The Radleys

In even-paced contemporary British vampire flick "The Radleys" Kelly Macdonald & Damien Lewis, with teen kids Bo Bragason & Harry Baxendale, seem a regular middle-class Yorkshire-coast family... til the kids learn (the hard way) that they're actually all vampires (albeit abstaining ones). Lewis' active-vampire bro (also played by Lewis) comes to help them through this tricky period, but makes matters worse (drawing in suspicious neighbour Shaun Parkes, fearing for the safetly of son Jay Lycurgo). Director Euros Lyn & writer Talitha Stevenson may want it to be the first of a new "Twilight"-esque franchise, but it lacks the requisite bite, flair and style for that. Mediocre.

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.

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.

A bit harsh the ratings this lighthearted vampire flick gets on here. Well that's only my opinion, and my wife's I guess as she enjoyed it as well. Okay it's not a movie that will blow you away, but which one really does in this genre? It's certainly good enough to watch once, and although some actors could have done better overall it wasn't all that bad. I've seen Damian Lewis and Kelly MacDonald doing better in other movies but they were still enjoyable to watch. I'm glad I watched it. Would I watch it again in the future? Probably not, unless I forget everything about it and then I wouldn't mind rewatching it.

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.