Movie review: ‘Vampire Academy’

Daniel Herron, Multimedia Editor

If you haven’t read the books, it’s hard to know what to expect from “Vampire Academy.” It looks a bit like Buffy, a bit like Underworld and a bit like Harry Potter. It’s easy to see how a movie that tried to be all three would simply fail on all counts. However, if you get around to actually watching it, you’ll find that it is so much more than you could have expected.

“Vampire Academy” is surprisingly well written, well directed and well acted. The storyline features a teenage vampire, Lissa Dragomir, and her dhampir guardian, Rose Hathaway. The latter is more the narrator of the story, and as impossible as it sounds, Zoey Deutch portrays Rose in a believable, engaging and humorous manner. Keeping in mind that this character is a super-powered half-vampire on top of being a 15-year-old girl, never the less she tells a compelling story in a way that will keep you laughing, hoping and fuming right along with her.

The comparison with the above movies is not far off. But, it’s as though the writers took all of the best elements from each to make an entirely new and interesting world, and plot. Sure, it’s a school for supernatural folk, but the graphics aren’t overdone and the cloak-and-dagger plotting seem far more real than they ever did in the Harry Potter series. Sure, it’s a movie about vampires, but the line between good and evil is (or at least seems) far clearer, which makes it all the more poignant when the righteous fall to temptation. Sure, it’s a story about a teenage girl who kills vampires as a hobby, but Rose somehow is both more believable as a teenager and more believable as a vampire slayer than Buffy ever was.

This is a surprisingly excellent movie, one worth the watch if you enjoyed anything like it in the past.  So take the time, spend the ten bucks and the two hours, and give “Vampire Academy” a chance. It’s worth it.