It’s always a worry when someone you love goes on to do bigger things, in the hope that they will be better. That was certainly the feeling I had when I heard that dear old James Corden and Matthew Horne were fleeing the confines of that little box in the corner (commonly referred to as a television), and taking a jaunt on to pastures new – cinema.
Now I bloody love Gavin and Stacey (alright?) it’s quite frankly the best thing I’ve seen on the telly for an age. It’s fantastic. And so it was with much anticipation and trepidation that I plonked myself down to watch Smiffy and Gav-a-lar make their transition to the big screen in Lesbian Vampire Killers.
Hapless Jimmy (Horne) has just been ditched for the millionth time by his bitch of a girlfriend Judy (Lucy Gaskell), so his best mate Fletch (Corden), more obsessed with getting some ‘action’ than a pubescent teenager, suggests a trip away to relieve Jimmy of his pain. Steering clear of Ibiza, to the annoyance of Fletch, Jimmy settles on a walking holiday in the yokel village of Cragwych, Norfolk.
However, when a pub landlord suggests they stay in his cottage in the middle of a forest with a bounty of buxom beauties, things look peachy keen for the pair. Little do they know that they are being used as pawns by the villagers in their attempts to stave off an ancient vampire curse, which they look set to become embroiled in when the majority of their alluring companions are taken by the dark side.
All except Lotte (MyAnna Buring) who just happens to have developed an instant crush on Jimmy, and lets on that he’s the one she’d like to be deflowered by. Yep, she’s a virgin, and therefore perfect fodder for the vampire lesbians who need someone pure to help them resurrect their Queen Carmilla (Silvia Colloca). Their plight is helped by the coincidence that Jimmy just happens to have more than a slight similarity to the knight who sparked off the olde hex…
What follows is mostly shots of these female vampires, mostly naked or at least semi-clad, getting it on or writing around, accompanied by a barrage of adolescent jokes about cock swords and more than a sprinkling of KY Jelly - the ‘blood’ they have is special. Admittedly there are a few moments where the laughs deserved more than a little titter, but on the whole it’s all a little bit, well, juvenile.
Lesbian Vampire Killers, it seems, was attempting to cash in on the recent successes of Spaced duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost - Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). Certainly a comparison can be drawn to the former, a simple replacing of the zombies for vampires, but there was something altogether more charming about Shaun. Its jokes relied less on ten-a-penny gags about tits and arses, and more on spoofing the genre it paid homage to. This change of channels just didn’t quite transmit, and looks a more than a little blurry around the edges.
I have no doubt that the film will be a success when it hits the multiplexes next week; the title alone is enough to draw in a hoard of minors, and I’m sure they’ll find all the one-liners very amusing (just as the lads in front of me found them). If you’re like me though, and love the pairing of Corden and Horne in their infamous televisual capacities (ignoring their painful-to-watch new BBC3 show), I think you’ll be altogether bored by the ‘storyline’ and the worrying implication that there might just be another one to follow… I won't be there to see it.
