Afflicted

Have you ever played one of those sandbox video games in the Elder Scrolls series, such as Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim? In all three of these open-world, first-person (you experience the game through the eyes of you avatar) games, you might face the option to become a vampire.

Welcome that option, and you’ll soon race through multiple settings at superhuman speed, dodge law enforcement while the sun vaporizes your skin.

The movie Afflicted offers a similar experience.

A terrible diagnosis spurs two Canadian friends, Derek and Clif (no, I didn’t spell that wrong) to travel the world.

A medical condition transforms Derek’s brain into a time bomb. In months, maybe hours, he will die.

Clif, a film student, decides to document their trip. Clif’s special vest allows him to carry his camera arms-free.

Derek and Clif arrive in France, where Derek takes a young woman to his hotel room. The young woman, a vampire it turns out, transforms Derek into a creature of the night so as to “save” him from his fatal illness.

She does not explain what she has done to him.

Derek and Clif try afterwards to deduce why Derek can’t stomach food. Why sunlight burns him. Why he demonstrates super speed and strength.

I thought for certain, at this point, that I wouldn’t enjoy the movie. I’m sick of vampires—Hollywood’s lazy, go-to device for the last thirty-seven billions and six years.

However, once the police started to chase Derek, and I experienced his flight—first-person, via his mounted camera—I loved the ride, which reminded me of the aforementioned video games, where I, as my avatar, experienced the same sort of ceaseless escape.

Derek discovers that he cannot cure his vampirism. He’ll lose his mind and blindly attack anyone in reach if he does not feed frequently on human blood. He can’t die, either.

Derek’s stress feels remarkably real. The actor sold his situation.

Many vampire movies offer me some crybaby who’s depressed because he exercises superpowers and immortality. Boo-hoo. Afflicted managed to sell the situation as truly horrifying, as endless damnation and misery.

Afflicted serves as a careful-for-what-you-wish tale. Derek, fearful of his inevitable and probably upcoming death, travels to Europa to feel alive. He takes a woman to his hotel room to feel human.

As an ironic set of consequences, eternal life curses him and human experiences stand forever from his reach.

While the first-person, chase scenes, flavored by Derek’s superhuman speed and leaps across Europa’s tallest buildings, felt wonderful, my excitement deflated whenever I watched those same events from another person’s perspective. The special effects looked terrible from their points of view, melted from thrilling to laughable.

Afflicted felt a little slow at its start (par for the course of nearly all found footage movies), but the rising action proved worth the wait.

(You can read my own short stories free at martinwolt.blogspot.com, and find my novels on Kindle)