If you have a fondness for the excess of ‘80s action movies, if you spent all your years since seeing Cobra dying to one day use a pair of scissors to cut up your pizza, if you think character development is best shown through varying degrees of stubble, then have I got a treat for you. Chuck Steel: Night Of The Trampires is a stop-motion animated feature that throws around bucketloads of gore, a lot of fun character designs, and pretty much every action movie cliché you could think of. And I loved it.
Unable to keep a partner alive for more than a day, or often just a few hours, Chuck Steel is your typical tough cop who gets results. It all comes at a price though. The nightmares, the lost loved one, the destroyed TV sets every time a news item has him reaching for his gun. But worse things than standard criminal scum are out on the streets now. There are vampires who feed on victims they first get as drunk as possible. Given information about these creatures from the elderly Van Rental, Chuck ends up on a mission to put an end to this race of sharp-toothed, bloodsucking denizens of the dark alleyways and dumpsters. After all, he is the chosen one. Isn’t he?
It takes a team of people to make a movie, I know and understand that, but the many hats worn here by writer-director-actor Mike Mort makes me feel very much at ease in giving him most of the credit for this film, an affectionate spoof of movies that will hit the sweet spot for movie fans of a certain generation (born in the ‘70s/early ‘80s and being able to enjoy the excessive testosterone of the big action movie stars of the big screen while also discovering the pleasures of much lower-budget fare that went straight to VHS). I was hoping to enjoy this, but was surprised by just how much I ended up loving it.
There are things to pick at, including a grand finale that feels bit overlong and overdone (and a bit too reminiscent of a classic Peter Jackson splatterfest, but maybe that it just me), as well as the constant barrage of lowbrow gags occasionally striking the wrong note, but what this gets right . . . it gets way more right than you would think possible. Think Brooklyn 99 mixed with every Dirty Harry movie, and then add a dash of Blade, and you’re close.
Part of me just wants to write down my favourite gags here - the partner who has shot himself, the way Chuck calls someone a lesbian after spending a minute having his advances rebuffed, the many wonderful visual gags - but I know that does not a proper review make. So I will start to praise the stellar voice cast instead.
Oh, the voice cast is headed up by Mike Mort, of course. There’s also a prime role for Jennifer Saunders, and Paul Whitehouse has a supporting role, and a few other people who help out, but the best work is done by Mort, voicing Chuck, Chuck’s boss, and Van Rental, as well as a few others. It is testament to the talent of Mort that I didn’t figure out just how many of the main characters he voiced, and I am as sickened by his talent as I am in awe of it.
The soundtrack works, the plotting is wonderfully on point, but with some great twists to main plot points, and I have to emphasises that the level of animation on display here is absolutely gorgeous, from the craftsmanship of every element to the visual gags scattered throughout every main scene. This is near-perfect, and I genuinely have no idea why I haven’t seen more people rave about it since it enjoyed a warm reception on the festival circuit a few years ago.
It should be available digitally to many people by now, and it certainly is here in the UK, although I have also just bought a special edition bluray to support Mort and co. Check here for a further taster of the film. And then go Chuck yourself.
9/10
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