HEY, IT IS what it is and what it is is Shaun of the Dead. It follows a thin bloke and a fat bloke as they battle the walking departed. The director favours an arch style that requires the most insignificant gestures (pints being deposited on bar, joint being raised to mouth) to be speeded up and accompanied by an audible "whoosh". True, this very modestly amusing film doesn't attempt the surprising poignancy of Shaun, but Simon Pegg and Nick Frost may still wish to have a word with m'learned friends.
Lesbian Vampire Killersdoes, at least, implicitly acknowledge its debt to an older school of British horror. Nodding towards those Hammer films in which a fanged Ingrid Pitt was forever ramming her head between virgins startled bosoms, the film sends a recently jilted loser (Mathew Horne) and his portly chum (James Corden) to a remote English village that lies beside an absurdly vast forest. It transpires that lustful lady vampires have, for many centuries, been chewing up the locals and that Mr Horne is the only man who can vanquish them.
Corden and Horne, stars of the BBC's Gavin and Stacey, both know a thing or two about comic timing, and they maintain the right tone of startled horror throughout. There's a decent cameo from Paul McGann as a vampire-hunting vicar. The writhing lesbian villainesses prove themselves to be good sports. But this really is a miserably thin premise that – remembering also The League of Gentlemenand An American Werewolf in London– has been worked through too often by too many superior talents.
Who'd have thought we'd ever ponder a film called Lesbian Vampire Killersand think: "Oh Lord, not that again"? That time has come.
Directed by Phil Claydon. Starring James Corden, Mathew Horne, Paul McGann, MyAnna Buring, Silvia Colloca, Vera Filatova 16 cert, gen release, 88 min**
