The Vampires of Bloody Island

Director: Allin Kempthorne
Writers: Allin Kempthorne, Pamela Kempthorne
Producers: Allin Kempthorne, Pamela Kempthorne
Cast: Pamela Kempthorne, Allin Kempthorne, Leon Hamilton
Country: UK
Year of release: 2010
Reviewed from DVD
Website: www.bloodyisland.co.uk

Since it was originally released, a full seven years ago, I have been meaning to watch this film, just to see for myself quite how awful it is. Self-released and self-promoted, the movie’s marketing screams ‘terrible’. The film’s website refers to it as a “hilarious cult vampire comedy movie” and “a vamptastically entertaining send-up of every vampire film you've ever loved!” Such hyperbole sets off a klaxon to any would-be viewer (or reviewer).

Comedy, as I think has been well-established over the years, is very difficult to do on a low budget. A few films have managed it - Stalled, Kill Keith, Evil Aliens, Take Me to Your Leader – but plenty more have crashed and burned: Le Fear 2, Stag Night of the Dead, Whatever Happened to Pete Blaggit, Zorg and Andy and many others so desperately short on laughs that I can’t even bring myself to review them. Here’s one thing I’ve noticed over the years though: genuinely good comedies rarely feel the need to tell people how ‘entertaining’ or ‘hilarious’ they are.

The film’s website has lots of laudatory, unlinked review quotes from sources I’ve never heard of. To be fair, it did get a positive review in Fortean Times, but that’s not really a journal of cinematic record. There are no external review links on the IMDB (except this one). All but two of the Amazon reviews are five-star raves; the remaining pair are one-star excoriations. The signs are not good.

Everything about The Vampires of Bloody Island just looks terrible. The website, the DVD sleeve, the trailer, everything designed to appeal to a potential audience has the absolute opposite effect. Even the character names on the IMDB page suggest this will be about as humorous as a root canal. Unless you’re an obsessive goth who thinks anything with a vampire in is an instant classic, one’s instinct is to stay away.

But my job (well, it’s hardly a job…) is to watch these things so you don’t have to. Cover me – I’m going in…

Thus, after seven years, I finally picked up a copy and watched it. And, because I write these reviews in a spirit of absolute honesty, I’ll tell you this. The Vampires of Bloody Island is nowhere near as bad as I expected. The cringeworthy marketing does this film a disservice. It’s not the worst comedy ever made. Not even the worst horror comedy ever made. Heck, it’s not even the worst British horror comedy about vampires ever made. A few minor aspects of it are moderately clever.

Let me be clear: in no way am I saying that this is A Good Film. The Vampires of Bloody Island is painfully unfunny amateur rubbish and I cannot with a straight face recommend it to you in any way unless you are obsessively completist about vampires and/or British horror. It’s awful. Just not as barrel-scrapingly awful as I previously assumed.

Hey, credit where credit’s due is my motto.

The set-up is this. Morticia de’Ath (Pamela Kempthorne) is a centuries-old vampire living in a castle on an obscure Cornish island, tended to by her mute zombie manservant Grunt. Her goal is to be able to go outside in sunlight, towards which end neighbouring mad scientist Dr N Sane is working on an elixir. The one remaining ingredient is the blood of a mortal, born of vampire, who has returned to their birthplace of their own free will.

To this end, some decades ago Morticia had a daughter by a mortal man, who then took the baby away and raised it alone. In London we meet Susan Swallows (also Pamela Kempthorne), a clutzy  employee at a soft drink company which produces, among other disgusting flavours, Garlic Cola. Grunt surreptitiously arranges for Susan to be sent off as a sales rep to Bloody Island, Cornwall. She is accompanied by her colleague Kevin Smallcock (Allin Kempthorne) who maintains that his surname is pronounced ‘Smelkirk’.

On arrival at the island, Kevin and Susan are welcomed as guests by Morticia but after a dinner party incident they are thrown into a dungeon along with tweed-wearing parapsychologist Professor Van Rental. Dr N Sane completes the elixir, then Morticia uses it to raise a small army of vampires, but Kevin, Susan and Van Rental escape and defeat the undead using water pistols filled with Garlic Cola. Susan spends most of the third act parading around in her underwear, adding a fur coat to her costume partway through.

You can see that there is some attempt at an original plot here, bolstered out by Kevin and Susan’s journey to Bloody Island. This includes a stop at a prehistoric monument where they first encounter Van Rental, an overnight stay in a guest house where Kevin gets vampirised by a topless Morticia, and an encounter with a ferryman who is terrified by the name ‘Bloody Island’ and refuses to row them across ‘Sheet Creek’.

There are some genuine attempts at humour on show, including unamusing, vaguely rude, sub-sub-sub-Carry On character names. The Garlic Cola stuff is original and justifies the denouement as assorted vampires disappear in a puff of computer graphics. The scene with the ferryman meanwhile is a self-contained sub-sub-sub-Python sketch, the sort of thing that might raise a smile in a village pantomime. You know, some ‘comedies’ I’ve sat through have been so bad that I genuinely couldn’t work out where the jokes were. All due credit to The Vampires of Bloody Island: it is very obvious where the jokes are. That’s because they are old, weak, laboured and for the most part desperately unfunny (and kind of have a metaphorical neon sign above them saying ‘comedy bit’). But at least there are jokes.

The attempted humour, as you can tell, is very broad and unsubtle. If I was asked to sum the movie up in one sentence, it would be thus: this is a film that wants to be Carry On Screaming but ends up as Carry On England.

Still, could have been worse. Could have ended up as Carry On Emannuelle. Anyway…

Speaking of things which are unsubtly labelled, Allin Kempthorne is one of those film-makers who feels the need to put a typewriter caption at the start of every scene telling us where it is, what day it is and the precise time. The first two are always obvious from context (assuming we haven’t got bored and started checking our emails) and the last doesn’t matter. The most extreme example is on the journey when Susan tells Kevin she wants to stop off at somewhere called Devil’s Lookout. We get a close-up of a map, Susan’s finger pointing to something clearly labelled ‘Devil’s Lookout’. Then we see the car pulling up next to a sign reading ‘Devil’s Lookout’. Kevin gets out of the car saying: “Here we are, Devil’s Lookout.”

And a typewriter caption clatters across screen to tell us that this specific location is… Devil’s Lookout!

Last time I saw anything like this was in Summer of the Massacre. And while The Vampires of Bloody Island isn’t anywhere near as bad as Bryn Hammond’s classic tale of ball pein hammers and rubber masks, these typewriter captions are another red flag that we’re dealing with people who don’t really understand how film narrative works.

This is a shame as Allin Kempthorne clearly does know how to make a film. The direction is perfectly competent here. The actual camera-work isn’t great but I’ve seen worse. The editing is actually rather good, particularly in scenes where Morticia and Susan appear together. Through judicious use of stand-ins, the director is able to make us completely forget that these are the same woman. Or nearly forget anyway. Probably the biggest hole in the plot, one that cannot be excused just because this is a low-budget silly comedy, is that that when Kevin and Susan meet Morticia they completely ignore the fact that (a) she looks exactly like Susan and (b) she has bloody great fangs sticking out of her mouth.

All the above notwithstanding, let’s get to the elephant in the room, which is Pamela Kempthorne herself. And I don’t mean that in a personal way, but some of what I’m about to type will seem very personal indeed. That is, I’m afraid, unavoidable. If you take the lead role (actually two lead roles) in a feature film and promote it heavily, and if you spend much of that film in a state of undress, you must expect people to comment on your physical appearance. And the simple truth is that Mrs Kempthorne has neither the figure nor the face to play either of these roles. When she gets undressed, flashing her boobs and her bum, frankly it’s more frightening than the last half-dozen serious vampire films I watched put together.

