By: Trevor Chartrand

Insane Like Me? is the first feature film from director Chip Joslin, who also wrote the script with the movie’s star, Britt Bankhead.  This lackluster thriller has a number of faults, most of which are hard to ignore.

In the film, Bankhead plays Jake Morgan, a military veteran who returns to a hometown whose citizens have been mysteriously vanishing for months.  During his surprise homecoming party in a ‘haunted’ hotel in town, uninvited guests turn out to be real-life vampires.  The fanged party-crashers go on a blood-sucking killing spree, murdering Jake’s girlfriend, Samantha (Slotherhouse’s Grace Patterson), among others.  As the sole survivor of the attack, Jake is assumed by local authorities to be the killer, and he’s incarcerated in an asylum.  Upon his release nine years later, he sets out to avenge Samantha’s death and end the vampires’ reign of terror. 

The strikes outweigh the hits in this unfocused and very plain flick.  The film’s writing lacks depth, which includes weak dialogue, underwritten characters, and a complete lack of mystery or stylized narrative structure. The production values are bad as well, down to the noticeable lack of set dressing.  The ‘old haunted hotel’ looks more like a contemporary, well-furnished mini-mansion. What’s scary about that? And, how about the unconvincing CGI blood effects? Or, how Joslin handles the passage of time? Despite the nine-year flash-forward, all of the characters don’t change their appearance. Eric Roberts, who plays the sheriff, is 68 at the time I’m writing this, and there’s no effort to age him up at all. Only after a decade do we see any change. These issues may seem inconsequential on their own but, when enough of these overlooked details are stacked against the film, viewers are distracted from the narrative and the film’s illusion is shattered.

For what it’s worth, I do get the sense that this bizarre tale means a lot to those who made it. There’s some mild passion in some of the performances, as if they’re doing their best with the material and budget they have. Sadly though, much of this effort is lost in translation.

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Trevor Chartrand: @OhHaiTrebor