In fact UK and Irish distributor Entertainment One announced that the fourth and penultimate film in the saga – BREAKING DAWN PART 1 – broke records this weekend as it recorded the biggest all time opening for an American film in the UK, grossing £13.9 million.

BREAKING DAWN PART 1 has set the record with £6.35 million as the biggest non-3D opening Friday figure of all time, eclipsing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which grossed £5.9 million. Including 3D films, this Friday figure has charted as the 2nd highest ever.

This is a shot of a scene from a vampire movie apparently.

The film has become the biggest 2D opening of 2011, beating the previous record set by The Inbetweeners Movie which took £13.2 million over 5 days. BREAKING DAWN PART 1 has scored the biggest Twilight opening so far and the fifth biggest three day figure ever behind well established British franchises Harry Potter and James Bond.

So what does that say about the UK cinema audiences? What is the future for the vampire genre? And why is it that a horror film seems to only do well in the cinema if its not really horrible in any way at all?

A picture of the scariest vampire since Count Duckula

We want to hear what you have to say because we’re sure that it will be more intelligent, passionate and poignant than any of the dire dialogue spewed forth from the anemic anorexic and her fangless fashion doll of a love interest. It’s just a dragged-out, cash-in of a conversion which is feeding off the over stuffed teenage pockets like a grotesque money grabbing vampire leech, filling their fertile minds with unobtainable dreams and a hate of true horror.

Its over to you what do you think?

By the way here is the trailer just in case you need to get angry about this piece of crap all over again:

Jacob, an antiques dealer, moves himself and his family out to a remote farmhouse where they encounter fatal trouble in the shape of two feuding vampires – Phelan and Lilith. Having been released from another dimension through an ancient obsidian mirror, the pair wreak havoc on the family and a couple of innocent campers who just so happen to have stumbled into the warpath.

Firstly, I can safely say that vampire films have become disgusting gushing fantasies that only serve to parody a myth that was once scary. When was the last time you were frightened by a vampire film? This enters into the same category; it is not scary in the slightest.
In fact, it seemed as if it was not trying to be. What makes it your archetypal horror text is that it apathetically languishes in the grotesque. It is just a blood-drenched, loin-severed gore-athon. Maybe some like that sort of thing but, personally, it was like staring at a bubbling vat of blood. Moreover, a lack of blood there usually signalled a padding of T&A throughout the narrative, enthusiastically displayed by Natalie Celino who plays Lilith.

This film is undoubtedly torture porn – emphasis on the porn. Almost every scene seems sexualised as long as Lilith is around. Celino is never going to win an Oscar but I felt sorry and revolted by the manner in which she was being objectified. If she wasn’t coming on to family man Jacob she was being ravaged by a caveman (an actual scenario from the film). It is so in your face that her character is actually slain during sexual intercourse with the antihero. Cullingham’s moral compass must be pointed at “shame on you!” for thinking that unabashed titillation made for good horror thrills.

I did have to go on the IMDB website to check that this film was indeed listed as a horror – it was. Still, this is not without having disrupted the linearity and convenience of the story by throwing together a mishmash of incongruent elements from several other genres. The list is endless on this fact but, one thing is for sure, they could possibly classify the end result as a satirical comedy too.
The budding relationship between Phelan and Rachel drops from the clear black sky and manifests as some predatorily lustful Twilight-esque fanfare. The pair spent scenes in which they were conversing stood barely half a foot in distance from an ‘adults only’ rating. They were breathing heavily and writhing within each others’ personal space; no kiss, no embrace – just the vulgar acting of an emo girl with no relation established with Jacob or his wife, and a Brokeback Mountain reject with a baffling American-come-Irish accent.
Then there are expository flashbacks; this is obviously necessary to capture some knowledge of the characters’ origins and motives. Vampires from the gun-toting Wild West could have potentially been an interesting formula in itself. Unfortunately, it is never explored thoroughly and the film merely abducts these characters out of a good premise and places them within a less attractive filmic environment. No matter what Americanism you include now, one cannot help but become distracted by how incompatible it all appears. Here is me blatantly identifying with the setting of rural British countryside whilst listening to a sound track fit for The Quick and the Dead. These are only minor wormholes but, ultimately, these annoyances turn the narrative into swiss cheese.

It is pretty sad that I have had to be so derisory about a home grown production but it is my job to be honest.
Honestly, this was made on a miserly budget and it is clearly evident. Honestly, this film only succeeded in mutilating several successful genres in an attempt to be innovative. You cannot just throw several ideas into a tombola and see what you get out of it. That will only be seen as yet another failed attempt to be exploitatively entertaining.

Movie Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Trailer:

In the same way that Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent had me laughing so hard it hurt, Vampire in Vegas is just as cheesy and twice as enjoyable, essentially due to the legend that is Tony Todd.

Todd is Sylvian, an ancient and powerful vampire who has spent an eternity looking for a way to go out in the sun so he can take over the world and bend it to his wicked whims. Now living in Las Vegas – the perfect nocturnal city for him to hide in, he has hired a porn star… I’m sorry a ‘scientist’ to invent a cure for his deadly sun burn.

Using porn stars… I’m sorry ‘lady bloodsuckers’ as test subjects in a failed attempt to cure Sylvian’s curse, the accident draws the attention of the police and who start to investigate into the suspicious spontaneous combustion.

As Detective Stanton and his partner – a porn star… I’m sorry ‘Detective’ O’Hara get closer to discovering the truth behind these deaths and the fanged philanthropist’s secret, unrelatedly three friends on a bachelor party and stumble onto the Sylvian’s club which just happens to be full of porn stars… I’m sorry vampire strippers. Can the idiotic buddies escape the clutches of the deadly vampire vixens? And will the police stop Sylvian before he can attain the ultimate sunscreen?