Morticia is supposed to be a seductive, sexy vampire. And for Allin Kempthorne to cast his wife in the role is pure vanity. If my wife decided she was going to make a film about Ancient Rome and cast me in the lead role as a gladiator, it would be utterly ridiculous. It would make me, and her – and by association anyone else involved with the movie – look like idiots. Because I’m an overweight, underheight, 48-year-old nerd with bad skin, a large nose, overgrown eyebrows, a speech impediment and a haircut that has barely changed since 1973. Kirk Douglas I ain’t. And Ingrid Pitt she ain’t, sorry.

Under her husband’s direction, Pamela Kempthorne swans through the film like she’s some sort of cross between Barbara Steele and Barbara Shelley. When in fact she’s somewhere on a line between Barbara Bush and Barbara Cartland. She thinks she’s Madeline Smith but she looks more like Madeleine Albright. And nobody ever wanted to see the Secretary of State’s tits, not even Bill Clinton.

Nor does Pamela Kempthorne convince as Susan Swallows (hoho, very amusing). Frankly, the daughter looks even older than the mother (which, to be fair, given that the latter is an ageless vampire, doesn’t actually break any narrative rules). While Mrs Kempthorne as Morticia is waving her bazongas about in one scene, seducing Kevin Smallcock (god, that’s funny) in the guest house, the sequence is intercut with Mrs Kempthorne as Susan in another room, curled up on the bed, squeezed into a pair of pink panties emblazoned with the phrase ‘Pretty princess’. I actually had to rewind and pause to work out what it said. I never, ever want to do that again.

We are supposed to accept that, after initial hostility at the soft drink firm office, Kevin keeps making moves on Susan and eventually they fall in love. I’ve no doubt that the Kempthornes are happily married (since October 1998) and blissfully in love with each other, and that’s lovely and wonderful and all. But this is cinema, not real life. And when you see them on screen together, honestly you’d assume they were mother and son.

Compounding the problem (yet somehow also ameliorating it) is that Allin Kempthorne himself is a good-looking guy, with his floppy hair and cheeky smile. When I watched this movie, I kept thinking: well, I wouldn’t climb over him to get to her. Look, when a male viewer who ticks the ‘straight’ box on diversity forms finds your male romantic lead more attractive than your female romantic lead, there’s something wrong with your casting. (Unless of course the male lead is Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt, in which case hell yeah! You know where you can stick your diversity forms then. Don’t try to deny it, you’ve all thought the same.)

On top of which, Allin Kempthorne is also a good actor, especially impressive given that he’s directing himself which always makes life harder. He’s had a few walk-on parts in things like The Colour of Magic, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and episodes of Black Mirror, Horrible Histories, EastEnders (as a clown) and Doctor Who (as a mime artist). He has also been a stand-in several times, including doubling for Rowan Atkinson on Johnny English, plus Cronenberg’s Spider, Julian Richards’ Silent Cry and a brace of Harry Potters.

Mrs Kempthorne, on the other hand, is simply one of the worst actors who has ever crossed my TV screen. I know I’ll never win a Bafta (not for playing a gladiator, anyway) but that doesn’t mean I can’t spot an absence of acting ability in other people. And honestly, it’s embarrassing how awful she is. Especially when she’s on screen with her husband. The overall cast of the film range right across the acting spectrum from terrible to quite good.  Leon Hamilton mimes his way through a fine wordless performance as Grunt, while John Snelling as Dr N Sane is like a plank of wood. Oliver Gray as Professor Van Rental is somewhere inbetween.

It’s ironic that the best actor on screen is Mr A Kempthorne and the worst is Mrs P Kempthorne, but that’s the way it is. She was also a stand-in on Silent Cry, actually appears on screen as a witch in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and was a zombie in Shaun of the Dead. I suspect she can carry off non-speaking witch and zombie roles, but two lead roles, both supposedly sexily seductive – no, not a chance. Maybe, just maybe, if cast as some sort of crumbling, cobweb-covered, ancient vampire matriarch who spends the whole movie sat on a throne (and fully dressed), Pamela Kempthorne could have pulled off a bloodsucker role. But that’s not what we get here.

This is what happens when you make a vanity project. And make no mistake, The Vampires of Bloody Island is a vanity project. Allin Kempthorne made it for his wife. He manages his wife’s acting career. He marketed and distributed this film starring his wife. It’s commendable how much he does for her. But it would be untrue and unkind to suggest that the result is anything except a self-indulgent home movie. Keep your wife’s flabby arse in the bedroom Mr Kempthorne because no-one in their right mind wants it on their telly.

When not being film stand-ins, the Kempthornes run a mail order business selling goth/vampire ephemera (and signed copies of their DVD) from their home in the little town of Mountain Ash near Merthyr Tydfil. Which means that they know their audience and their market. If you’re the sort of person who will happily shell out £1.90 for a sachet of ‘Astral Cleansing Ritual Bath’ (“Remove astral debris picked up in everyday life, breaks minor curses and strengthens the auric field.” Which, incidentally, is a funnier line than anything in the script of this movie…) then you will probably freaking love The Vampires of Bloody Island and can safely ignore everything I’ve written here.

Since making The Vampires of Bloody Island, Mrs Kempthorne doesn’t seem to have troubled the screen again, concentrating on such challenging stage roles as Sally Skull in Skull and Crossbones, the Potty Pirates and Ping Pong in Santa’s Naughtiest Elves. Two of Ibsen’s lesser known works there.

A little digging reveals that these pirates and elves are part of a whole cornucopia of characters which the Kempthornes offer for children’s parties, corporate events, walkabouts etc. Allin does close-up magic, both family-friendly and more sophisticated (plus stand-up comedy as ‘Eddie Twist’). Pamela does tarot and palm reading. They both make balloon animals. Walkabout characters on offer include Baron Blood the Vampire, Wizzall the Wizard, Wanda the Wacky Witch, Runefungle the Sorcerer, the Giggling Ghost, Midshipman Arnold Poop-Decker, Jack Frost, the Mad Hatter, Sparkie the Clown, Ditzy the Clown, the Andromedans, the Space Tourists and a frankly terrifying giant humanoid rabbit.

There is also Lord Two-Head, a monstrous character whose second head sits upside-down on top of his regular head. (It’s creepy, but still better than the shitty version of Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie.) This explains one of the mysteries of The Vampires of Bloody Island, which is that when we first met Dr N Sane he is treating a patient who has this curious double head and is never explained. It is a very good full-head mask and really one of the highlights (if such a term can be used) of the movie.

The other bit of the film that I really liked was when Morticia raises her vampire army and they all announce what year they were turned. Two of them were vampirised in the late 1960s so are hippy vampires, sticking to their principals of peace and love. When the big fight breaks out, they refuse to get involved, sitting on a blanket and waving placards (although that doesn’t save them from a deadly blast of Garlic Cola). The actors are Rebecca Finley-Hall (you may remember her as ‘Skank Hippy Crack Bitch’ in obscure 2006 social drama The Plague) and the surely pseudonymous Caspar De La Mare. This is a clever and original idea, well handled, and probably the closest the film ever comes to being genuinely entertaining.

