By: Anthony King

GOING IN:

In this day in age, does the idea of more Vampires excite you?  Or, has their rise to immense popularity and over saturation begun to turn you away?

Personally I love vampires.  I’ve read half an Anne Rice novel back in high school, so you can say I’m a pretty big fan of the subject.  Just because there’s one series of films that are laughably bad and cheesy doesn’t mean everything around the subject will be similar.  In fact, based on who created this film, I doubt it will have anything in common with those films that shall not be named.

The film stars Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Concords fame and another Kiwi by the name of Taika Waititi – who I haven’t seen a ton from.  Not only do they star in the film, but they also write and direct.  That’s a lot of responsibility, but that also means we’ll most likely receive a vision that’s entirely their own which is always something to look forward to whether it ends up good or bad.

I’ve been disappointed by comedies lately.  It seems like every comedy coming out of Hollywood is based around gross out humour, a chubby guy taking his shirt off, and an impossibly dumb character;  for example, every character played by Will Ferrell.  Sure, some good movies and great moments have come out of that, but I think it’s time for some originality.  Let’s hope this Vampire comedy can pull that off.

Suspected Rating: 6/10

COMING OUT:

“We’re Werewolves, not Swearwolves!”

I don’t want to overhype it or anything, but this was probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in years.  I feel safe to admit now that before seeing it I knew almost nothing about it.  I gave a quick read of the IMDB synopsis and I was on my way.  No trailer or anything.  Going into a film this way can be exciting, especially when trailers for comedies often spoil the best jokes, but it can also be risky.  Luckily it was a more than pleasant surprise.

The film follows a group of Vampires, a coven perhaps, who are all flatmates in an old Victoria style house.  They may be immortals hundreds of years old but they still deal with everyday problems.  Like, whose turn it is to do the dishes, getting blood stains out of clothing, trying to look sexy to pick up ladies and gentlemen to devour and trying to get Peter to sweep up the rotting corpses in his room.  Typical everyday normal stuff.

Something else that was a surprise was the style in which it was filmed.  They took a mockumentary type approach to it similar to a show like The Office.  When I first realized this I thought, “oh no!”, as I’m not a huge fan of the style;  but that was quickly forgotten as they made it work to their advantage.  A lot of humour is derived from it and I can’t say I’ve seen a Vampire movie like this before so it worked wonderfully.  In fact, I might go as far as saying this is the best Vampire movie I’ve seen in years as well.  The last one I saw was Only Lovers Left Alive which some people have given high praise but I wasn’t super thrilled on.

There’s so many unforgettable and hilarious moments that I just want to tell you all of them right now, but I won’t because that would be a jerk move.  My brother and I have this agreement where if we see a movie the other person hasn’t, we’re allowed to tell them one part and one part only.  Since the reader and I are not brothers, I won’t do that, I guess, but you need to see this movie.

It was so refreshing to watch, and the entire theatre was laughing the whole way through – myself included.  It’s a shame I haven’t heard too much about this film in general.  I feel like a lot of people will miss it because they won’t even realize it’s a thing.  I could easily see this gain a following over time or perhaps a strong digital release.  I know I’ll watch it again and also recommend it to every stranger I come across just to get the word out.

Final Rating: 8/10

P.S. This couldn’t be further from those films that shall not be named.

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Read more of Anthony King’s ‘Going In and Coming Out’ reviews at ‘Reel Mess’