Juliet Landau writes, directs and appears in this complex hybrid of fiction and documentary that seeks to investigate our fascination with vampires
‘You’re that girl from Buffy,” someone says to actor-writer-director Juliet Landau at one point in A Place Among the Dead. Landau makes that thumbnail description of herself – she is indeed best known for playing the vampiric Drusilla in multiple episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel – a badge of both honour and shame in this peculiar mockumentary-horror-psychodrama mashup. Depending on the angle of view, it’s either an excoriation of
Hollywood narcissism and solipsism, or a product of it. As such, it suggests that Landau is clearly an interesting and complicated character, but her direction here is less compelling, given what a mess it is by the end.
The idea is that Landau, as herself, is making a doc with her husband-cinematographer Dev (real-life cinematographer Deverill Weekes) about vampires and evil in general and specifically a local bloodsucker/serial killer named Darcel (seen only in glimpses but credited as being played by both Bryan Michael Hall and Seth Bewley) who makes brightly coloured paintings of his victims. For the most part, it’s left unclear whether Darcel is the real undead or just a psycho with a taste for satanic imagery and cheesy artwork, not dissimilar to the kind you might see in a seaside town’s commercial art gallery.