After her mother’s death, Max has difficulty re-adjusting to life without her. As she grieves, she’s invited to a screening of 80s slasher Camp Bloodbath in which her mother starred. Against what might be her better judgment, she decides to go with her friends. Once there, an incident pushes the group into the film itself, Last Action Hero style, where they face off with its masked baddie Billy Murphy and try to save themselves, the cast, and Max’s mother.
Brian James O’Connell’s “Bloodsucking Bastards” is that type of comedy where characters speak in rapid fire pace and never actually say anything. Every character in “Bloodsucking Bastards” yammers on endlessly, and it’s all just palaver and white noise, eventually. Every attempt at a hilarious one-liners or goofy situations fails to land, making the entire affair one big misfire. This alleged horror comedy is neither comical nor very scary. Granted, there are some eerie moments, but nothing really ramps up the tension or the stakes. Fran Kanz plays Evan Sanders, a workaday cubicle jockey for a closed off telemarketing office building that sells various products.
Though aiming for the big promotion, he’s passed over in favor of an old college rival named Max, who takes over operations and begins focusing on streamlining the company. Things spiral out of control when Evan’s co-workers begin disappearing and then re-appearing as loyal office drones rather than the usual apathetic minimum wage workers they once were. Before long Evan realizes the whole office is being taken over by vampires, and, for whatever reason the master vampire has their eye on Evan’s girlfriend Amanda. Now hoping to survive, Evan teams up with his remaining co-workers to save his girlfriend before she’s eaten. O’Connell’s film actually makes vampires seem even less menacing than they ever were.
The script places them in an office setting for some crude allegory about a company takeover that ends up being interesting only until the finale. You can sense the sheer desperation to elicit some form of laughter from the group behind the film, as characters drop one-liners and bounce insults off of one another like it’s going out of style. All the while O’Connell introduces the elements of the vampires that results in some nice gory moments of carnage, but feel grossly tacked on. Plus, it’s really tough to involve yourself with the unfolding terror when not a single character is likable or charming. I almost didn’t care if anyone survived, and just wanted to see more of the solid vampire effects.
The vampire facial prosthetics are quite good, along with an accompaniment by some pretty nifty splatter effects. O’Connell anxiously aspires to deliver his own “Shaun of the Dead” (even the theme song sounds like a variation on the theme from “Shaun”) combined with “Office Space,” trying to add dimension and nuance to his central hero, but it’s unsuccessful. Instead the film feels a lot more like one long stale viral comedy segment. Only co-star Emma Fitzpatrick comes out of the affair smelling like roses, as her depiction of the hot but courageous jilted ex of Evan is fun to watch. “Blood Sucking Bastards” is brutally mediocre and instantly forgettable filler with admirable aspirations that never take off.
Featured on the Blu-Ray from Shout!, there’s a four minute outtake reel, a four minute on the set segment for the film with some B roll footage and clips, and a six minute reel of deleted scenes labeled as “Easter Eggs” for some reason. Finally, there’s the original trailer, and an audio commentary from the comedy troupe Dr. God, which compiles the film’s director, writer, and most of the cast. They have a good time with the commentary and had an apparent great time making the movie. It’s too bad the fun and raucous energy never carries over in to the final product.
Norman is a kid who has an unfortunate problem. He lives with a small family, all of whom expect a lot from him, especially his dad who badgers him constantly. Norman’s dad just wants Norman to be like every kid. One who doesn’t talk to spirits of the dead, including his grandmother who died years prior. Norman never really asks for his ability, but is aware of a long lost uncle Prenderghast that his family shunned away years ago, who shares his knack for speech beyond the grave. When his uncle Prenderghast tracks down Norman, and makes him cautious of a curse involving an ancient witch that is set to unfold in their town.
I really wanted to love “Gravy.” In fact during some rare moments it manages to win me over, especially with the way it uses its array of character actors to great effect. “Gravy” sadly falls under the weight of its own self satisfaction, eliciting a ton of flat improv, lame ad libbing, unresolved sub-plots, and a climax that goes nowhere very fast. We follow our heroine for ninety minutes all for absolutely zero pay off. Did Roday and co. run out of money or did they run out of ideas?
What “Goosebumps” accomplishes, is not just paying homage to the joy of “Goosebumps,” but to the joy of reading and writing as well. It’s not many movies that can convey the idea of writing as something purely magical, and “Goosebumps” pinpoints how books can be a portal in to something entirely otherworldly, especially if you’re a fan of the world RL Stine has built for his fans since the 1990’s. More of a meta-horror comedy than an actual series of tales, “Goosebumps” is set in Delaware where Zach and his newly widowed mother are preparing to start their lives over. With Zach trying to adapt to his new school, he meets the gorgeous Hannah (Odeya Rush), a neighbor who is home schooled by her reclusive and strict father.
The good news is that “The Ghost Dimension,” the alleged final entry in the “Paranormal Activity” series answers most of the questions fans have had since the first film. The bad new is that “The Ghost Dimension” doesn’t answer all our questions. It actually glosses over the finer details in exchange for a broader explanation that conveniently misses out on telling us what a lot of the details meant. Like, what relevance did anything that happen in “The Marked Ones” have to the overall arc? Why didn’t Katie and Micah find out they were living next to a coven of witches? And why did Hunter suddenly go missing and get adopted by an unwitting family? Also, how did Katie find Hunter?
Here were are many years later, and Ash is finally finding a life for himself that he’s happy with. Granted he lives in a trailer, picks up sleazy women at bars, and works at a store where he’s despised by his boss Mr. Roper, but it’s a life he’s comfortable with at least. After hiding out for many years from the deadites, they’ve finally found him and are hell bent on destroying him and the world. And it all happened because of Ash and a pot fueled bender with a gorgeous woman one night that caused him to irresponsibly read from the Necronomicon in an effort to impress her. All roads begin to converge as Ash begins getting horrifying signs from Deadites, causing him to pick up and move his trailer once again.