Onur Tukel (director)
Monster Pictures (studio)
18 (certificate)
86 minutes (length)
23 February 2015 (released)
21 February 2015
Eric splits up from his long term girlfriend after she proposes to him. He loves her but cant admit that to himself. So to get over her he tries to internet date but is so awful, most can stay the course. His friends think he is a major idiot and avoid him and his work place is more hostile to him then Chelsea fans to ethnic minorities. This all changes when he meets a vampire on a side street in New York. After he is attacked and bitten, everything changes for the better. Girls want his body and in many different sexual ways. He has a vampire following and a best vampire friend. He just might just win back the girl of his dreams.
Imagine if you took Woody Allen mixed it with exploitation cinema and then threw in a horny boy then you have this movie. The funny thing is that if Onur cut a little out of himself and his Phillip Roth style sexual desire, he could have been on to something. Onur is excellent as the blabbing idiot that has so many problems in his life, he makes you feel a little better. Verbal diarrhoea is funny but the sound of one man prattle on can be awful if not kept in check. This is where the film falls down. Onur has a heart and it is a film that is frank about how life can dump on you. The issue with this is Onur has the nice but wet, obnoxious guy down but he will not stop him and it seems solely because he wrote and directs as well.
Comedy is present here in bucket loads. The support cast are funny and very good. The gore and blood mix is also well done. Black comedy works best when taken with a little pinch of salt. The script is solid enough and the story actually refreshes the genre. That is to say the horror comedy one. It is solely the director, who we can see has talent (Onur will hopefully make more films) but he should hire a decent editor and they should work separately. Cut the film with more emphasis on the group and less on the self. I wanted to add a little aside here. Many have said this film is an homage to 80s horror. I felt that it is an homage to 90s indie cinema and the works of say Walt Stillman etc. They have done the groundwork that is being trodden here.
In the end it is the problem that Onur is not an editor. I should actually say that he may not be an editor. Either that or he didn’t know when to say that is enough of him. Welles did this and did this well. Warren Beatty did this and was less successful. Onur does but just can’t bring himself to cut the excess out of his picture. It makes it just go on and on. Forever…