Transubstantiation – review

Director: Cody Knotts

Release date: 2023*
*Date per Amazon release

Contains spoilers

As I write this, Transubstantiation is available on Amazon as a VOD but IMDb shows it in post-production. It is a brave effort, trying to do something different with a vampire film but the film does struggle because of that. It is very Catholic – perhaps that is why I wasn’t as keen as I might be.

It starts with an intertitle explaining for the unaware just what Transubstantiation is: “The miraculous change by which the Eucharistic elements at their consecration become the body and blood of Christ while keeping only the appearance of bread & wine.”

arrival

It is Christmas Eve 2018 and Father Mark (Scot Cooper) has pulled up in the street. He takes a (religious) book from a gift bag and signs it to Emma (Angelina Morelli), his niece, before slipping it back in the bag and carrying presents round to his sister’s home (Erin Gibiault). He goes to knock at the door but the door is ajar and he enters, coming quickly across the signs of a home invasion.

held at threat

He has dropped his gifts and finds his brother-in-law’s body (Andrew Goldstein) first and then his sister in the kitchen. He eventually finds Emma, still alive but held by a knife wielding killer, Felix (Cody Knotts). He says to the priest that he must make Him listen and Mark drops to his knees to pray and soon Emma is singing Ave Maria. Felix slits her throat and Mark is on him, pounding him to death with his fists.

Scot Cooper as Father Mark

The press clearly want a pound of flesh from him, dubbing him the killer priest, but the State drop the charges. He speaks to the Bishop (J.P. Silk) but he can’t repent and confess as he believes he has delivered righteous justice. There is mention of him moving to a friary – but he is clearly still at a public church and in the same town. Here we have a couple of issues… the plot point of moving him to a friary needed expunging or following through, a minor point but still… The dialogue recording when speaking outside with the Bishop was noticeably lower in volume and of poorer audio quality than the standard dialogue.

stalking

Anyway, a vampire named Janusz (Ryan C. Joseph) has seen the media circus and starts following the priest. He actually enters the church and (having waved his hand over the holy water font) pushes to the head of the communion queue and steals a drink from the chalice, causing him to flee the church and vomit. Mark has bought a gun (because, poor life choices) and ends up pulling it (accidentally, due to nerves) on a female journalist who is out to get him. Next thing he is captured by the vampire and put in a car boot next to the journalist’s body (the vampire got her).

Ryan C. Joseph as Janusz

Janusz takes the priest to a hold out in a cellar and wants the priest to cure him. He has found out through the internet (the film is at pains to say this) that he can be cured by drinking the blood of Christ. But it must be *the* blood, ie the transubstantiation has to change the wine to actual blood. He kidnaps a family, starting with the father (Kane Prestenback) before moving onto wife and daughter, to force God’s hand. The majority of the film sees priest and vampire verballing sparring on a theological theme… and here I had my big problem.

flashback

There is, of course, a religious set of tropes within the vampire genre – hence the use of religious trappings as apotropaic objects. I can certainly dig that. What I couldn’t dig, per se, was a film that seemed to be (or felt) primarily dialogue based that was solely aimed at that. Beyond the religious we get very little lore; we see Janusz’ turning in flashback and he sleeps through the day – that’s it. The issue may have been that if you are going to make a film primarily dialogue based then you need razor sharp dialogue and superb actors. The dialogue was not bad at all and the actors fine but the bar not so high as to keep the conceit running. Or perhaps it was just the hyper-Catholic nature of it that turned me off. Of course; the story is less the redemption of the vampire and more the redemption of Father Mark.

death of a journalist

It is a shame because, I liked the idea of trying to do something very different but I struggled to get on board with this. I think 5 out of 10 is fair as the film did try to play within the religious trope and do something brave and cerebral – perhaps for those who are Catholic facing this might do a bit more.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK