Fanged Up (2017)

I was only a few minutes into Fanged Up when I started to realise I knew the lead actor. His face, his manner, he was familiar to me. But how? Well, annoyingly enough, Daniel O'Reilly, who also co-wrote the movie, is probably best known to many as the man who was a bit of an internet hit, for a while, with Dapper Laughs. I'm not going to go into the details of his act here, you can Google it, so it should suffice to say that his persona was that of a cheeky chappy, to put it mildly.

O'Reilly plays Jimmy Ragsdale here, a . . . cheeky chappy who ends up arrested after a brawl in a nightclub, and placed in a jail that deals with prisoners in a very unique way. They get eaten. A lot of the prison staff are vampires, hence the name, and their appetites are growing. Can Jimmy survive? Never mind the vampires, will he be able to avoid death at the hands of his cellmate, Victor (Stu Bennett)? And will he also be able to build a bridge with the prison nurse, Katie (Danielle Harold), an old flame who believes that he once cheated on her while on a holiday with friends?

Directed by the talented Christian James (who started with Freak Out and also gave us Stalled, two films you can at least admire, even if you don't love them), Fanged Up has a surprising number of positives to make up for the negatives. I admit that I was worried about what I was letting myself in for, especially after enduring a number of low-budget British horror comedies mixing criminal geezer types with evil forces, but my worry abated slightly as things began to play out.

The general look and feel of the film is polished and professional, including the vampire make up and any gore gags. James knows how to give value for money, and he focuses on the film-making ahead of the comedy, and not vice versa.

The cast also do a good job. Yes, even O'Reilly. He won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this is a toned-down version of the kind of character he has played before, and there are some critical moments that show just how much of his overcompensating bravado and lewd behaviour is all just a front. Bennett is impressively tough, Harold makes for a good beauty who has more brains than our "hero", and Vas Blackwood is very enjoyable in a main supporting role. Steven Berkoff is the Governor, and has a bit of fun, while Lauren Socha is the woman in charge, and the one deciding who is to go on the menu first.

But things fall down at the script. The contributions from O'Reilly seem obvious, considering how he manages to stay in his comfort zone. Nick Nevern has a filmography that includes a couple of more straightforward British gangster movies, so that would seem to be his addition to the recipe. Then you have Dan Palmer, who has written the scripts for most of James' movies, shorts and features. The fact that almost all of the features feel both undercooked and yet also slightly padded out in places makes me think that he was the one trying, and failing, to bring everything together and tighten it all up. It almost works, because there are enough different elements jostling for attention, but ultimately doesn't.

Remember what I said about James focusing on the film-making ahead of the comedy? That would have paid off in dividends if the comedy had worked. Sadly, it doesn't. Which means the film ends up being nothing more than a mildly amusing genre mash-up. Although it could have been so much worse, which is why I charitably score it right at the halfway point.

5/10

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Strippers Vs Werewolves (2012)

If you go to check out Strippers Vs Werewolves on IMDb (where it has an undeserved general rating of 3/10) then you will find that someone has added this little titbit to the trivia section - "Only took £38 at the British box office. This means only four people payed to see the film at the cinemas." I would urge you to ignore that fact for two reasons. The first is that Strippers Vs Werewolves isn't really a movie made for a cinema viewing (the fact that it had a limited release at all surprises me). The second is that, despite a number of flaws, this is a perfectly enjoyable comedy horror, with much more emphasis on the comedy than horror.

When one of her clients gets a bit carried away with himself and things get hairy, stripper Justice (Adele Silva) stabs at him with a silver pen and he dies. A death isn't good for business in any strip club so it's up to poor doorman Franklyn (Nick Nevern) to make the body unidentifiable and get rid of it, as ordered by club owner Jeanette (Sarah Douglas). Unfortunately for all involved, the dead man had some tough 'n' nasty gangster/werewolf mates (led by Ferris, played by Billy Murray) and when they realise that something is amiss they set out to find their friend. When they discover the corpse the only thing that matters to them is retribution. Can a bumch of strippers avoid becoming the main course for these furry fiends?

Okay, it's a dumb film, admittedly. Yet it's full of energy, has some genuine funny moments/lines and provides exactly what the title tells you. The strippers may, for the most part, be rather implausibly averse to nudity but you still get to enjoy the lovely Silva in skimpy attire, the gorgeous Barbara Nedeljakova, a few moments onscreen for Lucy Pinder, Ali Bastian, Coralie Rose, Rita Ramnani and Charlie Bond. Sarah Douglas was very good in her role and there's also a fleeting cameo in the last few minutes for Lysette Anthony. For the male portion of the cast you get the aforementioned Murray, the great Martin Compston, Simon Phillips in a very funny role and limited screentime for the likes of Alan Ford, Steven Berkoff, Martin Kemp and Robert Englund.

The script by Pat Higgins and Phillip Barron isn't too bad at all. It often throws in a few too many crude moments to keep our villains cloaked in their London hardman personas but it's also funny when it intends to be and has a nice couple of references to the greatest werewolf movie of all time AKA An American Werewolf In London (at one point a character considers a ragga version of "Bad Moon Risin'" and at another point we get the "you made me miss" line, albeit quite poorly delivered).

The direction from Jonathan Glendening keeps everything moving nicely. Some may find it overedited and too indulgent in places (with split-screen work and funky transitions) but I felt that every choice just added to the fun and energy of the thing. This is certainly a marked improvement over Glendening's last werewolf movie (the dire 13 Hrs) and I hope he continues to work with livelier material like this in the future.

You may think, from everything that I've written here, that this is a fantastic movie and pretty much unmissable. That's not the case, not by a long shot. What drags the film down? Well, the biggest problem with the movie, sadly, is the look of the werewolves - the first time I saw them I must admit that I laughed although the effects did grow on me as the film played on. The other main problem with the movie is that a lot of the humour is silly. Silly can be enjoyable enough, which is why I ended up liking the film anyway, but it's never as good as smart humour, in my opinion.

Having said that, few other films feature a finale that has a number of strippers dressed in Red Riding Hood attire set to do battle with a bunch of gangster werewolves. In that respect, I'll take this over any rubbish Catherine Hardwicke film any day of the week.

6/10