Like recent vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Transfiguration goes the artsy route, presenting low key, brooding fare. On top of that, vampirism is less literal and more metaphorical in first-time writer/director Michael O’Shea’s script. The project has lofty goals and the understated acting to bolster it, but metaphor is conflated with commentary, the latter not going far enough and the former not completely developed. The Transfiguration prompts intriguing discussion, but attempts to address too much at once, making for a somewhat muddled allegorical tale.
Just as Ana Lily Amirpour’s effort was noted for bringing audiences an Arabic vampire, The Transfiguration features a rare black vampire, and not only that but a teen vampire not covered in glitter. Milo (Eric Ruffin) in fact hates the glittery Twilight version of vampirism. A shy kid who keeps to himself, mostly to avoid school bullies and gang members in his rundown NYC neighborhood, Milo is obsessed with vampires, the lore and mythology surrounding them as well as media representation (largely “unrealistic”). But Milo’s interest goes beyond that; he actually believes he is a vampire, creating this headcanon that you aren’t turned into a vampire so much as become one. By his logic, you can become a vampire just as you might develop type 2 diabetes.
With that setup, O’Shea already has a fairly novel concept in the world of vampire films. And he’s clearly incorporating vampirism into his commentary on growing up in a violent neighborhood. If you’re surrounded by gangs, are you inevitably going to join one? More broadly, do your surroundings determine your character? When Milo meets Sophie (Chloe Levine), a young girl trying to escape an abusive household, her shocked reaction to his fascination with blood leads him to reexamine his killings. But O’Shea’s allegory may ruffle feathers with its seeming depiction of the monstrous self through a black kid in the projects, a demographic often demonized.
As written by O’Shea and played by Ruffin, Milo is an incredibly sympathetic antihero. His love of classic vampire films appeals to horror buffs, and his timid demeanor is endearing – not to mention the empathy a bullied kid elicits. Yet he commits atrocious acts. And, although the film remains somewhat ambiguous, it suggests throughout that Milo isn’t a vampire, a fact best evidenced by him vomiting up blood after feeding. When we learn that Milo’s mother committed suicide and now only has his lazy army veteran brother (Aaron Clifton Moten), his obsession with the living dead begins to make much more sense.
The Transfiguration, then, is a portrayal of a psychologically ill teen, with his inner demons made manifest in, albeit deluded, vampirism. To some extent, O’Shea’s script is self-contradictory. If vampirism is a metaphor for Milo’s violent instincts, where exactly does his psychosis fit into the narrative? Milo is at once a violent teen in an environment that breeds violence, as well as the victim of an unstable family situation and a major life upheaval. There is crossover here, but The Transfiguration juggles these two readings, hedging its messages. As a debut effort, the film is a testament to O’Shea’s ability to work within genre tropes. The central message, however, could use some refining to make the story that much more impactful.
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