Bloodsucking Bastards

Pros:

I picked this movie to see Fran Kranz ("Cabin In The Woods"), expecting a low-budget slog. What a pleasant surprise when I began laughing out loud. The script is hilarious, and a lot of work must've gone into it. I worked on a network team that reminded me of this gang: bosses, office politics, and everything. "Oh yeah, I knew that guy!" or "Hey! I was that guy!" The office building setting couldn't be simpler. The actor playing Tim especially had me cracking up. I think what I liked most was the script's confidence -- you could tell these guys knew they had a funny thing going. This was also a professionally-made film, with decent direction and camera work.

Cons:

BB works much better as a comedy than a horror flick. The effects are fine, and usually funny, but it kinda loses the spark after the first hour. Still, highly recommended.

Bam Snap!

Most of the humor in the film is coming from the office dynamics in a typical cubicled corporate office. I don't know if this is still current or not (I mean, it's all about open space now, right?) but it is still funny.

Then there are vampires, which are presented in a really refreshing way. In a way it is a full circle thing: vampires, as a metaphor for noblemen sucking the blood of the working people, now updated for the corporate world which just replaced finery with expensive suits.

The acting is not stellar, but it doesn't have to be. Where the movie excels is the script, with the little funny puns and interesting dialogue. While not perfect, it was mighty entertaining.

This mix of vampire comedy and daily life trudge can feel imbalanced sometimes. It's a pretty straightforward story with the usual good guy in work environment, his less productive buddies and the disgruntled love of his life. Then it adds literally gallons of corny bloody spectacle. While it may not open with much glee, the unworldly struggle towards the end proves to be ludicrously amusing.

Fran Kranz, the same guy from The Cabin in the Woods, plays as Evan, a hard working employee of a company that doesn't appreciate him enough. Instead of being promoted, he finds himself in the verge of losing his job and also probably his life as supernatural forces begin to influence the company. The movie makes fun of its characters in highly self-deprecating manner, definitely not your usual troupe to fight the undead.

There's an underlying analogy of dutifully working for scraps, which isn't polished enough at first. The fun starts as these mostly incompetent characters have to face not only their dreadful job, but the titular bloodsucking foes. It produces a hectic cynical parody that gets better as more blood is spilled.

Script is well written enough to be identifiable and the delivery from actors is often openly mocking both real as well as nocturnal life. There are lots of visual cues involved, which may be over-the-top yet strangely effectively humorous. Its pace and editing slightly resembles Shaun of the Dead, both have dead-pan sarcastic delivery of dreadful situation.

At the beginning the movie feels incessantly rude and a tad outdated, although there's enough comical content in latter half to raise the enjoyment from its stiff opening.

The story of Evan Sanders (Fran Kranz), a dutiful and overworked employee stuck at a soul-killing corporation with his beautiful co-worker and girlfriend Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick) and his slacker best friend Tim (Joey Kern). Evan's world begins to crumble when Amanda dumps him and his boss Ted (Joel Murray) hands his coveted promotion to his nemesis Max (Pedro Pascal).

The film is marketed as a mix between "Office Space" and "Shaun of the Dead". Individually, these are some high bars, and together may be impossible to match. But the comparison is fair. "Office Space" definitely seems to have been an influence. And while this may not become the cult classic of either of those two, it excels far better than most horror comedies ever manage to.

"Horror comedy" as a genre (or subgenre) is more challenging than it sounds. Some in recent years have been great, including "Tucker and Dale Versus Evil" and the aforementioned "Shaun". Many more fail. "Brutal Massacre", for example, was chock full of horror icons and tried to be a good comedy, but ends up rather flat, ultimately failing in both horror and comedy categories. "Bloodsucking B..." gets the balance right. Some of it is downright funny, and there is more blood and gore here than... well, almost any movie ever.

The comedy also works on multiple levels. Most of it is obvious, but there are enough references to keep you finding more hidden gems. Talking of "calling in sick to see a baseball game" is clearly a reference to "Ferris Bueller". But is the name Max a reference to "Lost Boys"? Probably, but maybe not.

Definitely worth a watch. Even if you do not buy a copy, at least rent it or check it out on demand.

Opening credits can really set the tone for the movie. In this case, Bloodsucking Bastards nails it with the opening credits.

Evan (Fran Kranz, Marty in Cabin in the Woods) is an overworked employee, freshly dumped, and just got passed on a promotion. Life isn't going well for him, but it's about to get worse (and more bloody). Turns out that the homie (nemesis Max) that got the promotion? Vampire. Him and his bestie Tim (Joey Kern, hot guy from Cabin Fever) are now up against an office full of vampires.

We start off with some off-screen deaths before jumping into the gore. Once it gets rocking, it doesn't stop until the end.

The cubicle-based bro banter in this is heavy, but it leans on the entertaining and comedic side rather than the annoying side. You can tell the comedic inspiration was derived from Office Space. For a B horror with a low budget - there's a good cast and crew behind it. You can tell the budget from the low quality camera work, but the actors slip into their roles with ease and set the tone well. The range of personalities in the cast made for great chemistry.

It hits the mark as far as horror comedies go. The underlying metaphor of a soul-sucking office environment vs. Blood-sucking vampires is clear as day. Worth grabbing a beer and having a free watch (with commercials, thanks a lot Freevee).

Rating: Bro banter: 5/10 First half: 4/10 Kelly Clarkson: 7/10 Janitor vampire: 8/10 Exploding vampires: 7/10 Frank the security officer: 10/10 Overall rating: 6/10.