The leader of the vampire army, played under impressive make-up with a plummy English accent, is a ‘war demon’ named General Valkazar. This is Marcus Fernando (also credited as fight director) whose stage career includes puppeteering for the RSC. It’s another good performance that veers towards entertaining. Also in the cast are Carl Thomas and Paul Ewen as ‘Catering Demons', serving at the dinner party scene. Ewen (also credited as key prosthetic artist) is a British horror regular with bit-parts in Cockneys vs Zombies, Zombie Undead, Three’s a Shroud, Blaze of Gory, Seize the Night, The Vicious Dead and Kim Wilde’s legendary goth-horror video Every Time I See You I Go Wild (google it!).

Tacye Lynette who plays the boss of the soft drinks firm (another good performance) does audio descriptions for Sky TV. There’s actually a borderline funny bit in the office sequence when three Chinese ladies are assumed to be customers from China but take offence because they’re actually Irish. Kaila Lee, Amy Ip and Carolyn Seet are ‘Miss Chang’, ‘Miss Wang’ and ‘Miss O’Leary’. Three sexy female vampires who make a move on Kevin (and these ones are genuinely sexy, even though they keep their clothes on) are credited as ‘Mina’, ‘Lucy’ and ‘Morgana’ and played by Sadie Sims, Lisa Pobereskin and Jennifer Grace.

There are also two werewolves chained up in Morticia’s dungeon. One is played by an actor hiding behind the pseudonym ‘Fritz Aardvark Bragpuss’ (sic) and the other is – crikey! – Mick Barber. You may recall Barber's recurring role as a non-speaking, bubble-permed background copper in Ashes to Ashes but you will definitely recall his most famous role as squeaky-voiced, bubble-permed foreground lunatic Tommy in Richard Driscoll’s Eldorado.

Of final note is the film's soundtrack which features a number of goth beat combos including Inkubus Sukkubus, Fever, Theatres des Vampires, The Suburban Vamps and Corpse Nocturna. The opening titles play under a song by Vampire Division called ‘Place of the Dead’ and you’ll have the catchy chorus stuck in your head for days after you watch the film. It goes:

Place of the dead! Place of the dead! Place of the dead! Place of the dead!
Place of the dead! Place of the dead! Place of the dead! Place of the dead!

Ah, they don’t write ‘em like that any more…

So that’s The Vampires of Bloody Island, a film I watched in order to tick it off my list, which proved that you can’t judge a DVD by its sleeve. Although you can get a pretty good idea. The Kempthornes self-released it on their Weird World of Wibbell label in January 2010 with an NTSC version following in August. There was a cast and crew screening back in 2007 and it was shown at the first Horror-on-Sea in January 2013 but seems to have otherwise largely left the big screen untroubled.

Now you might expect this vanity project to be the only Wibbell release but you’d be wrong. They also released something called Learning Hebrew: A Gothsploitation Movie which is synopsised thus:

"When criticism of faith and the freedom to offend is outlawed by the Politically Correct Militia, Bella and her gang of idealistic cyberpunks push Darwinism door-to-door. But with agnostic thugs in the street and the Atheist Revolutionary Army attacking the liberal establishment, Bella and her friends are driven underground into a dark fetish existence, where the future and past collide, allegiances are strained and old scores must be settled."

That was written and directed by someone named Louis Joon and released by the Kempthornes on DVD in 2012. It played Horror-on-Sea in 2014 although it’s not on my masterlist because I’m not convinced (yet) that it’s actually a horror film. Wibbell Productions has also given us Twisted Britain, a phone-shot web series with Allin Kempthorne in his Eddie Twist guise visiting various towns. Currently under development is The First Stars of Vaudeville, a compilation of archive footage of obscure music hall acts.

I absolutely love old music hall acts so if that ever gets finished I will be first in the queue to buy a copy. Seriously.

Just so long as I never have to watch The Vampires of Bloody Island again.

MJS rating: C-

Zombie Women of Satan 2

Directors: Warren Speed, Chris Greenwood
Writers: Warren Speed, Chris Greenwood
Producers: Warren Speed, Chris Greenwood
Cast: Warren Speed, Pete Bennett, Caroline Elyssia
Year of release: 2016
Country: UK
Reviewed from: online screener
Website: www.growlingclown.com

I am under no illusion – and I suspect Warren Speed and his colleagues are similarly unencumbered – that some people really didn’t like the first Zombie Women of Satan film. Some folk hated it for being puerile and childish; some found it offensive and vulgar; others decried its sexism and misogyny. If you are among that section of society, then I have some good news for you. If you really didn’t like the first Zombie Women of Satan, you’ll pigging hate the sequel.

It’s just as puerile, no less vulgar and equally sexist. I bloody loved it.

Just like its predecessor, Zombie Women of Satan 2 is a sort of three-way bastard stepchild of Rocky Horror, Dawn of the Dead and Viz comic. It takes no prisoners, doesn’t give a wet slap what people think, and has no truck with concepts such as good taste or restraint. But at the same time, it has well-drawn, sympathetic characters, a coherent and well-structured plot and a solid awareness of its own limitations and how to work within them.

I love the ZWoS films, me. And I really love Pervo the Clown, a magnificent and surprisingly subtly nuanced character fully inhabited by young Mr Speed. Pervo is vain, childish, bombastic, arrogant, selfish, over-confidant, naïve, dependent, loyal, disloyal. He actually reminds me a little of Zaphod Beeblebrox, and I’ll explain why.

In my previous life as the world’s leading authority on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (my book Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams is available from all good charity shops) I came across a quote from Adams describing part of the inspiration for Zaphod. It was a Cambridge room-mate named Johnny Simpson (no relation) who put a great deal of effort into appearing really relaxed and chilled. In Hitchhiker's Guide that aspect of Zaphod is perfectly encapsulated in the scene when he realises one of the people being led up to the Heart of Gold bridge by Marvin is his semi-cousin Ford Prefect. Looking around the room, Zaphod ponders out loud: “Which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered in?” (This is also, incidentally, a beautiful example of the Wodehouse-ian transposed adjective.)

In a similar vein, Pervo has a deep, many-layered personality, most of which is put to use deliberately making himself appear as shallow as possible at all times. Pervo is a character played by Sydney Smallcock (played by Warren Speed). When he puts on the face-paint and the nose, he becomes Pervo. He never removes the face-paint (and you don’t touch the nose). Pervo is an artificial construct, created to mask Sydney’s existence, and below the surface Sydney’s metaphorical duck’s feet are paddling frantically to maintain the consistent illusion of the egotistical, sex-mad rock-star clown. He puts a lot of effort into giving the impression that he never lifts a finger. He cares passionately about convincing people that he doesn’t care. It’s entirely possible that Sydney Smallcock no longer actually exists. Peter Sellers sometimes admitted to interviewers that he had played so many characters, inhabiting them so fully and making them so real – from Bluebottle to Inspector Clouseau and beyond – that he was no longer certain who he, Peter Sellers, actually was. One of the early biographies of Sellers was called The Mask Behind the Mask. I see very definite parallels with Pervo the Clown.

So what is Pervo up to this time? After the events of the first film, he became something of a media celebrity, feted by the trashier tabloids for his part in rescuing people from a zombie massacre. There’s a nice bit of recursive intertextuality in comments about a film, called Zombie Women of Satan, which dramatised these events and in which Pervo played himself. Or with himself.

But the black-nosed one’s penchant for the baser things in life – drugs, booze, prostitutes, boozy prostitutes, snorting drugs off prostitutes who are drinking booze – has left him bankrupt. Between them his long-suffering PA Kat Meyer (Nadia Wilde: Mark Macready and the Archangel Murders) and his moustachioed bodyguard Boris Tinkler (“as himself” although the IMDb identifies him as this film’s stunt choreographer Ian Brown) keep Pervo’s life on approximately the right track. Kat is just a day away from ending her contract, while Boris is unaware that Pervo carries a bromantic, Brokeback torch for him. Actually Pervo is also unaware of this gay devotion, not because he’s repressing it but because his life is so chaotic and packed with sexual urges that one more just doesn’t register.

