Review of Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009) by James S — 25 Nov 2011

Imagine, if you will, that you were watching a routine episode of Gavin & Stacey in which Stacey dumps Gav before he and Smithy head off on a boys own holiday where they are besieged by porn star style lady vampires. That is pretty much Lesbian Vampire Killers.

After working their way into the nations hearts on BBC's excellent sitcom, Matthew Horne and James Corden have been slowly working their way back out again thanks to their own terrible sketch show and this rather poor feature film debut for the dynamic duo of comedy. At least they didn't write this though.

With a title as such, expectations should not be high upon entering Lesbian Vampire Killers. If so then it is possible you may even find the first half hour not all that bad. There are some amusing moments and nice dialogue, while the initial vampire slayings are suitably comic book horror. Then it stops being funny in favour of the bizarro plot involving some vampire maiden coming back from the undead who only Corden can kill and break a curse which turns every woman in this village into a vampire. Why they're lesbians is never really explained.

Adding to the boredom is the sub plot of the romance between Corden and one of the hapless young women the duo hook up with which is mundane at best.

The film was presumably relying on dragging in the Gavin & Stacey audience and anyone who might be semi-curious over the title. Aside from Horne and Corden essentially playing Gavin and Smithy there is little in common with their sitcom. The film is crude for the sake of it without any nod to subtlety to make it funny, a bit like a movie version of Nuts magazine.

It's akin to those guys that everyone knows who talk loudly about going down the pub, football and breasts - slightly amusing at first but soon becoming very boring and irritating.

The ending is left wide open for a sequel but the holding of ones breath is probably not advised.