Bloodsucking Bastards

Bloodsucking Bastards is a "B" blood type vampire movie. That's not a bad thing. This film has enough comedic and acting bite to actually represent a worthwhile watch.

The storyline is utterly predictable but that's no shortcoming as there are enough lightweight laugh's and vampire antics, to keep the story rolling along. Combine this with reasonable acting and you have a winner here. Provided, of course, you accept this films "B" credentials and associated budget.

If you're in the mood for some vampire fun you could do a lot worse than this title. My advice watch it alongside polished Canadian comedic vamp flick, "Suck", for a evenings chuckle worthy vampire fun. Six out of ten from me.

Pros:

I picked this movie to see Fran Kranz ("Cabin In The Woods"), expecting a low-budget slog. What a pleasant surprise when I began laughing out loud. The script is hilarious, and a lot of work must've gone into it. I worked on a network team that reminded me of this gang: bosses, office politics, and everything. "Oh yeah, I knew that guy!" or "Hey! I was that guy!" The office building setting couldn't be simpler. The actor playing Tim especially had me cracking up. I think what I liked most was the script's confidence -- you could tell these guys knew they had a funny thing going. This was also a professionally-made film, with decent direction and camera work.

Cons:

BB works much better as a comedy than a horror flick. The effects are fine, and usually funny, but it kinda loses the spark after the first hour. Still, highly recommended.

Bam Snap!

In the same vein as horror comedies such as Shaun of the Dead, Bloodsucking Bastards tries to deliver laughs and scares but unfortunately fails to bring either to the table.

From the beginning you can see exactly what the movie is trying to achieve. An overworked underdog is put into a situation where he has to overcome monsters, get the girl, and avoid impending death. This much is readily Apparent in the trailer and is an easy enough story line to follow for a fun B movie. Unfortunately... you have to care about the characters to actually pull off that story line.

The comedic timing is off, and many of the characters are extremely unlikable, which can work in some cases, but in this case just doesn't due to the poor character development and the timing of the jokes.

I would say, stream this if you're bored, but don't plan a night around it or buy it.

Most of the humor in the film is coming from the office dynamics in a typical cubicled corporate office. I don't know if this is still current or not (I mean, it's all about open space now, right?) but it is still funny.

Then there are vampires, which are presented in a really refreshing way. In a way it is a full circle thing: vampires, as a metaphor for noblemen sucking the blood of the working people, now updated for the corporate world which just replaced finery with expensive suits.

The acting is not stellar, but it doesn't have to be. Where the movie excels is the script, with the little funny puns and interesting dialogue. While not perfect, it was mighty entertaining.

This mix of vampire comedy and daily life trudge can feel imbalanced sometimes. It's a pretty straightforward story with the usual good guy in work environment, his less productive buddies and the disgruntled love of his life. Then it adds literally gallons of corny bloody spectacle. While it may not open with much glee, the unworldly struggle towards the end proves to be ludicrously amusing.

Fran Kranz, the same guy from The Cabin in the Woods, plays as Evan, a hard working employee of a company that doesn't appreciate him enough. Instead of being promoted, he finds himself in the verge of losing his job and also probably his life as supernatural forces begin to influence the company. The movie makes fun of its characters in highly self-deprecating manner, definitely not your usual troupe to fight the undead.

There's an underlying analogy of dutifully working for scraps, which isn't polished enough at first. The fun starts as these mostly incompetent characters have to face not only their dreadful job, but the titular bloodsucking foes. It produces a hectic cynical parody that gets better as more blood is spilled.

Script is well written enough to be identifiable and the delivery from actors is often openly mocking both real as well as nocturnal life. There are lots of visual cues involved, which may be over-the-top yet strangely effectively humorous. Its pace and editing slightly resembles Shaun of the Dead, both have dead-pan sarcastic delivery of dreadful situation.

At the beginning the movie feels incessantly rude and a tad outdated, although there's enough comical content in latter half to raise the enjoyment from its stiff opening.