Salvation for Pervo comes in the form of Bertie Dumble, an eccentric millionaire nightclub owner who wants to throw our hero an enormous, boobs-filled party. Dumble is played with undisguised glee by Pete Bennett (credited as Pete Alexander Bennett) whom you may recall as that bloke on Big Brother who had Tourette’s and who is now a bona fide British horror regular. He’s in all three of John Williams’ features: The Slayers, The Mothertown and the forthcoming Crispy’s Curse. He’s in David VG Davies’ eagerly awaited zomcom Meet the Cadavers. And he’s in three Warren Speed gigs: this, Clown Syndrome and All Clowns Must Die (featured in a post-credits teaser here under its original title of Coulrophobia).

Anyway, what Pervo neither knows nor cares about is Bertie Dumble’s ulterior motive. Dumble is in a bizarre, fetishistic relationship with Octavia Zander (sometime ‘Satanic Slut’ Caroline Elyssia), surviving sister/daughter of the family who were killed in the first film. Out for revenge, she is working with mad Bertie, insane Cuthbert ‘Uncle’ Zander (Colin Cuthbert: Thugs, Mugs and Dogs) and pathetically loopy Florence ‘Mother’ Zander (Kathy Paul, reprising her role) who doesn’t want anyone to harm her “sexy clown man”. Octavia’s plan is to lure Pervo to the nightclub with the promise of a whole gaggle of ‘Pervettes’ then turn everyone into zombies with drugged punch. An anti-zombie spray will keep the Zander clan safe.

But that’s not the only danger facing Pervo. Fan-fave Dani Thompson (Banjo, Three’s a Shroud etc.) is Zara, leader of a squad of kick-ass, PVC-clad call-girls called the Bad Habits, hunting down a certain clown who owes them money for ‘services rendered’. It goes without saying that about halfway through, all hell is let loose – not to mention an entire coachload of sexy zombie women. The film does a grand job of whittling down the survivors in its action-packed second half, with people we care about and expect to survive falling prey to the topless gut-munchers.

ZWoS2 is a hoot, a sexy, silly, subversive panorama of blood, boobs and over-the-top acting that will have fans of the first film grinning from ear to ear. It’s technically well-made with cinematography by David Mordey (The Making of Soul Searcher) and editing by Ben Davison Cannings and Chris Greenwood who shares writing, directing and producing duties with Speed this time round, the first film’s co-director Steve O’Brien restricting himself to an executive producer role.

The cast includes Kookie Katana, Moon Blake and Laura Jayne Carson (‘Laura Pandora’ in the titles, ‘Laura Carson’ in the credits) as the other 75% of the Bad Habits. Katana and Carson are scheduled to reprise their roles (or at least, do something similar) in a picture called Katana being prepped by Action Film and Photo, the company who provided this movie’s weaponry. Tammy Nowell plays actress Dahlia Von Rose, part of Pervo’s entourage, while Ash Robertson is Pervo’s nemesis, rock star Dikki Lixx. Stuart Adams (Soldiers of the Damned) is a psychiatrist; ‘alternative horror-streaked glam punk’ band Spit Like This perform a song at the party; Martin Palmer in his drag persona as ‘Crystal Meth’ is a TV show host; and one of the 50 or so zombies is Faye Ormston from Flowerman.

The Mighty Boosh’s Mike ‘Not Noel’ Fielding has a bit part as a Satanic high priest. Despite what the IMDB claims, Victoria Broom and Victoria Hopkins from the first movie are not in this one, although they did film scenes for it (included in the DVD extras) and are listed among the thank-yous. Rebecca Hall (Dark Signal, Ibiza Undead, Cruel Summer) was lead make-up artist.

Originally shot (at various locations around the North-East) in July 2012, the initial cut of ZWoS2 was reworked with new scenes filmed in August 2013, plus some final pick-ups in January 2014. It was eventually released on DVD in October 2016, initially available exclusively from Speed’s Growling Clown Entertainment website, with a festival premiere in January 2017 at Horror-on-Sea. A US release through Chemical Burn Entertainment is scheduled for February 2017, retitled Female Zombie Riot. The first film was released in Japan and I'm sure they'll go for the sequel too.

In a world where so many zombie or slasher films seem to be cut from the same cloth, Speed/Pervo provides a welcome and distinctive respite. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, though I do appreciate that some people will hate it. Fuck ’em.

MJS rating: A-

Scaremonger

Director: Aman Chang
Writer: Lee Kwing Kai
Producer: Bee Chan
Cast: Sam Lee, Jerry Lam, Myolie Wu, Angela Tong
Year of release: 2001
Country: Hong Kong
Reviewed from: Hong Kong VCD (Universe)

iLoopy Hong Kong horror comedy nonsense doesn’t come much loopier than this. Skinny geek Joe (Sam Lee: Gen X Cops) is a journalist and wannabe screenwriter who shares a flat with his fat geek friend Herpes (Jerry Lam). No, honestly - the character’s called Herpes. They’re investigating a femme fatale (Angela Tong, the Canadian born actress who voices Dee Dee in Dexter’s Laboratory - I kid you not!) who is luring men to her flat and killing them in nasty, supernatural ways.

Joe seeks help from a mysterious internet source on the mainland who sends over his daughter, the gorgeous Yan (Myolie Wu). Both Joe and Herpes fall for her, the former quite sweetly, the latter more crudely, but neither stands a chance. She wants a man like her favourite romantic novelist, who clearly understands women - but oh, irony, that’s Joe under a pseudonym. How can he convince her?

Meanwhile, Herpes becomes surrogate mother to a baby spirit brought over by Yan to help out, who quickly grows to an adult, in body at least. Only Herpes can see him and, in a really gross plot twist, has to develop magical breasts so he can suckle him.

The climax of Jing Sheng Jian Jiao is a desperate fight against the witch (or whatever the hell she is) and the zombie thing she’s been feeding her murder victims to. The ‘plot’ wanders all over the shop and the whole thing is played for knockabout laughs and features comic mugging that would make Three Stooges fans say, “Goodness me, that’s a bit unsubtle.”

It’s okay in a desperately silly sort of way but there’s no aspect of it you could actually commend. Fortunately, the great thing about VCDs - this one has the usual mangled English subtitles - is that they’re dirt cheap (about five to eight quid in London) so you’re not investing much money and therefore not expecting much return. Which is handy.

MJS rating: C
Review originally posted 13th April 2009

As Sete Vampiras

Director: Ivan Cardoso
Writer: RF Luchetti
Producer: Ivan Cardoso
Cast: Andréa Beltrão, Nuno Leal Maia, Ariel Coelho
Country: Brazil
Year of release: 1986
Reviewed from: Portuguese VHS

Back in the 1990s, I was twice invited (with my journalist’s hat on) to attend the Fantasporto Film festival in the delightful Portuguese town of Oporto. And I had a grand old time on both occasions, hanging out with film-makers and journos from around the world.

Among those people who were present on both occasions was a Brazilian fellow named Ivan Cardoso, several of whose films were released in Portugal on VHS by Mario Dorminsky, the driving force behind Fantasporto. I bought three such tapes... and they proceeded to sit on my shelf for many years, gradually becoming less and less likely to be watched as DVD became the defacto format and the number of VHS players in the Simpson household (and indeed, around the world) reduced considerably.

