Lesbian Vampire Killers

When Jimmy is dumped by his girlfriend for the umpteenth time, he persuades his friend Fletch to join him on a hiking holiday. Arriving in a small town, they are sent to a cottage where there is free accommodation. It also happens to have a camper van full of girls staying there too! But they discover that there is an ancient curse on the girls in the village, where when a girl turns 18 they become a lesbian vampire.....

This movie is the latest to try and combine the horror and comedy genres. It certainly gets the humour content spot-on. Paul Hupfield and Stewart Williams have written a very funny script. A lot of the humour does rely on the chemistry of James Corden and Mathew Horne as Fletch and Jimmy, and they are both very good too. Paul McGann gives good support as a priest who helps fight the evil in the area. The girls in the movie are very attractive, if not the best actors.

Phil Claydon directs the movie quite well. The movie looks impressive, the sets a throwback to the Hammer horror movies of the sixties.

But where the movie fails is the horror element. There never any real scares that the best horror comedy movies have. It could be that this movie is aimed purely as a comedy, that happens to be horror set, but as it is billed as a horror-comedy it has to be judged on those terms.

The effects and make-up are pretty good, and because of a lack of blood (when the vampires die, a white substance erupts from them), it is only rated a 15 in the UK.

The movie is fast paced and never out-stays it welcome and for it's running time, will have you laughing a lot. Sadly though it lacks the horror element to put it up there with the better horror comedies.

This is without a doubt a movie all teenage boys wish they could have made. Dumb without a doubt. No real worth other than cheeky humor and showing off women in a tawdry way. But come on this is what the entire movie was about.

I hope that the budget wasn't all that much so that maybe they can do a sequel with werewolves so that Fletch can get what he asked for in this movie.

To all the people out there why slam a movie when the movie was made to be like this. It's not like they were trying to make another Dracula (1992). This was nothing but fun campy humor. And well done at that.

Centuries ago, Baron Wolfgang MacLaren vanquished the Vampire Queen Carmilla (Silvia Colloca) in the remote Cragwich; however, before decapitating the evil vampire, she curses the locals and descendants of the baron, swearing that every woman would turn into a lesbian vampire on the eighteenth birthday. On the present days, the clumsy and naive cuckold Jimmy (Mathew Horne) is dumped again by his girlfriend Judy (Lucy Gaskell) and misses her. His best friend Fletch (James Corden) is fired in his job of clown after hitting an annoying boy. The two friends are broken and decide to camp in the countryside to forget their problems, and Jimmy throws a dart in a map in a pub to decide where they should go. They head to Cragwich and when they arrive in the bar Baron's Rest, they see four hot girls leaving the place in a Kombi. The innkeeper offers the old Mircalla cottage in the woods for them, the same place the girls will lodge. Meanwhile, Lotte (MyAnna Buring), Heide (Tiffany Mulheron), Anke (Louise Dylan) and Trudi (Ashley Mulheron) have trouble with their van and Jimmy and Fletch reach them in the forest and they offer a ride to the guys to the cottage. They introduce themselves as students of folklore and they are researching the Vampire Queen Carmilla. When Fletch believes that he will have a night of beer and sex with three sexy girls and Jimmy and Lotte have a crush on each other, the cottage is surrounded by a group of lesbian vampires that vampires intend to use Jimmy and Lotte's blood to bring Carmilla back to life. They are abducted by the vampires, but Fletch escapes and meets Reverend Vicar (Paul McGann) that tells him that Jimmy is a descendant of the baron and only hope to stop the evil curse of Cragwich.

The B-movie "Lesbian Vampire Killers" is indeed an entertaining silliness with a funny story, supported by a stylish cinematography, very sexy women and two imbeciles in the lead roles. There are many good moments, and I particularly liked when Jimmy invites by chance the lesbian vampires to enter in the cottage; or the reference to a gay werewolf inclusive in the very last scene; or when Judy meets her lover at his home. This movie will certainly never be nominated to an Oscar and is not recommended to intellectuals or fans of art movie; however, for an average viewer like me that knows what might expect from a movie with the title "Lesbian Vampire Killers", he or she will not be disappointed and will certainly laugh a lot. The beautiful and sexy actresses have been very well cast by the producers. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available (only on 30 October 2009)

Note: On 29 January 2021, I saw this film again on Blu-Ray. Title (Brazil): "Matadores de Vampiras Lésbicas" ("Lesbian Vampire Killers")

The film is a continuous quote: Dracula, American Werewolf in London, Withnail and I, Ed Wood's films, Roger Corman's horror movies with Vincent Price (Paul McGann's excellent vicar's tone is very reminiscent of Price's in Corman's interpretations of Poe) and all the Hammer horrors with lesbian undertones.

More than just a spoof the film is in a genre of its own being a "spoof-of-a-spoof" like few others before. This can make it difficult to understand just what the film sets out to do if one is expecting a horror, it certainly is not a horror or an action movie. The comparisons to Shaun of the Dead are also a big red herring and not very helpful, as this is a much more Post-Modern citation exercise with references far wider and in many more genres; it's not simply a case of an attempt in emulating for vampires what the Romero zombie movies did for Shaun of the Dead, but altogether a much more varied and inclusive exercise. L.V.K also takes itself less seriously to a degree than one would not believe in a feature length film, but it manages to do so in a way that is very entertaining if one is prepared to fore-go most of the expectations of what a film should be about.

The writing could have been polished up further, it could have done with a final re-write to tie it all together, and this is the film's main weakness, but there is enough comedy in it to laugh every few minutes if one is prepared to embark on this journey of quotation spotting. Some of the lines are so outrageously camp that with different actors it certainly would not have worked, but the film has been brilliantly cast and even the most improbable lines are recited and acted with just the right level of irony.

The sound effects are one of the strongest elements, together with the lesbian vampires' epic hair-dos which are highly imaginative and an exercise in quotations in itself, a strong effort by the art directors in what is a low-budget movie that makes no apologies for it. Phil Claydon's directing is full of enjoyment, he is constantly joking with the cameras and choices of shots that are commentaries on a commentary, further spoofing Hitchcock in the shower sequence for example.

This is a film might require a specific understanding of the Post-Modern culture we are living in to be appreciated, or it can simply be enjoyed for what it is. It is neither violent nor scary, but this is not necessarily a bad thing and it might be here that lies its charm, those who will let go of politically correct preoccupations of what a film or a title of a film should be about will inevitably enjoy this light hearted comedy as it has plenty of opportunities to laugh out loud, if you are not too worried what the person next to you or the eminent critics will think of you and you just join in the fun!

This is one of those titles that make you expect the worst, but make you have to watch it. So I took some time on a weary afternoon, and I gave it a shot.

The first minutes I was happily surprised. Settings and costumes chosen with care, good camera-work and effects (none of the vague stuff that surrounds low-budget flicks), and some witty dialogues. Typical British, yes, but that's a positive remark. The main characters, and their main philosophy, was much to my liking. What follows is more of the same, and I never felt the need to fast-forward or to hide my face and ears in shame. My eyes definitely could appreciate the displayed beauty, whereas in England, these girls should actually be harder to find.

Okay, so the critics will bash on the plot (no sh*t, Sherlock) and the overacting in some cases (again, it's not a candidate for the Oscars). True, no need to expect the best either, but if that's what you're going for, then why choose this movie.

A good time, with true laughs ... I got what I came for.