‘Vincent Must Die’ London Film Festival 2023 Review: The Kind Of Horror-Comedy We Need Right Now
Stéphan Castang’s feature length debut Vincent Must Die (Vincent doit mourir) is a fun little ride. It’s a postapocalyptic paranoid tale about perpetual victimhood that takes deliciously dark comedic twists at every turn. Castang understands the deadpan humor amid the chaos of this world, which makes it easy to forgive the few moments where pacing seems forgotten.
We have all had a co-worker or two that we had the urge to fight. However, when Vincent’s colleagues can no longer resist, he finds himself being attacked a few too many times on the job. He soon discovers that the problem is bigger than his suddenly violent work environment. It seems that if he makes eye contact with a person it sets off a violent response. Which means he ends up running for his life or having to fight for survival. This leads him to isolate at his family’s cabin for his safety. However, his solitude only lasts for so long before he finds himself attracted to a woman who does not seem to want to strangle him. At least not at first anyway.
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Vincent (played by Karim Leklou) is the likable sad sack we immediately root for. We meet him fresh from a breakup as he is going along with not telling HR that his nice co-workers are suddenly trying to kill him. We’re on his side even when we’re laughing as he gets jumped by tiny neighborhood children or wrestling for his life in a pit of backed-up plumbing.
Because Leklou gives us such a lived-in character, his loneliness, and the hopelessness of his situation are palpable. So, we understand why he is willing to risk it all for the enigmatic Margaux (played by Vimala Pons). The times she does turn on him are so funny that they almost rival the scenes of them trying to figure out their romance while keeping Vincent alive. There is a moment with handcuffs that gives a whole new meaning to safe sex, and I was not the only person cackling in my screening. Their bond makes their decision to risk it together rather than alone in this new world more believable. After all, don’t all forms of commitment come with risks? So what’s a couple of blindfolds, handcuffs, and other safety precautions in the grand scheme of things?
Mathieu Naert’s script feels like a smarter and darker sibling to Shaun of the Dead. Vincent Must Die is a near-perfect blending of genres and tropes we all know and love. It’s a delightfully brutal movie. Plus, it’s unique in that it takes the idea of an outbreak and focuses all the rage and violence on only a handful of people. It does it for comedic gains but also gives you so much to chew on.
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Vincent Must Die lends itself to many interpretations among audiences. Is Vincent a stand-in for the people online who suffer a social media dogpile for having an unpopular opinion on a movie? Is this a giant metaphor for all of us trying to return to the world knowing most people think COVID is over and are no longer taking precautions? The movie doesn’t give definitive answers, and I love that because it means the answer can be yes to many things. It’s refreshing because lately we’ve been bombarded with art that seems interested in telling the audience how to feel about it. I prefer having dialogue and seeing what we each take away from the media we consume. Isn’t that why we all go to the movies anyway?
This feels like the kind of horror comedy aimed at millennials that we love to see. It’s clever, low-stakes, and fun with a protagonist that is hard to not like. I also love the world-building as we continue to discover Vincent’s problem is a wider spread issue than he will ever fully understand. I think the movie has possibly the highest rewatch value of most of the movies I caught at the London Film Festival this year. It’s a nice palette cleanser as it takes the scenic route to deal with bigger topics rather than punching the audience in the chest. Sometimes we need to laugh about how bad things are after we discover crying about the world has not helped us. If nothing else, Vincent Must Die is thriving in that regard.
Let me know if you also fell for this movie at @misssharai.
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Vincent Must Die
Summary
It’s a clever, low-stakes, absurd horror comedy aimed at millennials, who are ready to laugh at how awful everything is. Come for the violence, stay for the giggles.
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