Nobody ever said filmmaking was easy, but it can have its perks. Living and working in the picture-book Cinque Terre region on the Italian Riviera for two months would certainly take the edge off your workload.

“That felt like home,” says Clif Prowse, one half of the acting-writing-directing duo responsible for the new movie Afflicted, opening Friday (April 4). “We really got to know the locals, and it was great because the girl who had served us coffee and gotten us breakfast for a month ended up getting a part in the movie. She played the waitress Derek pukes on.”

That’s right, Prowse’s partner, Derek Lee, unloads the picturesque contents of his stomach all over the poor woman; just one knockout scene in a consistently fresh and surprising horror film that also manages to stretch its narrative across Paris and Barcelona.

On top of all that, the whole thing starts right here in Vancouver. By adopting a documentary format and keeping their production light and mobile—“Everyone in the crew had 10 hats on,” says Lee, joining Prowse and the Georgia Straight at a J J Bean in Railtown—the homeboy filmmakers took their low-budget vampire-movie idea and somehow achieved the impossible.

As Prowse puts it: “Usually, a movie at this budget level would have no business ever thinking that you could travel,” although the film’s greater miracle might be the sheer quality of the results. Beyond the almighty buzz garnered on the international-festival circuit, Afflicted should be seen by anyone who takes a cynical view of local cinema.

“We would often talk about, ‘If we were Norwegian or Japanese or Korean, somehow that would be cool,’ ” Lee says. “There’s a cachet to that that we don’t necessarily have in our corner. We’re not going to be able to lean on anything besides people liking it or not.”

Lee also has some choice words for anyone inclined to grumble about the existence of yet another found-footage horror movie. “It’s not because you don’t like those ideas; it’s because they’ve been done badly too many times,” he states. “I’d never dismiss a film just because it’s found footage. Everything is old until somebody makes it new again.”

There’s no question that Afflicted brings an infusion of fresh blood to the genre, with both filmmakers playing themselves in what begins as a deceptively (and hilariously) upbeat global travelogue ostensibly intended for the web. Lee unexpectedly finds himself joining the undead after hooking up with the wrong woman in a Parisian nightclub. (The scene also features local indie stalwarts Edo Van Breemen of Brasstronaut and the Zolas’ Zach Gray as a quasi-fictional band called Unalaska.)

To reveal any more would be unfair. Prowse and Lee’s superconfidently executed vampire tale—abetted by astounding physical effects and the typically brilliant work of cinematographer Norm Li—deserves a cold viewing on the big screen. But here’s a small teaser: concerning a bravura sequence set in La Spezia, Italy, Lee remarks: “You get to be a vampire for four minutes, and it’s a ton of fun.” The man is not exaggerating.