The Dawn of a New Blog

Was it a love of film which started this blog? A desire to wax lyrical on all things cinematic, coupled with a narcissistic desire to have people actually read my words? To inform people on the celluloid treats they might just be missing.

Maybe those things are at the heart of it, but they weren't the catalyst.

That would be Lesbian Vampire Killers.

I saw this film, with my friend Sam, for free, thanks to the kind people behind the great Night of Horror film festival, which runs in Sydney every March. They do good work to try to bring the kind of horror films that don't tend to make Australian cinema screens – they're not remakes or Saw sequels, see – like foreign horror films or English-language indie ones. Foreign and indie films seem to exist in the higher range of film respectability, and horror in the lower, so these movies exist in an awkward place.

The point is that the Night of Horror folk are fantastic, and they can't be held responsible. Especially after they showed Splinter earlier this year, which was absolutely tops. This showing of Lesbian Vampire Killers was a press screening, just one with no actual press. The large Fox Studios cinema was less full than a Sydney stadium during an AFL game. Even tumbleweeds were too embarrassed to be there.

Here's some context. Previous films I recently haven't paid for include 17 Again (for a review) and Twilight (for a laugh). I made it to the end of those. So, with that in mind, here's a review.

The first forty-five minutes of Lesbian Vampire Killers

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is having problems. His girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) has just left him, and not even his best friend Ed (Nick Frost) and a few rounds of beers can get him out of the dumps. The pair soon find themselves facing hoards of the undead in this hilarious (and, yes, sometimes scary) horror-comedy directed by Edgar Wright.

Sorry, that's a review of Shaun of the Dead, the film Lesbian Vampire Killers wants to be. It attempts the same character dynamic, the same comedy mix of slacker humour and over the top violence (although mostly without the money-shots), the Edgar Wright smash-wipes. Director Phil Claydon, two writers from Balls of Steel and everyone else involved on the production, down to the runners, get all of it wrong. Here, best friends Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden) have just been dumped and fired respectively, and go hiking in a remote village to forget their troubles. Here they come across a bevy of European girls – presumably from the nation of Genericia – and a lesbian vampire curse. Low-rent mayhem ensues!

The horror elements not working here may have been forgivable. It's a horror comedy that puts the comedy first; a lot of films of the type get away with not being scary. They get away with it by being funny, though, which is the second-last adjective that could ever be applied to Lesbian Vampire Killers. The last is "good". The only way anyone could find this shit amusing would be if Zoo Weekly magazine is a little too subtle for their tastes.

Horne and Corden have been good elsewhere, but not here. Horne brings whiny neediness to heights never before reached in cinema, while Corden's lout is so unlikeable you pray for his death the second the wanders onscreen. The budget is clearly low, but that needn't mean the gore should be kept hidden like it is here. The violence level is high, yes, but for the most part, it happens just offscreen. The only bit of proper gore involves a vampire running around with an axe in her head, but the choreography is so bad of this little action that the moment is completely wasted.

The biggest crime of the film, perhaps, is that it can't even be enjoyed ironically. It's so bad, it's not even worthy of being laughed at. Despite all logic, the movie actually, in its own strange little way, takes itself seriously. The innumerable clichés in the film aren't even used to mock horror conventions; they're just there. It aims for the cult status reserved for Shaun of the Dead when it should be going for the cult status reserved for Uwe Boll or latter-day Shyamalan. It gets neither, existing in a black hole of jaw-gaping misery. (The film's other biggest crime is wasting its title, which could have been attached to a much more enjoyable film.)

There's a scene near the beginning where our two heroes first encounter the four European girls getting into their van. Wolfmother's Woman cranks up while the camera ogles their bodies. Halfway through the excruciating minute this bit lasts, the realisation comes: this is not supposed to be us laughing at these blokes and their reaction to these girls. This is for us, the audience. Our thoughts are not supposed to be "what idiots! They'll never have a chance, but it sure will be wacky to see them try!", but "titties titties boobies titties boobies titties boobs". The girls had good bodies, yes, but this is not an FHM shoot, it's a fucking movie, one that's supposed to be aiming for laughs. There's a perfectly good corner of the internet for that sort of thing, but if it's not funny, keep it out of the comedy. Lesbian Vampire Killers assumes its audience is as stupid as the film itself is.

There's a taboo with reviewing a movie after walking out. You haven't experienced the whole thing, so an honest score cannot be given. Lesbian Vampire Killers, then, is the exception proves to rule. Unless the rest of the film gave a step-by-step guide to ending world hunger, or contained a formula for curing cancer, or somehow actually brought the entire audience to climax, actually made them come where they sat, so they need to wipe up after, then it is of no use to anybody, ever. Apparently it contained a lot of Mathew Horne tied to a tree while James Corden runs around.

I rest my case.

1/10

Proper shit. I guess there's a minor blessing in that a non-franchise non-remake horror movie made general Australian cinema release, but it's still pretty unforgivable. If distributors want to give us a little horror comedy, then the bastards should release Drag Me to Hell.

In happier news, the Sydney Film Festival starts this week, and the line-up is pretty sexy. Not quite as sexy as the Melbourne International Film Festival's list so far – and they have more to announce – but it's a good-looking bunch of movies.