The Radleys

The Radleys are a highly thought of, upstanding family in The community, but they hide a dark secret, they're vampires. Their solidarity and normal life ends when the younger members learn who and what they are.

I was seriously looking forward to this film, the list of names, Euros Lyn, Kelly Macdonald and the wonderful Damian Lewis.....sadly the realisation was lacking.

It wasn't funny enough to be a comedy, wasn't dark enough to be a horror, not was it clever enough to be a thriller, it just made for amiable enough background noise.

Lewis clearly had a bit of fun playing two parts, but ultimately it was a waste of his talents.

Are we really now in the age of The Vegan Vampire, it was always going to happen, as a child I used to love Count Duckula, the only Vegetarian vampire duck, even he'd struggle with this one.

Disappointing.

5/10.

Matt Haig was recommended to me this year and I've read little else since. His non fiction books such as reasons to live are a must and really resonate, The Midnight library was brilliant too (fiction). Being a lifelong horror (and especially vampire genre) fan to boot m, I therefore refused to follow our house rule of not watching anything less than a 6/10 IMDb rated film, I subsequently had to go solo and ultimately paid the price for deviating. This is a poor adaption of the what is one of Matt's less engaging books and with too much background missing and story changes to appease some misguided social duty it really misses the mark. I gave it a 5 as I could appreciate what it should have been having read the book, however if you went straight in to the film I think it would be less. I really hope future film adaptions of his books are more worthy as he is a fantastic story teller and human being!

This one will probably leave the shock and horror addicted as cold as the corpses of the victims.

This is a new take on the vampire theme exposing the internal challenges on the other side of the fence.. It starts with a seemingly ordinary family with a dark secret: they are vampires. They choose not to drink blood Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis manage to pull off the difficult task of showing the nuances behind giving into cravings and fighting those cravings in search for something better and the dangers of not dealing from truth. I very much doubt this movie would have been successful without stars of this caliber.

The rest caste have supported and exposed the sensitivities and choices that lead down the path of darkness or the bumpier road to something more meaningful and each was given their time to shine.

A bit of a Hollywood ending wraps it all up.

I liked it.

The Radleys is a painfully dull, pointless attempt at a vampire comedy that fails on every level. Damian Lewis, who deserves much better, is completely wasted in this lifeless suburban vampire story, which has no bite and zero humor. The film's weak attempts at social commentary are as bland as its characters, turning it into a tedious mess of worn-out vampire clichés and shallow family drama. The pacing drags, the jokes fall flat, and there's no real horror to speak of. Director seems confused about whether to focus on comedy or drama, leaving the audience stuck in a boring limbo. The Radleys is a bloodless disaster that should've stayed buried, only serving to remind us how far the vampire genre has fallen. Lewis ought to fire his agent for dragging him into this cinematic nightmare, which is about as thrilling as watching paint dry at a funeral.

The cast are good. That's not the problem. It's what the film does with them that is the problem.

The parents discovery in the Forrest was chilling and touching. But the lead up to it was cliche and predictable. This level of lazy story telling would be the theme.

The film had glimpses of being different. Yet the execution was incredibly dull and non sensical. So many scenes require a huge disconnect from reality. The plot holes being big and plenty.

As for the story. Well there wasn't really anything I would call clever, interesting or new. It just zombie walked from one dull slow boring scene to another.

The climax was painfully obvious and poorly done. No tension. No logic. No effort. All very silly and pointless.

These actors deserved more. So did the viewer.

Not recommended.