Writers Paul Hupfield and Stewart Williams sired LVK title-first, shooting for the most shamelessly commercial moniker anyone’s ever thought of. The screenplay came second – which could be why it often feels like an afterthought.
You get the gist in the first five minutes, a Middle Ages-set intro sequence. There’s a lesbian vampire queen. She gets killed. She’s going to come back. That’s it. Cut to the present day: best mates Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden), both down on their luck, head to a Welsh village where they’re duped on to the moors as fresh meat for the queen and her Sapphic psycho-sisters. Chases, splattery beheadings and cock jokes follow.
It looks like The Evil Dead directed by Zack Snyder on a shoestring. It feels like it was conceived in the brain of a 15-year-old boy who sleeps on a stack of weekly lads’ mags.
Early on, there’s a scene where Corden is fired from his job as a children’s entertainer, dressed as a clown. Why? Because clowns are comical – and fat ones even more so. Is the scene ever referred to again? Of course it isn’t. Because this isn’t so much a structured story as a loose series of skits designed to mine cheap, dirty, guilty laughs. It’s slapdash, it’s idiotic, it’s obsessed with breasts and swearing. In its defence, it doesn’t ever pretend to be anything else (the clue’s in the title)– and even the stoniest viewer will unwittingly let out a titter in places.
If you’re expecting the new Shaun Of The Dead, you’re going to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you’ve ever tapped ‘55378008’ into a calculator, turned it upside down and giggled for hours, this is your new favourite film.
Richard Moore
