Straight faced surrealism that mixes the look and feel of an off beat, low budget late noir film (it's set in 1966) with a vampire movie and a priest's crisis of faith story. There's a gritty, trench coat wearing detective who happens to be a greyhound (well at least he's a dog, not a bus). Nobody seems to think that's odd--in fact the more important fact about him is that he's a recovering toad-licker. There's a very good, very restrained jazz score that matches the equally restrained acting and visual style, all of which somehow keeps one from thinking how absurd the whole thing is. A bit like a David Lynch film, especially Eraserhead, but with a cooler sensibility.
Maybe the oddest thing about it is that it has what is perhaps the movies' most positive image of a Catholic priest in many years.
Despite the absurdities, it isn't really a comedy; despite the vampires, it's not a horror movie or a action pic. But it's one of the best and most engaging bits of surrealism I've ever seen--surrealism used not as a prop but as an integral structure.
