Review: Bloodsucking Bastards


Fran Kranz plays wimpy sales worker Evan, who is forced to encounter ex-girlfriend Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick) every day at work after having embarrassed himself by his idiotic reaction to Amanda using the ‘L’ word. The job is slowly sucking the life out of him, and it only gets worse when his callous boss (Joel Murray) renegs on a promise to Evan for a promotion, instead giving it to his long-time nemesis Max (Pedro Pascal). However, things take an even more horrible turn when Evan discovers a dead body. Turns out, a vampire is on the loose in their office and Evan and his seriously slack co-workers (including Joey Kern) will need to stop playing video games or surfing for porn on the net long enough to fight for their lives against an increasing number of thirsty bloodsuckers.

 

Directed by Brian James O’Connell, this “Office Space” with vampires has an amiable cast, but almost zero laughs. In fact, it’s pretty desperate and dull actually. Scripted by Ryan Mitts and the idiotic-sounding Dr. God (a moniker for the supposed comedy troupe that O’Connell is a part of), any merit this thing has comes from a few of the cast, especially the fine work by Fran Kranz. Kranz makes for a good loser schmuck that you almost feel like rooting for (a quality not entirely foreign to what he brought to the shamefully short-lived TV series “Dollhouse”), whilst “Game of Thrones” alum Pedro Pascal makes for a decent slimy jerk. The absolute douchiness of these office slackers is the closest the thing comes to being genuinely amusing. Other than that, Kranz’s reaction to the first dead body almost got a smile out of me, and a discussion on the improper usage of the term ‘literally’ was cute and is an issue I’m quite passionate about myself. Other than that though, it sucks.

 

Joel Murray is a serious disappointment as the boss, and the cameo by a surprisingly mellow Matthew Lillard is so useless I had to check the credits to make sure it was really him. Yep, it is and it’s basically a walk-on for Dr. God knows what reason. Shut up, that’s funnier than anything in the damn film. The film is also a bit shy with the gore, having some of the kills actually occur off-screen, or at best splattering the blood on people’s faces from off-camera. For a film that is barely funny, that’s just not good enough.

 

Fran Kranz is good, the film isn’t, and he deserves better. It’s not funny enough, bloody enough, scary enough, interesting enough, nor technically proficient enough to be worth his or your time. A stale office satire mixed with a vampire flick, this one won’t satisfy horror fans or comedy fans. It pretty much sucks.

 

Rating: D

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