LIVING AMONG US shows a documentary film crew which has been invited to interview a vampire family in their home during a time in which vampirism has been reframed as a medical condition, albeit one with a heavy burden of stigma. The purpose of the interviews is to show that vampires have been "domesticated" and are no longer a danger to humans, thanks to voluntary blood donations, but things don't go as planned.
There are two main criticisms that can be leveled against this movie:
First, it does bear some thematic similarity to WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014), another found footage vampire movie. I tend to be forgiving of this because to me, this similarity stands out largely because of how good SHADOWS is and how few vampire found footage movies there are (in fact, the only other one I can think of is THE MONSTER PROJECT (2017)). There are countless found footage movies featuring ghosts, demons, aliens and Bigfoot, so I am willing to cut the movie some slack on this one.
Second, the movie does have some flaws in the plot. I can rationalize the vampires letting the crew witness their ceremony because they wanted to gauge human reactions, but if they really never intended to let the crew go, how did they plan on dealing with the fallout of a disappearing crew? The female crew member's wounds and how the public did not seem to notice so many disappearances are left unexplained but could have been easily addressed in the plot. Also, there is an apparent vampire love triangle plus incestuous relationship which go nowhere.
While I am not as forgiving of these issues, I must admit that I found the movie nonetheless entertaining from beginning to end. Unlike most found footage movies, this one had good production values, the acting and cinematography was good and I enjoyed the black humor. So, overall I think this is still a good movie, definitely one of the better found footage movies.
There are two main criticisms that can be leveled against this movie:
First, it does bear some thematic similarity to WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014), another found footage vampire movie. I tend to be forgiving of this because to me, this similarity stands out largely because of how good SHADOWS is and how few vampire found footage movies there are (in fact, the only other one I can think of is THE MONSTER PROJECT (2017)). There are countless found footage movies featuring ghosts, demons, aliens and Bigfoot, so I am willing to cut the movie some slack on this one.
Second, the movie does have some flaws in the plot. I can rationalize the vampires letting the crew witness their ceremony because they wanted to gauge human reactions, but if they really never intended to let the crew go, how did they plan on dealing with the fallout of a disappearing crew? The female crew member's wounds and how the public did not seem to notice so many disappearances are left unexplained but could have been easily addressed in the plot. Also, there is an apparent vampire love triangle plus incestuous relationship which go nowhere.
While I am not as forgiving of these issues, I must admit that I found the movie nonetheless entertaining from beginning to end. Unlike most found footage movies, this one had good production values, the acting and cinematography was good and I enjoyed the black humor. So, overall I think this is still a good movie, definitely one of the better found footage movies.