The Night Watchmen

Saturday afternoon and not feeling my best. Wanted a fun movie that I didn't have to use any brain cells on. This fit the bill perfectly! Campy fun, not to be taken seriously. It's low budget but production values were pretty good. Acting was decent and the story, well it's just a misfits vs vampires story so not much to elaborate on there. As a comedy it did it's job, it entertained me for an hour and a half and made me laugh a few times. Every movie doesn't need to be a thought provoking cinematic masterpiece. And all movies shouldn't be compared to those that are. Sometimes one and done and thanks for the laughs is all that's needed.

Nice little vampire horror comedy - a clown vampire got a really big appetite and a bunch of night watchmen are trying to stop him on his killing spree. Not outstanding but still got some nice effects and funny moments, with some lengths in the end.

In THE NIGHT WATCHMEN, what seems like another dull night of security duty turns into a ghastly fight for survival, when a coffin is mistakenly delivered to the wrong address. Said sarcophagus contains the remains of a certain Blimpo the clown, who had perished in a mysterious tragedy. In Romania!

Unfortunately, for all involved, including the title characters and some office workers, Blimpo's not quite dead! He's undead! Soon, with the help of his fellow costumed performers, the entire city is besieged by a vampire holocaust!

Insanely over the top, hilariously funny, and containing oceans of blood, this movie simultaneously breathes new life into both the vampire and killer clown sub-genres. Unexpected fun from opening to ending credits!

P.S.- Watch for horror goddess, Tiffany Shepis in a glorious cameo!...

No redeeming social value - check. Gratuitous nudity - check. Way too much blood - check. Acting - passable. Comedy is hard, and these guys try and mostly succeed. Definitely worth a brain off, beer in hand watch. When I saw the IMDB score it was 5.3. Way too low. If you're a reviewer that likes overly long French dramas, you'll hate it.

The comedy-horror sub-genre is quite a hard one to execute successfully, usually the comedy lessens the horror or vice-versa and the film winds up being neither one thing nor the other. The Night Watchmen is another in this line of movies but it is definitely one which succeeds better than most. Set in an office building in Baltimore, a coffin containing the body of a famous clown who died while on tour in Romania is wrongly left on the premises. Before long, the corpse is revealed as a powerful vampire and soon many people fall victim to both him and his minions. Its left to the inept security guards to save the day.

There's no question that this one works much better as a comedy than as a horror. Which kind of explains why it begins very strongly but fades a bit in the second half. The reason being that, as is often the way in these types of movies, the action ramps up in the latter half with more emphasis on the horror elements. But it was the character interactions that impressed me most, with a lot of good comic acting from the cast and a lot of funny dialogue. Much of the humour is genuinely laugh-out-loud, even if they did overplay the fart joke somewhat! The cast work very well together and understand the comic material very well, there are no name actors here except for James Remar of Warriors (1979) fame, who plays a slightly sleazy office worker. From the horror side of the fence this one has zombie-like vampires and an evil clown, so it's a bit of a selection box. It does ultimately boil down to a group of people trapped in a building fighting back against hordes of monsters which isn't the most interesting or original set-up, however, I would say that this one is still well worth catching on account of its comic interplay and sense of mischief.