Last night I got to see the new UK comedy/horror ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’. I haven't seen a review of it anywhere yet so thought that I'd send one in.
My girlfriend subscribed to the film's official website as she is a big ‘Gavin and Stacey’ fan (it has won lots of awards and stuff here in Great Britain) and we were lucky enough (if ’lucky’ is the word I should really use) to get a pair of tickets to attend an ‘exclusive’ Soho screening in London. The room was small, with only about 50 seats - which were all full. I think it must have been the film company's own private screening room? It was certainly nicer than any proper cinema I’ve ever been in before, though we couldn't buy any refreshments before we went in.
Before I start I must point out that I am not really a fan of the Gavin and Stacey TV show, just so people know where I’m coming from.
So, on to the film itself (or what I can remember of it)...
– spoiler alert –
It’s a mixed bag really. The film starts with a silly prologue that tells you the story of an ancient curse that has befallen a local town and we are treated to some green-screened special effects and a bit of humour which was entertaining enough.
Then we meet Jimmy and Flitch – 'Gavin and Stacey's' Matt Horne and James Corden, who are both having a very bad day. Flitch is fired from his job as a children’s clown for punching a child (he has anger management issues) and Jimmy is dumped by his annoying girlfriend, Judy.
They decide to go on holiday to cheer themselves up (like in 'Withanil and I') and, would you believe it, end up in a remote town (like in 'Withnail and I') that happens to be under attack from Lesbian Vampires (not like 'Withnail and I').
There’s an American Werewolf-type scene in a pub where they meet the locals – including an angry vicar (funnily enough, played by 'Withnail and I's' Paul McGann) whose daughter is about to succumb to the curse and from there they get sent to a local boarding house where they can stay for free – and where the landlord has just happened to have sent a coach-load of sexy foreign art students. From hereon in, things happen fast... there’s an attractive head vampire who is trying to resurrect her dead queen and it just so happens that Jimmy’s blood is the key – he is the great, great grandson of a man you see in the prologue – the man who originally slayed the Vampire Queen and he has a birthmark that gives that fact away.
It unfolds fairly as you would expect from here, with the various foreign students girls being vampirized and Jimmy and Flitch having to fight for their survival. Jimmy starts to fall for one of the students (who conveniently also happens to be a virgin) only for them both to be captured by the head vampire. That forces Flitch to join forces with the vicar to try and save them, which then involves them both digging up the grave of Jimmy’s ancestor and using his specially forged ‘power sword’ to kill the Vampire Queen - a sword that is supposed to have a handle shaped like a penis – something which Flitch finds very funny in the film, but looked just like an ordinary sword to my girlfriend and I?
Flitch is attacked by the vicars daughter, who has just turned 18 and been overtaken by the curse and he accidentally kills her, when she runs onto the power sword. Luckily the vicar doesn’t notice (and Flitch sure as heck doesn't tell him) and they head off to save Jimmy and the remaining foreign girl he has been kidnapped with.
This all builds to a big showdown, with the Lesbian Vampire Queen being resurrected and all hell set to break loose, but what follows is a somewhat lacklustre fight between the foreign girl and the head vampire and Jimmy using the sword to kill the Vampire queen, which all happens so fast it is all a bit anti-climactic.
Then, having saved the day, they drive off into the sunrise having decided to become the ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ of the title and we are treated to one final visual joke (that I wasn’t expecting) that actually made me laugh out loud. It is both silly and nonsensical, but I won’t spoil it for you (as I seem to have already spoiled everything else). And that's pretty much it.
The special effects are okay (assuming this was made on a low budget) and it is reasonably well filmed, but some of the scenes do feel a bit cheap, as though they might have ran out of money to dress the background and stuff and most of the action at the end takes place in the same fake-looking forrest setting.
Ultimately as a horror film it falls down on not being scary and the vampires aren’t really very sexy either – in fact you really don’t get to see enough of the vampires, which is a shame, especially as the title suggests you might see a truck load of them. That said, the film does seem to have been played for the laughs more than for the scares, but I did feel let down because of it, especially as I wasn’t scared at all and my girlfriend only properly jumped twice (and she is what I call a ‘jumper’).
The real saving graces are James Corden and Paul McGann, who play their parts very well – with special attention to James Corden, who I was not really a big fan of before, but as a result of seeing this, has earned enough good will from me to give ‘Gavin and Stacey’ another try (which has made my girlfriend very happy). He keeps the film alive, but when he isn’t on the screen, you really miss him, especially when Jimmy's girlfriend is one screen who is so bad it prompted my girlfriend to nudge me and tell me 'she's awful' ten minutes in to the film.
Ultimately it is a forgettable film that I’d only properly recommend to ‘Gavin and Stacey’ fans and it is not going to re-invent the British vampire film like ‘Shaun of the Dead’ did with Zombie flicks – in fact they couldn’t be more different as this feels more like an attempt to make an old Hammer-type film whereas I think Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright went for a George Romero-like horror film - but as long as you aren’t looking to be terrified or titillated it is quite funny in parts of it – again, my girlfriend was laughing at it a lot. But the director is certainly no Edgar Wright and doesn’t seem to know his genre well enough. He should go back to his DVD collection and re-watch ‘Spaced’, ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Twins of Evil’ before he attempts to make anything else in this genre.
So there you go. It’s a 5 out of 10 score for the film for me, but if this helps as any kind of indication, there were two 16 year old boys there who thought it was ‘brilliant’. It’s really not... but then again, I’m 28!
If you use this, call me the ‘Lucky_Winner?’
The lesbian vampires "aren't really very sexy"? This is troubling. But I've a question for you, Lucky Winner: do you think Hilary Swank is hot?
