Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Vampire Academy’ on Netflix, Where Zoey Deutch Rises Above Both Bloodsucker Intrigue And High School Drama 

The 2014 fantasy comedy film Vampire Academy arrives on Netflix a month out from the Peacock premiere of Vampire Academy, a redo in series form also based on the original YA novel by Richelle Mead. The series, notably, was chiefly developed by Julie Plec, who also brought The Vampire Diaries to the CW. But this movie version is haphazard, clogged with clunky supernatural terminology, and generally not very compelling, despite Zoey Deutch doing her damndest to enliven the proceedings.   

VAMPIRE ACADEMY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Rose (Zoey Deutch) isn’t just a bestie for Lissa (Lucy Fry). She’s also her sworn protector, or a Dhampir to her own Moroi, in the parlance of Vampire Academy. The Moroi are non-immortal vampires who are also cool with daylight, even if they’ve adjusted their schedule to be mostly nocturnal, while the Dhampir are their protectors – their “guardians” – and the offspring of a human and Moroi parent. But what makes Lissa and Rose even closer is their connection on an intrinsic level. Through mysterious magical circumstances, Rose can hear Lissa’s thoughts, become immersed in her dreams, feel her emotions, and even see through her friend’s eyes. “Have you ever seen me go to the bathroom?” Lissa asks at one point. These two share everything.

For a year, Rose and Lissa were on the run from St. Vladimir’s, also known as the vampire academy, which is a boarding school exclusively for young Morois and Dhampirs. Now they’ve been returned to training and classwork by stoic Guardian Dimitri (Danila Kozlovsky), and headmistress Ellen Kirova (Olga Kurylenko) is ready to punish them – well, punish Rose; Lissa is of royal Moroi blood and might be queen one day – but aged and sick Prince Victor Dashkov (Gabriel Byrne) convinces her to go easy on the girls. St. Vlad’s is full of the usual high school dramas – cliquey behavior, geeks and outcasts, mean girl drama – but it’s also got a “human feeder program” for its bloodsucker student body and an occasional appearance by Queen Tatiana (Joely Richardson), the supreme ruler of these ancient vamp races.

Rose takes her role as protector seriously, and when someone or something keeps harassing Lissa, she takes action to try and draw out the culprit. She also gets closer to Dimitri during her Guardians training, and looks out for Natalie (Sarah Hyland), Victor’s nerdy daughter. With boy drama concerning Christian (Dominic Sherwood), Mason (Cameron Monaghan), and Jesse (Ashley Charles), the strange circumstances surrounding the disappearance of eccentric professor Ms. Karp (Claire Foy), and Kirova hating on her every move, Rose has a lot to manage as she keeps her BFF safe and herself free of harm from the band of evil vampires known as Strigoi who keep attacking St. Vladimir’s.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Well, the characters themselves name drop Twilight, and our introduction to the headmasters and bustling hallways of St. Vladimir Academy is straight out of the Harry Potter handbook. But it’s the contemporary teenage witticisms of Vampire Academy director Mark Waters’ film Mean Girls that percolate here, even if Deutch is the only cast member who can convincingly access the material.

Performance Worth Watching: “God, what’s a girl gotta do to get a definition of ‘shadowkissed’ up in this bitch?” Zoey Deutch is consistently the best thing about Vampire Academy, but Sarah Hyland of Modern Family fame has her moments as motor mouthed goofball Natalie, as does Cameron Monaghan from Shameless and Gotham as Mason, Rose’s fellow Guardian in training.

Memorable Dialogue: Rose becomes the only truly layered character here, because Deutch so ably blends pluck and pop culture riffs with the strained language lessons that following along with the film’s busy backstory demand. “It’s not twisted,” Rose tells Lissa. “I’m your Dhampir and you’re my Moroi. Done. Some days we’re kooky teenagers and other days I’m risking my neck to protect you from an ancient race of predatory vampires, or whoever else. And that’s life.”

Sex and Skin: There’s some heavy petting that transforms into vampire – er, Moroi – biting, and a brief encounter between Rose and Dimitri when they’re under the influence of something called a “love charm,” but otherwise, nothing.

Our Take: God, there’s so much to keep track of. There are the Moroi – not vampires vampires, but mortal vamps with minor forms of the bloodsucker afflictions we’re all aware of. There are the Dhampir, half human and half Moroi, who train up like the Dauntless initiates in Divergent. There are the Strigoi, standard-issue evil vampires with glowing red eyes and bulging veins. Oh, wait, did we mention that the Moroi also have sets of competing royal bloodlines, and political squabbles over succession? And what about “Spirit,” a form of magic that draws on stigmata and miraculous powers of healing? Or the controversial nature of dhampir-moroi mastication. Or “blood whores.” Or getting shadowkissed. Or earth-majicking. And wait, what about the psi hounds?! Vampire Academy is based on the bestseller by Richelle Mead, and there would certainly be more space in a novel to explore and contextualize all of this specialized language. But the script for the film version, from Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters (he’s also the director’s brother), just keeps lazily tossing these terms into a haphazard pile. And since so few members of the cast wish to elaborate on their characters’ interaction with any of it – Gabriel Byrne’s sickly, doddering old royal is a nonfactor, Olga Kurylenko’s headmaster is a cartoonish villain – all of the magic and secret ancient race gobbledygook in Vampire Academy is just so much mush.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The jury’s still out on how Vampire Academy will fare as a small screen series. But that there’s a reboot at all suggests the swing and a miss that this cluttered movie version of the material represents.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges