I’d love to say that James Corden and Matthew Horne must have been born attached at the funny bone. Brought together on BAFTA-winning Gavin & Stacey, the pair have in short space of time graduated to their very own self-titled comedy show. Sadly, this latest spoof-horror offering further empasizes that while this comedy couple may be inseparable, a functioning comedy couple they are not.
The first scenes cement their well-worn dynamic – tubby and gregarious Corden plays Fletch, a clown with anger management issues, who duly gets sacked and teams up with the waif-like lovelorn Jimmy, who has just been dumped. Comfortingly hopeless, they settle into their local and hit upon a plan – fresh-air therapy. Hiking in East Anglia will help them forget cheating girlfriends and ailing job prospects.
Unbeknown to Jimmy, this trip is a bit of a homecoming. Centuries previously, as is explained in the opening scenes, it is where a feudal ancestor slew Camilla, The Lesbian Vampire Queen. So, “the land is ensnared forever in the blood of the red moon” – it’s cursed – all is eerie as Corden and Horne step into a country pub – “like a mediaeval gay bar”, Fletch muses, that has just been vacated by a gaggle of Danish students.
Our heroes convene with said gaggle at an abandoned cottage and the resulting gore-fest – all high octane and low humour – is just boring. Corden’s standard modus operandi runs with moments of weakly-executed horror-tension – pulse mildly flutters – to be then deflated by a snigger and a text-book “bo***cks”.
Fletch is the guy you bump into in halls at university, when the beer’s warmer than the pizza and the Nintendo’s buzzing away in the corner, while you feel vaguely irritated by the enforced stupidity of it all. Each to his own, but some things go beyond the realms of taste. At the beginning of the horror sequence, Lotte, a student, skewers a vampire with a stick and a glimmer of recognition sparked.
Could this be a credit crunch Shaun of the Dead? That’s a tough act to follow and it seems that the furore of Gavin & Stacey has left Corden and Horne thinking they can get away with hubris. Well they can’t. The humour is less refined and Horne brings a straight zero to the laughs. Lesbian Vampire Killers is ok for basic belly laughs, but fails on absolutely every other count. I personally will be storing up on the cloves and crucifixes to ward off imminent DVD.
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