So now it’s 2008 and I’ve got a couple of hours access to the one remaining VHS/DVD combi when it’s not being used by either Mrs S or The Boy, so I thought what the heck, let’s watch a dodgy Brazilian horror movie. Unfortunately the first tape that I tried, O Escorpiao Escarlate, turned out to be knackered so I’ll probably never know what that’s about. However, The Seven Vampires played okay.

Now, there’s very little been written about As Sete Vampiras and most of what has been written is, naturally, in Portuguese. But I can grasp that lingo well enough to understand that this film is intended as a comedy. That’s actually quite important because my experience of popular Latin American cinema (which I will admit, pretty much stops at the Mexican border) is that is it often over-the-top, exaggerated action and that the presence of an obvious comedy character does not in and of itself indicate that the film in toto is a comedy. Actually, that’s not just Latin America; it may be a broad, sweeping generalisation but that seems to be common among indigenous popular cinemas in general once you get away from Europe/Hollywood and their obvious sphere of influence. In other words, indigenous cinemas which were destined to remain indigenous. And obviously I’m talking about all this, for the most part, in the past tense.

So, to get down to brass tacks: is this a clumsily made, naive attempt at a horror movie or is it a pastiche of clumsily made, naive attempts at horror movies? The geographical and temporal distance (As Sete Vampiras was released in 1986 so it was already a decade old when I bought a copy) robs the film of cultural reference points for this reviewer. But the Portuguese blurb includes the word ‘comedia’ so I have to take this as a pastiche. In which case I suppose it’s quite good. (Actually, I should have just checked the sleeve which proclaims, ‘Comédia, terror e... muito sexo!’)

There is also the question of the film’s historical setting. Unless Brazil in the mid-1980s still looked like this - which seems unlikely - then the film appears to be set in the 1940s, yet it gives the impression of having been made in the 1960s (or maybe early ‘70s). It’s all very confusing.

But not as confusing as the plot, which opens with two workmen discussing a very large crate, recently unloaded from a ship. Their boss doesn’t know what’s inside either: “I only know that we have to put meat in that hole every three hours,” is the first of many superb (and I suspect, accurate) subtitles. The crate belongs to Fred Rossi (Ariel Coelho, who was in John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest and is a dead ringer for HP Lovecraft), a botanist who has shipped in a large carnivorous plant.

This rather impressive, Audrey II-style prop has a large central florette with three or four leaves/petals, each equipped with numerous long, sharp teeth, plus a dozen or more snake-like appendages, each ending in a hungry mouth. Fred’s wife Silvia (Nicole Puzzi) obviously isn’t the sharpest chisel in the toolbox because she stares at this wriggling, writhing specimen for quite some time before exclaiming, “That plant just moved!” She is off to a dance class run by her friend Clarisse (Susana Matos) and is concerned about leaving Fred alone. “Don’t worry,” he assures his wife. “The plant won’t eat me.”

But while Silvia and Clarisse change into their leotards (alongside a full-frontal nude extra), Fred gets too close to the plant while he’s feeding it raw meat and it chows down on his head. When Silvia returns home, she finds the plant covered in blood and with an eyeball staring at her from one of its mouths...

Sometime later, the widowed Silvia enters into business with Rogério (Johnny Herbert - no, not the racing driver) who owns a swinging nightclub in need of a star attraction. The current show includes a fake-oriental magician who calls himself Fu Man Chu and a swinging rock’n’roll band - Bob Rider and his Crazy Rhythm. Rider is played by Leo Jaime who was a genuine Brazilian pop star, formerly with João Penca e Seus Miquinhos Amestrados. He also appeared in Cardoso’s O Escorpiao Escarlate and starred in the Brazilian version of The Rocky Horror Show! Under the Fu Man Chu make-up is veteran actor Wilson Grey, whose career from 1948 to 1996 incorporated John Hurt-starring prison drama Kiss of the Spider-Woman, a 1972 version of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and several films in the Trapalhões series, notably haunted house comedy Os Fantasmas Trapalhões, Rider Haggard knock-off O Trapalhão nas Minas do Rei Salomão and superhero spoof O Incrível Monstro Trapalhão. But the Wilson Grey picture that I most want to see is the 1977 epic Costinha e o King Mong in which popular comedian Costinha encounters a jungle tribe who worship a giant man-in-a-suit gorilla. Apparently featuring a climax in which the ape climbs the Christ the Redeemer statue, this looks like it could give Queen Kong a serious run for its money...

Anyway, Silvia recommends a dance act called ‘The Seven Vampires’, a septet of attractive young ladies who gyrate to goth-lite music amid much stage smoke. And here’s the film’s biggest disappointment: not only does As Sete Vampiras not have seven vampires in it, it doesn’t even have one vampire (as far as I can tell). It’s just the name of a dance act. What a cheesy swizz!

However, there is the possibility of a real bloodsucker as we are introduced to the long-suffering (but unnamed) Chief of Police (Bene Nunes) and comedy cop Inspector Pacheco (Colé Santana) who is less irritating than one might expect. “Two crimes in two months!” bemoans the Chief, which is either meant to be ironic or hasn’t been translated properly. Both crimes are actually murders where the body has been drained of blood and this leads the ever-alert coppers to suspect that the same person may be responsible. Pacheco is adamant that they are dealing with a vampire but the Chief poopoos this ludicrous idea.

Meanwhile Ivete (Simone Carvalho), one of the ‘vampire’ dancers, is worried for some reason and goes to see private detective ‘Raimundo Marlou’ - I kid you not - (Nuno Leal Maia) who spends his time reading detective comics but is fortunately assisted by competent secretary Maria (former children’s TV star Andréa Beltrão). Ivete is subsequently seduced by Rogério (who is supposed to be an item with Silvia now, I think) but when they return to his swanky house, he is murdered while Ivete is in the bath.

Later, Silvia is chased across a cemetery by a masked, knife-wielding maniac in a long black cloak, after which she too turns to Raimundo Marlou, who is presumably the only private dick in the area. Marlou’s assistant Maria then goes undercover at the club as a hat-check girl, working alongside female comic relief Rina (seventy-year-old Zéze Macedo). A word about Ms Macedo, who is obviously a local legend, having been in films from 1950. Her other credits, offering a tantalising insight into a world of cinefantastique that remains largely untapped even in these globally aware days, include ultra-topical 1959 sci-fi comedy O Homem do Sputnik, family-friendly adventure Robin Hood, o Trapalhão da Floresta and a number of 1970s sex comedy anthologies. Most incredibly, she also played the title role in an unauthorised blockbuster sequel called - are you ready for this? - Etéia, A Extraterrestre em Sua Aventura no Rio! Zéze Macedo made her last film in 1991 and passed away in 1999, aged 86.

Meanwhile, back at the plot, Maria somehow finds herself in a situation to overhear a telephone call which sends her and Raimundo to a particular location. Inspector Pacheco, who is still pursuing his vampire theory (the number of murders having risen to eight now, we’re told) also arrives and the masked maniac, when shot, turns out to be... well, I’m not entirely sure because most of his face is burned, but I’m assuming it’s Fred.

I’m assuming the killer is Fred for two reasons. First, because I can’t see who else it could be, and second, because if that’s not Fred then the entire prologue with the carnivorous plant is pointless. On the other hand, if the masked killer is Fred then the prologue is still largely pointless. We’re never told what happened to the killer plant. It just disappears from the film during the leap forward from Fred’s death to Silvia going into the nightclub business. Extraordinary.

Nor is there any explanation of why Fred was going around killing people or why the bodies were drained of blood. Unless being eaten by a plant not only burns one’s face but also creates haemovorous tendencies. To be fair, the synopsis on the BFI database (pretty much the only description of the film in English until now) says, “a killer vegetable transforms a scientist into a vampire, who brings horror to the chorus girls at a hotel, who are performing ‘The seven female vampires’.” But that’s really not clear from the film.

As Sete Vampiras is an oddball movie by anybody’s standards. It seems to have a fairly decent budget, certainly in terms of costumes, extras, props, sets, locations and vehicles (actually there’s only one car but it’s a nice one). I know all these things are relative but, the Brazilian film industry not being one of the most robust in the world, there are no obvious embarrassments on that score. The movie was released theatrically in Brazil in November 1986.

Several of Cardoso’s feature films and a compilation of his early shorts were released on VHS in the USA by Something Weird and the rights to his most notable pictures are now handled by a company called One Eyed Films, which seems to specialise in Brazilian popular cinema.

The only non-Brazilian festival where As Sete Vampiras definitely played was Sitges in Spain. At the Festival do Cinema Brasileiro de Gramado it won Best Screenplay and Zéze Macedo won a Special Jury Prize for her small but memorable role as comedy hat-check lady Rina. At the Rio-Cine Film Festival the picture won no fewer than four awards: Best Editing - Gilberto Santeiro; Best Art Direction - Oscar Ramos; Best Supporting Actress - Andréa Beltrão; and Best Film. Carlos Egberto also won an award (somewhere) for his cinematography; to be honest the film looks fairly ghastly but I suspect it was shot on 16mm and that this isn’t a great VHS transfer. Leo Jaime’s title song was a big hit on the Brazilian pop charts too, by all accounts.

Many of the cast and crew also worked on O Escorpiao Escarlate although as that was released four years later it’s unlikely the two films were shot back to back. A few also worked on Cardoso’s 1982 feature O Segredo da Mumia. Screenwriter RF Luchetti (credited as ‘RT Luccetti’ on the sleeve of this video) seems to have the Brazilian horror scene pretty much sewn up as he is not only Cardoso’s regular writer, he also penned several scripts for the country’s other notable fright-meister, José Mojica Marins aka Coffin Joe.

As for Ivan Cardoso himself, information about the man in English is in short supply. He started making films in 1969 and has directed more than 70 since then, ranging from documentaries to experimental, abstract pieces to hardcore porn but he is best known for comedy horror features. In fact, his brand of comedy horror became its own subgenre in Brazil where it was dubbed ‘terrir’ - terror that makes you laugh. I’ve got a whole bunch of stills, leaflets, posters and other stuff which he very kindly sent me in 1999 after we met in Oporto but there’s nothing in there that looks actually biographical.

The most complete list of his films is on the CITWF website, which is vastly more comprehensive than the Inaccurate Movie Database. However, it only goes up to 2004 and therefore omits his most recent feature, 2005’s Um Lobisomem na Amazonia which stars Paul Naschy. (Not as Waldemar Daninsky but as a lycanthropic scientist named ‘Dr Moreau’!)

Perhaps the time is right for an Ivan Cardoso revival. The chap’s still out there, still making bonkers films. Say what you like about As Sete Vampiras, it’s not boring - so let’s hope somebody puts it out on DVD soon, along with the rest of Ivan’s back catalogue.

MJS rating: B
Review originally posted 9th November 2008

Friday Download: The Movie

Director: John Henderson
Writer: Toby Davies
Producers: Jules Elvins, Jeremy Salsby, Daniel Shepherd
Cast: Dionne Bromfield, Shannon Flynn, Tyger Drew-Honey
Country: UK
Year of release: 2015
Reviewed from: screener

Despite the presence upstairs of a nearly-12-year-old couch potato nerd, the CBBC channel doesn’t really figure in this house. TF Simpson watches Deadly 60 and Horrible Histories and we used to sometimes watch Dani’s House but those are all viewed on iPlayer. CBBC is never watched in real-time the way CBeebies was, and so neither he nor his parents have any real concept of what’s on there. He tells me he’s caught a bit of the programme called Friday Download on a couple of occasions, but since he has no real interest in pop music (apart from Weird Al, whom we saw together last week!) it’s not the sort of show he would watch.

Instead his televisual diet largely consists of Doctor Who, The Simpsons, Futurama DVDs, wildlife documentaries, dinosaur programmes and endless repeats of Top Gear on Dave. Plus whatever retro shows his parents turn him onto; we’re halfway through Lois and Clark right now.

So, working on the assumption that you know as little about Friday Download as I do, here’s a primer, largely gleaned from Wikipedia and the CBBC site. The show seems to be a mix of interviews, games and performances based around music, video games and movies. The guests are contemporary pop stars: the sort of production-line teenybop automata that you and I have mostly never heard or even heard of (and wouldn’t admit if we had). It’s presented by bland stage school Stepford teenagers indistinguishable from the bland singers they interview. A perusal of the online bios of the current presenters (not the ones in this film) shows them to be shallow and dull, their interests limited entirely to sport and pop music. None have even the slightest interest in science, or history, or nature, or art, or literature, or anything beyond vacuous soundbite pop culture.

Let’s put it this way. If Jeremy Corbyn gets elected Prime Minister and turns Britain into a totalitarian Communist state, none of this lot run any risk of being arrested for being dangerous intellectuals. One boy does list Of Mice and Men as his favourite book but then admits that it’s the only one he’s ever read(!) and in fact the only glimmer of anything approaching any sort of credibility is that one girl says her favourite band is the Stone Roses.

Friday Download has been running since 2011 and has apparently won a BAFTA at some point. The whole thing all looks rather ghastly, to be honest, like an ADHD Why Don’t You for the X-Factor generation. Presumably it’s what some kids want but you can see why someone like TF Simpson wouldn’t be interested. (Please note that I have never seen even a second of the show and hadn’t actually heard of it until I was sent this screener. All the above is based on minimal research. I wouldn’t want anyone to mistake my disdain for the programme as anything except good old-fashioned, uninformed prejudice.)

So why, you may ask, am I bothered about any of this? Because in 2015 Friday Download spawned a spin-off feature film. And dang me, it’s a haunted house horror comedy. And while it’s not something that I would ever choose to watch, as a British horror completist I feel it my duty to view the screener I was kindly sent and report back to you what’s what. So, in summary: it’s not terrible and I’ve seen worse. Like the bands who feature on the show, it’s inoffensive, forgettable and corporate.

But it also has its moments.

There are five presenters playing themselves, or rather, their one-name screen personas, in this movie. Richard (Wisker) had been a regular on the show through all previous eight series; Dionne (Bromfield) was a regular up to series 7, and a guest presenter in series 8; Shannon (Flynn) had been part of the team since series 5; George Sear since series 6. Bizarrely, Bobby (Lockwood) hasn’t actually presented the TV series (according to Wikipedia) although he plays a presenter in the movie.

I’m sure each of these kids is the life and soul of the party in real life, but there’s precious little personality to their screen personas. Bobby is a bit dim, and frequently talks about his dog Cujo (a horror reference that’s never acknowledged or touched upon). Dionne is a bit vain and obsessed with make-up, hair products and skin conditioner. Shannon is probably the most rounded and interesting character, a take-charge Mancunian with a no-nonsense attitude. Richard and George don’t seem to have any distinguishing traits at all and I’m not sure I could even tell them apart.

