The Radleys

It follows a seemingly ordinary family with a dark secret: they are vampires. They choose not to drink blood despite their natural cravings, but their truth is revealed one day.

Kelly Macdonald is strong as Helen Radley. Bo Bragason is strong also as Clara Radley. Damian Lewis and the rest of the cast are pretty vague and don't really have any presence. Casting is a huge error.

The story is about a family of vampires who don't drink people's blood anymore. The problem is, there is no story. It's more like a few days in the life of a boring family of vampires. We lurch from scene to scene with nothing really happening. There are constant scenes where people just look at each other, or stare at the wall. Nothing is happening and no feeling is being communicated to us. People are just standing or sitting, doing nothing for seconds at a time. None of the characters except Helen and Clara really have any personality at all. Possibly one of the worst characters I've seen for a very long time is the pseudo-hippie-vampire-chief Will, also played by Damian Lewis. The character is not very well put together and Lewis's second rate acting abilities can't make anything of the character.

So we've got mostly poor actors, badly cast, with a poor script, and amateur videography and directing. Then we're told it's not just a horror, but also a comedy. I've just finished watching it and I honestly can't recall anything remotely funny happening during the entire show. It's almost amusing how bad the film is, maybe that's what they mean? Ultimately, there is no point to the film. There's no meaning for it. It's nothing more than a fly on the wall documentary of some boring middle class vampires going through their daily routines in a boring way. It really aws tedious to watch and when the end finally came and a long, meaningless speech had come to a close, I said "Finally, thank god that's finished." I give it a 2 and I think that's being generous.

The Good: Interesting themes as metaphors for Vampirism (sexuality, addiction, ancestry, teen angst), decent performances from Kelly McDonald and Damian Lewis, original British town-setting of Whitby, gorgeous cinematography.

The Bad: Falsely adveritised as a comedy-horror/thriller. "The Radleys" is none of those things, not scary or dark enough to be a horror, not funny enough to be a comedy, or thrilling enough to be a thriller. If you want a comedy-horror/thriller, check out any of the greats from the 80's ("Fright NIght", "An American Werewolf in London", "The Lost Boys" etc.) No suspense or stakes (pun intended). No particularly engaging characters, they're all just a bit meh (even Uncle Will). Shaun Parkes is criminally underused as a practical mute throughout the whole film, despite maybe 5 lines of dialogue. Very poorly paced.

The Verdict: At best, "The Radleys" can only be described as a familial-drama with specks of horror (it doesn't romanticise the horror enough or show you the seductive sleazy appeal of the other side to be classified as suburban-gothic like, say, "American Beauty"). Despite the interesting above-mentioned themes and parallels raised in a grounded setting, none are properly developed nor explored ("Bones & All" does it waaaaaaaaaay better) and for all the talk of bloodlust being the most pleasurable thing in the world, you never see anyone having any fun with it. The best part is probably the third and final act (last 15 minutes), but it's a snooze-fest to get there and makes you wish it was something more... satisfying than a TV movie. Even more so as a brit-flick that dares not belong to the gamut of historical epics, rom-coms, or biopics.

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.

An attempt at bringing something new to the vampire canon but literally bites off more than it can chew with a story that progresses to an absolute snore fest of disinterest and unwelcome turns. Literally no element of the story pays off and the telegraphing of the eventual and obvious ending provides little more than a very basic resolution to a story that will age like old milk. It's well made and the cast are admirable in an obvious attempt to be part of some sort of subversive take on the vampire genre, unfortunately it will be forgotten and make barely a blip with any dark horror fan. If the writers had spent more time trying to properly build the intrigue with the ex policeman and his attempt to discover the truth about his wife or explored how they covered their tracks or their mind control powers rather than shelving literally every element in effort to push what is a really weak narrative with all the obvious modern tropes and gay/bi characters. It's a streaming title for those with a non critical take on film and enjoy Damien Lewis, saying that I do feel that Kelly Macdonald needs to avoid these type of roles because she seems almost typecast in them. As a movie, it's in the horror genre but is not scary or gory, it's also in the comedy genre without being funny, it isn't edgy, far from intriguing and not overly entertaining, just a movie that showed some potential but proved to be nothing more than 'just a good trailer' because at its core it treads an obvious path that others have been down thousands of times before. I marked it down because it seems to aim for such mediocrity, it almost feels like it had more to offer and got lost in the edit.

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!