast on his blood, but is confounded by the fact that he so freely wants to die, so instead of doing him the honour, she lets him crash on her couch as he dries out.
As Anna is helping Robbie get clean, she herself starts to question the mindless hunting she and her pack of vampire friends do to sustain life. When they pick up creeps at bars it makes sense to her, but when they start going after random people like an artist, she has doubts over what they are doing. Much like the effect that alcohol has on Robbie, when Anna, and all vampires in this world, drink blood it gets her intoxicated, at one point she says to Robbie when she first met him “I’m going to suck your blood and get high as fuck”. Blood has the effect of heroin it seems, the vampire’s eyes get super dilated and they eventually pass out and struggle to regain energy after feeding.
Unfortunately while the plot seems like an interesting foray into using addiction as an allegory, the movie mostly falls flat. Alanna Bale as the lead is magnetic. Her icy stare and heart that melts is infectious, but she doesn’t have much of an arc despite being in most scenes. Anna is at the plot mercy of Robbie, waiting for him to need her and give her something to do. Robbie struggles with maintaining sobriety when he has a new lease on life, including trying to make amends with his old employer who fired him for his addiction, going on job interviews that are fruitless and running into an ex who seems more interested in getting him back on the wagon to party than helping him.
Bilyk seems miscast in the role of an addict wanting to get clean. After an all night bender, other than being sleepy, shows no sign of being worse for wear, and other than shaking under some covers doesn’t show the range of someone trying to kick an addiction (in a medically dangerous way). His fresh face belies the idea of a long time hard drinker, showing none of the physical side effects such a disease has on a person. It almost seemed like the writer and director were two different people. Director Blaine Thurier uses dark bold colour schemes to highlight the vampire lifestyle in an inventive way while writer Blaine Thurier has awkward cringey dialogue that sometimes not even the great Rosemary Dunsmore can save.
It is unfortunate to judge a film shot during the times of Covid-19, where due to needing extra precautions we don’t get the usual types of scenes. Twice there are scenes that take place in bars, and when potential human victim Ben meets a different vampire, he goes up to the bar to order her a drink. We see not a single other person in this bar, and when he fails to get the bartender’s attention, he complains about how hard it is to get service there. With not having the ability to cast a few dozen extras to pack the place, it highlights that not only is it a fake set, but awkwardly makes the dialogue about not being able to get service moot.
The film makes nice use of Sudbury, Ontario’s chilly winters and snow filled streets, the vampires need not for warm jackets and several of the supporting actors turn in memorable performances. The film doesn’t do much to add to the vampire lexicon that isn’t already established, but the concept of blood as an addiction is an interesting one that I can see being explored again by other filmmakers.
Kicking Blood was seen during the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. Thank you to Route 504 for the advanced screener. The film does not have a North American release date at the time.
