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Lesbian Vampire Killers

7/10

Stars: James Corden, Mathew Horne, Paul McGann, MyAnna Buring, Silvia Colloca, Vera Filatova, Ashley Mulheron, Louise Dylan, Lucy Gaskell, John Pierce Jones, Emer Kenny, Emma Clifford, Susie Amy, Travis Oliver, Margarita Hall

Director: Phil Claydon

Right from the start, let me dash all hopes that the title has been translated into English, thus making it possible that it’s actually a witty, subversive foreign satire of a commercial genre and therefore worthy of cineaste attention. What you get is what it says on the can, a low, low-budget made-in-Britain movie with no pretensions other than to fulfil the comic intentions the title promises.

Which, as long as you fancy a lewd, crude, vigorously vulgar take on Hammer Horror, filtered through shameless Carry On shenanigans and jokes worthy of the Confessions comedies with added nudity, bad language and worse taste, it delivers. But, on its own level, it’s a very, very funny and, into the bargain, quite clever homage to prime Hammer hokum, most notably in the scene where Our Heroes find themselves in a Gothic village pub straight out of The Curse of Frankenstein and other similar shockers.

When best friends Horne and Corden quit work, they end up engaged in barmy battles with the eponymous lesbian vampires in Darkest South-East England, which is about it as far as the storyline goes. Happily Paul Hupfield and Stewart Williams’ silly screenplay finds enough lurid laughs and saucy sex scenes in Our Heroes’ predicament to satisfy lovers of low comedy. In addition, aided and abetted by the stars' everything-goes performances and Claydon’s genre-affectionate direction, Lesbian Vampire Killers works perfectly well as a horrorflick send up. It's not art as we know it Scotty but it is good dirty fun.

Alan Frank

UK 2009. UK Distributor: Momentum. Colour.
86 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 3, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.

Review date: 15 Mar 2009