Bloodsucking Bastards [2015]

July 19, 2021

There are a couple of reasons why you might check out Bloodsucking Bastards, a flawed vampire horror-comedy. First of all, if you’re familiar with the office environment you might find some of the jokes or characters funny. We spend the first half of the movie in this Office Space mood with obligatory gags and dialogue. You can feel the lack of budget but it’s like they weren’t even pretending this is a bigger movie. They were probably going for that The Office raw visual style, although, towards the end, the cinematography drastically improves. And if you find the scenes too unrealistic, trust me, they’re not. Especially when you’re dealing with this sort of business of cold call leads.

Secondly, the cast of Bloodsucking Bastards is pretty good. I mean, freaking Pedro Pascal is one of the leads here along with Fran Kranz whom you might remember from The Cabin in the Woods. Speaking of which, that’s a much better movie than this one. So, if you’re not up for some budget vampire fun it’s always worth a watch. Joey Kern (Big Bear) and Joel Murray (God Bless America) were also pretty good in supporting roles. However, there’s something that’s not working right here. The dialogue feels too forced and actually, the entire movie is just trying too hard to be the thing it wants to be. And that’s simply not the way things work in movies. Still, the end product is mildly amusing and worth checking out, especially if you’re into this subgenre.

Evan is working for a nameless corporation selling all kinds of useless crap over the telephone. His girlfriend just left him, he’s got a big presentation in just two days but Evan is also hoping that he will be promoted to sales manager pretty soon. The rest of his team consists of slackers who barely do any work and spend their time playing video games or joking. However, when Evan finds a dead body in the bathroom, his priorities will change.

After seeing Bloodsucking Bastards and thinking about it, all the necessary elements for a decent B horror comedy are there. The progressively more intelligent main plot, unexpected twists, and well-developed characters are all present and accounted for. Hell, you might even recognize some of them as your former or current colleagues. However, something went wrong in the execution and the whole thing came off as clunky. It’s like they had material for about 40 minutes, stretched it to 80, and said fuck it, no one is going to notice. All the gore, action, and ultimately fun is in the last twenty minutes of the movie. So, if you have nothing else to do and you’re hankering for some office-themed vampire fun check it out. Depending on your mood it might even positively surprise you.

Finally, if you’re looking for more of the same, take a look at Boys From County Hell featuring one nasty Irish vampire and Suck from 2009. Enjoy.