The plot, such as it is, has the quintet finish the latest series of Friday Download and head off for a holiday in a battered old van. After pausing for no apparent reason at a cemetery, they get lost in the fog and crash (harmlessly) into a ditch, conveniently close to an enormous mansion that looks like the Bide-a-Wee Rest Home. (It’s actually Margam Castle, a gothic monstrosity near Port Talbot which was designed by Thomas Hopper in the 1830s for William Henry Fox Talbot’s cousin.)

This vast pile of masonry is inhabited by two posh siblings, Clara (Louisa Connolly-Burnham from House of Anubis and Wolfblood) and Caleb (Tiger Drew-Honey) who live alone there since their parents died. Drew-Honey was a presenter on Friday Download series 1-4 although he is better known for either (a) playing Jake in Outnumbered, or (b) being the offspring of porn professionals Linzi Drew and Ben Dover (depending on one’s own cultural sensitivities). Invited to stay the night, the five friends are shown to separate bedrooms, each of which contains appropriately monogrammed pyjamas.

Overnight, spooky things start to happen and this is where the film proves surprisingly effective, since some of these would actually be really good and scary in a proper horror film. Shannon hears a beeping, as of a smoke alarm requiring a new battery, and opens the door to the passage only to find it leads into an exact copy of her bedroom, including another door which leads to another copy. She ends up running through room after room in a brief but hallucinatory sequence that is not played in any way for laughs.

Richard (or possibly George) is woken by a wide-screen TV switching on which he groggily realises is showing footage from a camera somewhere in the room, of himself in bed, at which point a shadowy figure appears beside him on the screen. Dionne, going through her nightly rituals in front of a mirror, finds a scary-faced version of herself staring back. Bobby hears his dog at the door but is dragged under the bed by the unseen animal, emerging with shredded, slimed PJs. And something probably happens to George (or possibly Richard) but I can’t remember what.

The spooked kids head back to their van but find that it has left the ditch and somehow got stuck halfway up a tree. Forced to return to the house, where Clara and Caleb remain welcoming and understanding (if stiffly eccentric), the gang are joined by Fraser (Ethan Lawrence: Joe in Bad Education), who runs a ghost-hunting blog and has been camping outside the mansion grounds. Once he has sneaked inside with his new friends, Fraser goes exploring.

After spending the rest of the night sharing a single room, blithely unaware of the ectomorphic entities around them, the FD team are awoken by Mr Peck (Angus Barnett: Mullroy in Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 3 and 5), a property developer who wants to buy the house, knock it down and build something else. The precise details of the financial situation aren’t exactly clear. Peck has purchased a £20,000 debt and the siblings have until sunset that day to come up with that amount, otherwise he will own the house. Or something.

We also learn that Caleb and Clara’s late parents are haunting the place. We don’t learn at this point that the siblings themselves are also ghosts, although it was screamingly obvious from the moment we first met them.

The gang decide that they can raise the required 20 grand by calling in a few pop star mates and staging a concert in the grounds – which they do. Coachloads of screaming, pubescent girls arrive (plus one or two boys) and are treated to performances by Dionne (Bromfield is a singer, rather than an actor) plus Bars and Melody and The Vamps.

Apparently Bars and Melody are two kids who came third on Britain’s Got Talent and have subsequently had a top ten single and album. After this movie, they both became regular presenters on the ninth series of Friday Download. The Vamps are a four-piece boy-band who sound like a McFly album track and actually supported McFly on a 2013 tour (I’ve got no problem with McFly – plenty of McFly CDs on my shelf). Each of the three artists performs one song, intercut not only with shots of the screaming training-bra battalion but also with scenes of Fraser finding out the truth about Caleb, Clara and their parents.

Apparently – according to a spooky story told early on in the van, and a book browsed by Fraser – if ghosts are allowed to own the ground that they haunt, they can take over the world. Or something. The interesting upshot of this unique idea is that, in raising the required £20,000 (by passing a bucket among the crowd, most of whom presumably get decent pocket money), the Friday Download gang have actually done the wrong thing. They thought they were helping two new friends stand up to a greedy property developer, but they have actually brought about the end of mankind by unleashing unstoppable ghostly forces upon the Earth.

Well, I didn’t see that coming.

I’m prepared to give props to the film for not only that twist, but also for the way it gets out of this situation, which is that they use social media to alert every ghost-hunting nutter in Britain to the inarguable presence of two ghosts (the siblings having now revealed their true natures). An army of paranormal investigators immediately descends on the house and Fraser makes it clear that from now on the two spectres will never have a moment’s peace. This is enough for them to realise that they would be better off with their parents, which they achieve by magically entering a painting that Fraser found in an attic.

The final gag of the film sees the team heading off to a town which, it is implied, is populated by werewolves.

Obviously I’m not the target audience for this film so I can only offer my personal subjective opinion as a seasoned film reviewer. I reviewed plenty of kids movies back in the SFX days so I’m not completely unfamiliar with the genre and its tropes. What struck me most, I think, was that this is a curious chimera of two well-established themes. Normally when established entertainment characters find themselves in a haunted house, the template is Scooby-Doo and they work to solve the mystery and/or lay the ghosts to rest. Alternatively, there is the well-worn plot of needing a large sum of money to save someone/where/thing and achieving this by calling on showbiz mates to stage a mini version of Live Aid. Friday Download: The Movie bolts these two ideas together and the end result is not unsuccessful, to be fair.

More problematic for me is the subtext of the film, which is very much that there are the cool, beautiful people – and then there are the freaks and geeks. Though he is never rejected, Fraser is very much the outsider: a loner, an obsessive, someone more interested in research, discovery, heck just reading, than in ‘important’ things like pop music, partying and looking good. Because of his outsider status, he must be fat, with unstylish clothes and a bad haircut.

There’s a disturbing lack of diversity in the film. Apart from TBG Bromfield, the only non-white face is an obsessive mega-fan of the series named Darren (Nathan Bryon: Jamie from Some Girls). With his cheerily oblivious attitude to social convention and his lop-sided ‘fro, Darren is rather obviously modelled as a younger version of Moss from The IT Crowd (I don't know if he's part of the series or just created for the film). As with Fraser, he is a loner, desperately unstylish and classified as a nerd, a geek, a nutter. He can only watch the cool kids from afar; he can never be part of their gang. And that really is it as far as diversity goes in this film. There may be a few black faces among the hordes of little girls watching the concert, but everyone else is as white as sour cream. If you’re disabled, or Asian, or think you might be gay, or you’re a goth or an emo, or if in any other way you feel ‘different’ or are suffering the sort of emotional crisis that comes with puberty and adolescence – well, my friend, this is not the movie for you.

The subtext here is that cool, white kids with trendy haircuts and exciting media careers are so much better than you. If you don’t wear the right clothes, don't listen to the right music, don't have the right haircut, demonstrate weird interests like reading or science or history – then you are The Alien Other. You may look at the cool kids. You may speak to them if they speak to you first. But you can never be one of them. You are a weirdo, a loony, a freak.

In the entire film, I don’t think there’s a single character who wears spectacles. That, for me, sums it up.

Now listen. Yes, I know I’m reading too much into this. It is just a silly kids comedy with some slapstick and some pop music. And I’m not asking for some righteous, politically correct, box-ticking of a black kid in a wheelchair as a token member of the gang. I’m just saying that the presenters of a show like this, and hence the stars of a film like this, could be more representative of today’s youth, instead of all looking and sounding and behaving the same. And the script could have been less at pains to point out that Fraser and his many ghost-hunting web friends - who actually save the day, remember – are ‘nutters’ and ‘geeks’.

