The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER Published: 19 March 2009
Matthew Horne, James Corden and Paul McGann in Lesbian Vampire Killers
It’s Horne and Corden’s public exposure overkill
LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS
Directed by Phil Claydon
Certificate 15
IT’S not simply the teenage male fantasies that dominate, or the unoriginal plot.
It’s not even the cranky jokes and drama school delivery that make Matthew Horne and James Corden’s first feature as pallid as a vampire’s victim.
It is just the sense that the comedy duo are writing cheques they can’t cash, and playing off the reputations they earned through a TV sitcom whose attraction was lost on me.
The pair are best mates, Fletch and Jimmy, who head off into the great Welsh countryside on a gentle trek.
Things begin to go wrong when they find themselves used as sacrificial lambs to slake the thirst of a bunch of cursed womenfolk who change into lesbian, bloodsucking night creatures when they turn 18.
Cue lots of vamps showing off their curves and licking their lips as they nibble seductively at each other, and cack-handed attempts by our heroes to save their skins and lift the curse.
Corden is clearly an actor with some talent – he was good in The History Boys, and one duff film does not a career ruin.
But this one smacks of the Morecambe and Wise 1960s vehicle That Riviera Touch in terms of plot flimsiness.
The difference is that Morecambe and Wise had built up their fan-base, allowing them simply to show up and garner the giggles.
Someone needs to tell Corden and Horne that they have yet to earn such deep affection, and, on this evidence, are not likely to.
It seems the magic has begun to wear off. The pair’s much-vaunted new sketch show is a dud. I personally never got Gavin and Stacey to start off with – boring people showing us their boring lives.
Yet they seem to be everywhere now.
They presented the Brits – a sure-fire sign that you are not worthy of more than 30
seconds of our attention.
And in LVK, they are the same pair doing the same stunts they pull in Gavin and Stacey, just in film length.
The result is simply to make them that much more irritating. thriller.