Bloodsucking Bastards

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.

The story of Evan Sanders (Fran Kranz), a dutiful and overworked employee stuck at a soul-killing corporation with his beautiful co-worker and girlfriend Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick) and his slacker best friend Tim (Joey Kern). Evan's world begins to crumble when Amanda dumps him and his boss Ted (Joel Murray) hands his coveted promotion to his nemesis Max (Pedro Pascal).

The film is marketed as a mix between "Office Space" and "Shaun of the Dead". Individually, these are some high bars, and together may be impossible to match. But the comparison is fair. "Office Space" definitely seems to have been an influence. And while this may not become the cult classic of either of those two, it excels far better than most horror comedies ever manage to.

"Horror comedy" as a genre (or subgenre) is more challenging than it sounds. Some in recent years have been great, including "Tucker and Dale Versus Evil" and the aforementioned "Shaun". Many more fail. "Brutal Massacre", for example, was chock full of horror icons and tried to be a good comedy, but ends up rather flat, ultimately failing in both horror and comedy categories. "Bloodsucking B..." gets the balance right. Some of it is downright funny, and there is more blood and gore here than... well, almost any movie ever.

The comedy also works on multiple levels. Most of it is obvious, but there are enough references to keep you finding more hidden gems. Talking of "calling in sick to see a baseball game" is clearly a reference to "Ferris Bueller". But is the name Max a reference to "Lost Boys"? Probably, but maybe not.

Definitely worth a watch. Even if you do not buy a copy, at least rent it or check it out on demand.

Bloodsucking Bastards is a fun ride, has some nice gore and some actual laugh out loud scenes. The cast was good for the most part and helped keep the tone of the movie nice and light. There were a few characters on the annoying side but not enough to fully pull the movie down. One of my main complaints would be that things do take a while to truly get going, but at least there was some decent humor to keep things entertaining.

This was a nice surprising treat, I really like horror comedies but so many of them seem to fall flat. "Bloodsucking Bastards" isn't perfect and some of the humor was a little too dry but it definitely did a good job of being fun and not really taking itself seriously at all.

6.5/10

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.

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.