Just saying.

The film was directed by the very experienced John Henderson whose notable genre credits include the 1990s TV series of The Borrowers, Ted Danson starrer Loch Ness (and Loch Ness lite feature Mee-Shee: The Water Giant), Hallmarks’ The Magic Land of the Leprechauns, unfunny scifi sitcom Hyperdrive and legendary Doctor Who Comic Relief Special The Curse of Fatal Death. He also directed episodes of Spitting Image and brilliant Steve Coogan sitcom Saxondale. Scripter Toby Davies previously wrote sketches for Sorry I’ve Got No Head (oh yes, that’s another CBBC series we have actually watched) and That Mitchell and Webb Look, as well as episodes of Yonderland.

John Henderson’s regular cinematographer John Ignatius lit the picture; in his early career he was focus puller on Brazil and The Crimson Permanent Assurance. Production designer Blair Barnette started out in LA doing props and sets work on superior kidcoms like Clarissa Explains It All and Kenan and Kel before moving to the UK where she actually has a couple of BHR credits in Sightseers and In Fear.

Kevin Eldon, David Mitchell and Marcus Brigstocke make utterly irrelevant name-value cameos as respectively a creepy security guard, a comedy policeman and himself. Also credited as themselves are Connor Ball, Tristan Evans, James McVey and Bradley Simpson. I have no idea who they are (presumably they’re in the phone-round-our-celeb-pals montage) and I can’t be arsed to look them up.

Released theatrically in May 2015 as Up All Night (with a West End premiere), the film swiftly learned the lesson that TV spin-offs must have the same title as the show from which they originate so for the October 2015 DVD release it became Friday Download: The Movie.

MJS rating: C+

Caesar and Otto's Paranormal Halloween

Director: Dave Campfield
Writer: Dave Campfield
Producers: Dave Campfield, Richard G Calderon, Joe Randazzo, Daniel Sullivan
Cast: Dave Campfield, Paul Chonicki, Scott Aguillar
Country: USA
Year of release: 2015
Reviewed from: Online screener
Website: www.caesarandotto.com

They’re back! Half-brothers Caesar and Otto Denovio follow their Summer Camp Massacre and their Deadly Xmas with a Paranormal Halloween. And if you’ve met these guys before, you’ll know what to expect and won’t hesitate to get your hands on a copy of Dave Campfield’s latest opus.

Caesar (Campfield himself), you will recall, is a waspish, selfish wannabe actor (here turning his hand to screenwriting). Otto (Paul Chomicki) is a pathetic, loveable slob. And their massively untrustworthy father Fred (Scott Aguillar) is once more along for the ride, along with the expected gaggle of B-movie legends.

Paranormal Halloween starts out as a lampoon of the original Halloween, with Caesar in drag earning a few bucks, between gigs, as a babysitter. A Michael Myers-style psycho comes a-calling but, after some close calls, is killed – resulting in the brothers Denovio being presented with the Key to the City. Which is fine and all but they’re currently homeless.

Not to worry, because the Governor of California (Ken MacFarlane, who has been in every C&O movie so far), who has weird artificial hands, offers them a job house-sitting his (haunted) property, starting in late October. As usual, Caesar and Otto find themselves surrounded by eccentrics, nutters and quite possibly psychopaths too, including neighbours, servants, security guards, cops, and a ‘money laundering service’ which provides clothes care and financial advice.

Otto is on a quest to find his long-lost mother. An Exorcist-based subplot centres around unconventional priest ‘Father Jason Steiger’ (Deron Miller: Return to Sleepaway Camp, C&O’s Deadly Xmas, C&O’s Summer Camp Massacre). A psychic married couple are keen to stress that they are in no way based on characters in The Conjuring. Caesar finds a collection of webcams and sets them up around the house. Fred locates a hidden cache of booze.

I can’t go into too much detail. It’s a complex plot but no-one is here for the plot, and the reason it’s so complex is because it’s trimmed neatly and wound tight, leaving not a moment to spare and nary a wasted line. Campfield directs with masterful precision, keeping the gags coming thick and fast (and varied: character gags, visual gags, slapstick, spoofs…). Zinger follows zinger for 90 minutes of brilliantly entertaining horror-comedy. Some comedy films achieve this sort of hit rate by chucking everything in and hoping enough of it works, but Dave Campfield’s approach is more carefully managed. Sean Steffen shares story credit with Campfield, as he did on Dave’s 2012 short The Perfect Candidate.

I'm not going to list all the horror pictures referenced or spoofed here - I probably missed a lot of stuff - but it's worth noting that this isn't some lame sub-Scary Movie comedy that thinks just referencing something makes it a joke. Dave crafts funny gags out of this intertextuality and self-referentiality, weaving it into the character-based farce that is the brothers' lives. My favourite sequence is one which - as you may guess from the title - brilliantly scuppers the found footage genre (which, let’s face it, had it coming).

Our two bumbling heroes sail through the story like it’s an old Bob Hope movie (just to clarify: I am a huge fan of old Bob Hope movies). Or maybe the Marx Brothers are a better comparison (but without the manic wordplay or musical interludes). What I’m trying to get at here is that things happen around Caesar and Otto - in front of them, behind them, to the side of them – while they pursue their own specific goals. This is why Dave has been able to place them into four films now, plus assorted shorts and guest appearances, with a teaser here for a mooted Caesar and Otto’s Spring Break of Death. You could put these guys pretty much anywhere where horror-related malarkey is happening and they would fit. Because Caesar doesn’t care and Otto doesn’t notice.

There are so many characters and cameos that keeping track of names and identities proved a thankless task, so I’ll just scoot through some of the cast highlights in IMDB order. We have Andre Gower (one of the kids from The Monster Squad!), Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2, T-Force, Power Rangers Time Force and Plughead in the Circuitry Man films), Sean Whalen (Python, Hatchet 3), Campfield regular Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Catherine Corcoran (Return to Nuke’Em High 1 and 2), Beverly Randolph (Return of the Living Dead), Monique Dupree (Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned), Nicole Cinaglia (Camp Dread), Caleb Emerson (Chop, Poultrygeist and director of Die You Zombie Bastards!), Frank Sorrentino (Sleepaway Camp) and Brendan Mitchell (Witchcraft 14: Angel of Death – holy crap, they made another one!). Some of these actors, and many of the others I haven’t got room to name, have appeared in one or more previous Caesar and Otto pictures, sometimes in the same role, sometimes as multiple characters.

Also present are three of my all-time favourite actresses, any one of whom (as should be clear from the number of links in this paragraph) is enough to make me watch a movie. They are of course the Shep (Nympha, Chainsaw Cheerleaders, The Frankenstein Experiment, Wrath of the Crows), the Roch (Colour from the Dark, Wrath of the Crows, Serial Kaller, C&O’s Deadly Xmas, Exhumed, Chainsaw Cheerleaders, Dr Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots, Dead and Rotting, Witchouse 3, Filthy McNasty) and - as Shining-inspired ghost twins – the Brinkster (C&O’s Deadly Xmas, C&O’s Summer Camp Massacre, The Naked Monster, Vampires vs Zombies, Hell Asylum, Witchouse 3, Invisible Mom).

Editing is wonderfully tight, cinematography and sound are both good. Caesar and Otto films never cost much but every penny is on screen and the return on investment is high. If you have met the Denovios before you’ll know what to expect and you won’t be disappointed. If you’ve yet to discover the delights of the Caesar and Otto series, take a look (no knowledge of the earlier films is required) and discover the funniest sequence of B-movie comedies around.

MJS rating: A