The lineage of this amiable, undemanding Brit horror comedy dates back to THE CAT AND THE CANARY – and further – while the physical stature of its two leads placed within a mock-horrific scenario (straight-man thin bloke, comedy fat bloke) was a key element of the Abbot and Costello monster team-ups in the 1940’s. The prominent influence, however, is SHAUN OF THE DEAD, now an established benchmark in British horror comedy and a film that will likely remain an unfair point of comparison for emergent Brit horror comedies for years to come. Unfair because it was exceptionally good.
James Corden and Mathew Horne play character types more than a little similar to SHAUN’s Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (one’s a freshly dumped sad-sack, the other a horny wisecracking slob) though the script isn’t nearly as deft and sharp as that of SHAUN, failing to convincingly mesh genuine horror into the knockabout laddish* humour. Whereas SHAUN succeeded in finding moments of genuine pathos and outright no-joke unpleasantness, this film goes for the cheap gag every time and doesn’t even attempt to make the source of its horror scary. Consequently, the reviews for this in its native land have been overwhelmingly negative – though, if you accept the fact that it isn’t SHAUN OF THE LESBIAN VAMPIRES, there is a lot of fun to be had.
For an outright slapstick spoof dominated by jokes about dykes / gays / being bummed**, Phil Claydon’s film impresses with its style. Not so long ago, Suffolk-born Claydon made the sinister, impressive though over-looked indie horror flick ALONE and here he shows a mutual fondness and understanding of the Hammer horror visual palette. The narrative directly references Hammer’s Carmilla lesbian vampire trilogy and this is complemented by a quite beautiful evocation of the look and ambience of a typical Hammer vampire film. Behold the late, lamented majesty of swirling only-in-a-movie mist, elaborately lit crypts, magnificent heaving bosoms. There’s even a wonderful in-bred, creepy local pub (admittedly as much “The Slaughtered Lamb” as it is one Hammer’s interchangeable Carlsbad village inns) where John Pierce Jones channels Michael Ripper as a gruff, ominous landlord – and at least one regular sups his pint next to a sheep.
The prologue skews its periodic attention to a whole different Gothic horror work : mocking the pomposity of Coppola’s take on BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA with Horne playing an ancestor of his modern day character and an initially sincere narrator who ends up using the phrase “he lopped her fucking head off”. You’ll know from this opening scene whether you’re going to find the film funny and entertaining enough to stick around.
Given Claydon’s background, it’s amusing to find LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS setting itself in a fictional but all too credible backward Norfolk hamlet*** where everything is as you’d expect from a place called “Cragwich” with the exception of the presence of several hot lesbians and an enduring curse that turns the local girls into predatory vampiresses when they turn 18. Myanna Buring is one of a group of students researching the superstitions and legends surrounding the community. Meanwhile Horne has just been dumped by his user-girlfriend and Corden has just been fired from his clown-job for hitting kids. The pair go hiking for a cheap break and end up having to become – you guessed it – lesbian vampire killers to survive. Paul McGann delightfully parodies Peter Cushing’s Gustav Viel (from TWINS OF EVIL) as a proficient vamp-killing priest – though you’d never hear Mr Cushing use the “f” word for the sake of an easy laugh.
The tone of LVK is set by the scene in which Corden takes his opportunity to grope a particularly hot lesbian vampire’s bare boobs as she perishes slowly, and messily, under the fatal running water of a shower. Its humor is unashamedly pitched at the Friday night FHM crowd and its generally light on actual horror. There’s hardly any blood, with the vampire girlies spraying a gaudy bright white liquid when injured or killed – a factor in place solely for the running gag of Corden regularly getting covered in a cum-like substance.
Making their transition to the big screen from BBC TV’s Gavin And Stacey, Corden and Horne are a lot of fun to watch in this scenario, successfully bringing their existing chemistry and banter to the movie. Inevitably, Corden steals almost all the good lines and laughs and his natural appeal goes a long way to making goofy playground gags (like the sword with the cock-shaped handle) amusing.
The movie loses some comic momentum during an extended climactic battle, but its slight charm sustains itself throughout and Debbie Wiseman’s beautifully rich, full-blooded orchestral score add loads of atmosphere and production value that might otherwise be absent. It’s arguably worth staying with the whole enterprise to catch a glimpse of a wonderful throwaway visual punch line involving a gay werewolf.
Key for non-British readers :
* : “laddish” – meaning humor perpetrated and aimed at predominantly male audiences or at least viewers with a decent understanding of how men think
** : “bummed” – meaning anal intercourse – in this context, referring to the fear of unwanted anal intercourse
*** : Norfolk, England is a rural county very close to Suffolk (where the director grew up) and a place that’s often the butt of jokes in the UK for being a bit backward and, in some spots, allegedly in-bred. I live there.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
