Review

Written, produced, directed by and starring Juliet Landau, daughter of actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, and who’s probably most famous for playing Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel, A Place Among The Dead is described on the official press releases as being “a meld of fact, fiction, and the fantastical – (A Place Among The Dead) is an exploration of the cultural obsession with vampires and what they reveal about the human psyche”.

After watching it’s hard to know where fact and fiction actually meld as it begins with a damming voice over where Landau describes her parents and her upbringing in a way that would give you the impression that her childhood was anything but happy. This knocking of her parents continues throughout the film and is at its most noticeable when various actors including Gary Oldman and novelist Anne Rice pop up at random to describe what evil is and as they do photographs of her parents flash up on the screen.

It’s probably this facet of the film that’s the most interesting but unfortunately it’s never fully explored only hinted at. As for the rest of the story, which is filmed to resemble an actual documentary where Landau plays herself hunting down a serial killer who might be a vampire.

At times it’s hard to know if Landau intentionally wants her film to look amateurish or that’s just the way that it ended up due to some truly awful acting. I have my suspicions that it might be the later.

Is A Place Among The Dead a fantasy or a journey into a dark place within Juliet Landau’s mind? In all honestly after watching it I’m still none the wiser.

2/5



A Place Among The Dead

1h 16m

Director: Juliet Landau

Worldwide Release: PVOD 14th December 2020

Information about virtual screenings, Q&A's and tickets here: www.modernfilms.com