Here's my thinking on it - he's very much an evolving character, right?
1: Starts out protagonist, desperately looking for a way to help his people and the other people of sub-Saharan Africa
2: Becomes a victim, obviously, of white Dracula and the slave trade
3: Emerges when accidentally free as a near-mindless monster
4: Becomes a mindful monster pretty quickly, and then, most importantly
5: Finds something to live for that isn't drinking blood and killing, at which point he's immediately like "woah wait" is suddenly fully mindful again about what consent means, and starts making actual plans, then
6: Trying to execute on those plans, his wife is murdered by the cops, at which point he
7: Either takes revenge or delivers justice, depending upon how you feel about it, against the white cops (coming right up to anti-hero line depending upon interpretation of those actions), and then
8: Having nothing other than drinking blood and killing to live for, chooses to end his existence instead of becoming that which he hated/delivered such evils onto him.
I don't think he's an antihero most of the film, but I do think he's an antihero at the end of it.
Having never seen this one (and with the not-great trailer) I was worried this would be pretty bad in some ways, and the homophobia is accurate but depressing, but yeah, no, this is a good little period vampire film, straight up.
Good job everybody and thanks to @Taweret for hosting as always
vampire trivia: the reason mirrors and film - black and white film traditionally - don't interact is because silver, the old basis of both mirrors and silver-nitrate film, is a pure metal, semi-holy, and refuses to interact with the evil of vampirism.
@diazona Exactly! That's been exploited by some writers in the past. Most modern mirrors aren't silver and no modern films are, so if you're playing with this people can - and do - exploit all that for writing mythos goodness.