The Transfiguration, Wer and "realistic" horror
The Transfiguration, which recently dropped on Shudder, is part of a wave of movies exploring what "realistic" horror could look like. Milo, the teenage anti-hero of 2016 indie horror The Transfiguration, judges his impressive collection of vampire VHS via an unusual criteria – is it "realistic"? Martin and Let the Right One In pass; Twilight not so much. Of course, The Transfiguration itself is trying to be a "realistic" vampire movie. Milo is a borderline sociopath who's taken vampire-roleplay to the next level. At regular intervals, he stalks his native Queens and drinks the blood of unfortunate passersby. Milo, then, is not an immortal, undead bloodsucker, just a messed-up teenage mass murderer. Except the film is constantly toying with our expectations, slyly suggesting that Milo's killing spree may have endowed him with supernatural powers. There's that title too, implying Milo is being "transfigured" into somet...