Wes and Kyra is a story about a vampire couple in New York City who rent a room for three days to drown out their addiction, face the toxicity in their relationship, and grapple with the idea of death as it circles all around them.

In Wes and Kyra, the line between love and destruction blurs within the dimly lit corners of New York City. The film follows a vampire couple who rent a room for three days—an attempt to drown out their addiction, confront the toxicity that binds them, and reckon with the inevitability of death closing in. What begins as an escape becomes a dark, intimate reckoning between two beings who’ve lived too long and hurt too deeply.

Director Kevin V. Doan, whose past works (The Martyr of Hudson Yards, These Violent Weekends, Last Weekend in New York, Burning Days) have delved into the collision of beauty and pain, delivers another haunting meditation on obsession and mortality. Wes and Kyra captures the ache of eternal love and the exhaustion of immortality—an atmospheric, emotionally charged short that feels both mythic and devastatingly real.

Vampires have been reimagined countless times — what inspired you to use them here as a way to explore addiction, toxic love, and mortality?

I had always wanted to tell a story in the genre of “two lovers on the run”. Movies like Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise. Most of the time these films revolve around some sort of inciting incident and the pair running from the police. Wes + Kyra is about a couple running away from themselves, in a way. For me – that seemed to be a bit more interesting. Given also to the fact I had just gone through a pretty grueling breakup marked this into a film about battling addiction to a person. That analogy was padded by another layer – that of a literal addiction. Throughout the writing of the script – I kept asking myself why people end things when it starts to get toxic – and most of the time its because you start to feel like you are becoming a person you don’t want to become. Sometimes this breeds a whole cycle of breakage into connection and again and again. Realistically you end things at this point because you don’t have forever and you should find someone better suited for you. But what if you have forever? The cycle might continue on and on.

The film feels just as much about human struggles as it is about the supernatural. How did you balance the metaphor of vampirism with the rawness of real-world issues?

I live in New York City where you see hardcore drug use just about everywhere up and down the street. You see addiction and what encompasses that. I wanted to tell a story about what you would go through to get your fix and what the breaking point of that would be. Vampirism can be seen as a low level genre, but in actuality I found it to be the perfect way to channel these real life scenarios with a bit of escapism. The trick that I think was our north star was to always ground the scenes in the utmost truth and never go heavy handed with it. To allow things to be vague.

Addiction and toxic relationships can be difficult to portray honestly. What was most important for you in capturing these themes without romanticizing them?

The thing I kept thinking about the most when trying to write this was that there shouldn’t be somebody to root for. In every relationship there are large grey areas that really only the pair can see when they’re in it. We had to show both sides of this terrible coin – Wes and Kyra are sometimes both the hero and the villain and everything in between because that’s how toxic relationships feel. Addiction on the other hand – we made a clear choice to never glamourize it by making it feel too pretty in its use. The sound effects (that my editor Mason C.W. put in there) make it a horrid thing when the two bite into flesh. I want you to want to look away. It’s not pretty, and addiction never is.

Wes and Kyra’s relationship is turbulent but intimate. How did you work with the actors to create such a layered and volatile dynamic?

We had rehearsals (which I love and think are necessary for the way that I work), and we spoke a lot about power dynamics in relationships quite a bit. For the most part, following the script because I feel like most of the layered material was in the writing. I’d spent so long making sure the dialogue was topsy turvy and winding. To make sure that they both had their faults. To allow us to see their arguments, their loves, and little callbacks to their history together.

The film’s setting — just a single rented room over three days — creates a sense of claustrophobia. How did you use space and environment to heighten tension?

We used the small space to our advantage because we used it sort of like a metaphor. They’re trapped in with each other with seemingly nowhere to go. They’re around each other all day every day – and no matter how much you love your partner, there needs to be a semblance of individualism in a relationship to keep it healthy. That and my DP Cece Chan (who is brilliant) used long lenses within the small space to further escalate that feeling.

The vampire genre often leans on gothic or fantastical visuals. How did you approach the film’s aesthetic to keep it grounded yet still otherworldly?

We had very grounded references. The very first being in New York City. There’s a way to shoot movies here to make them sleek and put together – but for the most part if you’re telling a story set here, it’s going to be grittier and more raw. This sort of injected itself into the piece especially during the subway and Chinatown scenes. Other references were from movies like The Panic in Needle Park, Christiane F, My Own Private Idaho, and Blue Valentine. I’m a big fan of Gus Van Sant and Derek Cianfrance.

If you could imagine Wes and Kyra beyond the short — where their relationship might go next — what would it look like?

We’ve finished adapting the short film into a feature script so it really dives deep into all of this. Where the relationship began, how it grows to where we see it in the short – and how it ends is different. Especially in the way it plays out. The mechanics of vampirism in this particular world is fleshed out. It’s a more aggressive film than the short. It goes to the next level and is a ride all the way through to the end. It’s a lean eighty pages at the moment. We’re bringing it to the New York off-broadway scene first and then making the feature film probably towards the end of 2026.

What are the books, podcasts or even YouTube Channel that you recommend young filmmakers to get their hands on?

I love Elia Kazan’s book On Directing which I hold very dear to me and use a lot of the techniques within that on my own sets, Jean Cocteau’s Diary of A Film is so amazing to read as it is a literal day by day journal of his making of Beauty and the Beast as he struggles with the hardships of making a movie whilst battling his health dwindling. Two documentaries I watch before every film shoot is The Making of Palo Alto, as well as My Life Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn which is a look at the making of Only God Forgives and shows you exactly how a director coming off of a hit like Drive follows it up – all of the energy, all of the self consciousness, all of the amazing imagery + direction is on display. In regards to YouTube Channels, I’ve alway loved “Every Frame a Painting“, or CinemaStix.

Can you share with us some of your favorite short films you’ve seen lately?

I’ve seen such incredible work coming from the community recently. A few come to mind – Every Other Weekend by Mick Robertson & Margaret Rose is so unique and I’ve never seen this particular concept put to film in the way they do. The filmmaking is so well done and it’s a very special piece. Flight Therapy by Simon Kilian is a really dream-like structured film with a brilliant score. I love how it’s crafted so intently modern but filled with nostalgia in the sound. Last one – my friends Wes Andre Goodrich and Ryan O’Dell (who stars in Wes and Kyra), recently made a short film called Indoc that I really loved. It’s an incredibly timely piece and speaks to a lot of hard-to-talk-about subjects about the state of America’s youth. Very excited for that one to come out.