Reviews: Lesbian Vampire Killers

Horne (l) and Corden (r) launched their film in London earlier this week

James Corden and Mathew Horne, ubiquitous stars of BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey, have received stinging reviews for their new comedy horror movie Lesbian Vampire Killers.

They follow the less than enthusiastic response that greeted their recent appearance as hosts of the Brit awards and their current comedy sketch show on BBC Three.

In the film, directed by Phil Claydon, Corden and Horne play friends who find themselves stuck in a village whose womenfolk have been enslaved by a vampire curse.

With one conspicuous exception, included below, the UK's critics have pulled no punches.

THE TIMES - JAMES CHRISTOPHER

Phil Claydon's instantly forgettable lads' mag farce is an appalling waste of a perfectly decent title.

James Corden and Mathew Horne are two witless slobs who go for a hike in Norfolk with an industrial quantity of condoms and end up being savaged by a posse of groaning 18-year-olds with plastic teeth.

It's profoundly awful.

Read full review here

THE INDEPENDENT - ANTHONY QUINN

Loath as I am to kick a comedy duo when they're down, there's no plausible defence for this slapdash feature film by Mathew Horne and James Corden.

A loveable pair of mates in Gavin and Stacey, here they have flagrantly overstretched their appeal and now look in danger of becoming the Hale and Pace de nos jours.

It's pretty woeful and unimaginably boring.

Read full review here

DAILY EXPRESS - ALLAN HUNTER

This lazy, scary movie spoof does Corden and Horne no favours.

Badly written and hastily executed, it takes all the easy options of bad taste, bosoms and body fluids.

There isn't a really funny gag or stand-out sequence in the whole film. Any laughs come courtesy of Corden's randy, blustering Fletch.

Phil Claydon directs at a breakneck pace, but maybe he just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I know exactly how he feels.

Read full review here

DAILY TELEGRAPH - TIM ROBEY

Lesbian Vampire Killers wants to be one of those does-what-it-says-on-the-tin flicks. As in: there are lesbian vampires. They are killed. What's not to like?

Well, you couldn't sue under the Trade Descriptions Act, but there's as much not to like as you might find in a 20-year-old can of rancid minestrone at the back of your mum's larder.

Wit, we begin to surmise, isn't really the point of this Carry-On-with-a-cruficix romp.

Horne, for all his uncanny resemblance to various Seventies Hammer Horror male leads, just looks stricken.

Read full review here

DAILY MAIL - CHRIS TOOKEY

The history of British cinema is strewn with disastrous misadventures by TV comics, from Morecambe and Wise through to Ant and Dec.

So it is hard to comprehend why Corden and Horne signed up for a script that makes Cannon and Ball vehicle, The Boys in Blue look like a model of flair and originality.

It's a tragically feeble spoof of Hammer horror and a witless recycling of elements from Withnail & I and An American Werewolf in London.

The most that can be said for it, is it is consistently abominable.

Read full review here

THE SUN - 'THE SNEAK'

Vampire movies are ripe for spoof and this doesn't stray far from the path of modesty trodden by Hammer House.

Impish Swede MyAnna Buring and Paul McGann as a vampire-hating vicar both play it brilliantly deadpan.

Other reviewers will say that Lesbian Vampire Killers is another British comic flop, but The Sneak won't be driving that stake into its heart.

By the end of the movie your critic had lost control of his funny bone.

Read full review here