To be honest you will be laughing so much you wont really care, and this is one of the sadder factors of Vampire in Vegas. Underneath the stupid dialogue and cast – seemingly made up of porn stars both male and female – is a reasonable storyline that given the chance could have been very interesting.

Yes its true that the evil vampire’s hunt for a potion to enable him to become a day walker has popped up in many other horror films. But the added element of a modern vampire who aims to attain power through becoming a U.S governor gives the idea a bit more weight, as well as the fact that the character is played by an African-American

On a slightly serious note, which may seem incongruous to this review of a terrible film, it is definitely the case that black vampires are an underrated and underused idea in horror. With the exception of Blade who one could argue is only half-vampire anyway, black vampires are barely seen. And when they are in such movies as Vampire in Brooklyn and Queen of the Dammed they are usually sidelined as a gimmick or worse still a joke.

The trouble can be traced back to the first ever African-American vampire movie Blacula, a Blaxplotation film which much like Vampire in Vegas is both ridiculous and brilliant. However it revolved around the idea that a black vampire was unusual and exotic a concept which has continued even into today’s horrors.

In the world of Vampire in Vegas this woman is a scientist not a porn star.

What elevated Blacula, again as in Vampire in Vegas, was the serious performance of William H. Marshall as the doomed Prince Mamuwalde who added a tragic and theatrical gravitas far beyond the cheap genre movies crazy plot and terrible effects.

Tony Todd does the same with Sylvian from the monologue on his murky past which opens the movie right through to his unconvincing battle with the scrawny bloke from the bachelor party at the very end. Like Rutger Hauer in his many, sometimes terrible films Todd impressively remains utterly convincing and committed to his character throughout, even though the character itself is preposterous and that in my mind is the mark of a great actor in many ways.

Latino mechanic and vampire expert - only in Vampire in Vegas!

Todd also makes the movie infinitely more fun whether he’s prancing around a blood bank in a stupid cape to threatening a scientist with a cat in his car. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely and this makes the audience enjoy the film more too.

From the continuity errors (watch the pink cardigan disappear) to the atrocious special effects, the Z-rate acting and the bonkers yet banal script, Vampire in Vegas is an awful film. But it’s also awfully funny and entertaining. It would be nothing without Tony Todd.

Movie Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Trailer:

In an opening dream-sequence we see him running unprotected for cover on a scorching city street, his skin finally bursting into flames.

He and his single-parent mother Julia (Mar Sodupe) are forced by his condition to leave his not-much-loved life in the city and settle in a remote village in the shade of the mountains. But something nasty is living in the woods here, and making midnight snacks of the local cattle; immediately on arrival Santi finds himself witness to a brutal attack on a local boy.

All this seems connected with their arrival in the village and the past inhabitants of their new house, and Santi finds himself singled out by the suspicious locals while he is himself stalked by the real beast. As a sinister old man tells his mother, “This is not a good place to be alone”. But who ever listens to those creepy old guys?

Billed as coming from a producer of The Orphanage, this similarly-themed Spanish horror is aiming for the same commercial mystery-chiller market, though with more of a teenage, possibly Twilight-friendly audience.
Shiver is visually impressive and well handled by its cast, with Valverde (The Devil’s Backbone) very capable as the vulnerable, aloof hero. But early scenes seem to rush through with perfunctory character introductions, the result being that the film initially holds no great sense of threat, and never fully exploits the abilities of the cast.

The tension and intrigue start to pick up when a lost football is playfully returned to Santi by the otherwise blood-slurping creature, and later scenes where he confronts his new friend, although perhaps familiar to horror fans, still have a creepy power.

But this is a story which packs in too many genre elements without integrating them fully, and ultimately relies on characters running back into the woods to provide further peril, apparently never having listened to the warnings of sinister old men.

The nuts and bolts of the mystery are also often glaringly obvious: the complete back-story has been filed conveniently in a trunk in the loft, and otherwise the locals nuns have long known about this mess and are happy to chip in with a bit of exposition.

Shiver is a well-produced film, and diverting enough entertainment, but it’s doubtful whether it will reach the right kind of audience among more committed horror fans. Most of all it’s strange and quite disappointing that the most intriguing element – Santi’s clinical aversion to sunlight – turns out to be a red-herring only dramatically exploited in a couple of scenes, when it could have been a central and visceral element of the film’s suspense.

Movie Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Trailer:

And that’s just about where the similarities between the 1985 and the 2011 version end. 80′s cheese has been replaced with dry wit, a mediocre cast has been upgraded to seasoned pros and dodgy fangs and makeup are superseded by fantastic CGI in, you guessed it – 3D!

Just about everyone in the Las Vegas suburb readily accepts Jerry to the neighbourhood, but when Charley’s friend Eddie provides evidence of Jerry’s dark side things quickly unravel and Charley soon has to defend himself, his mother and his girlfriend from Jerry and his cohorts.
Charley’s cries for help are ignored by most, but thankfully he finds an ally in Peter Vincent (David Tennant) who stars in a cheesy vampire act on the Las Vegas strip. Thankfully his knowledge is of some use and the pair soon find themselves in an almighty battle against the forces of darkness.

Fright Night is a wild ride. It’s fun, it’s filled with blood and explosions and there are also comedic moments which are used to lighten things a tad, keeping it more on the side of ‘entertaining’ than ‘terrifying’.
The roles are generally speaking, well allocated. Farrell is a curious yet entertaining choice for Jerry, and makes the role his own while Yelchin as Charley, Imogen Poots as Amy and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin himself) all give top notch performances to make the whole ‘vampire movie doused with blood and a dash of light humour’ thing work.

However, (Doctor Who fans take a deep breath) one weak element in Fright Night is David Tennant.
For the first half of his performance it’s ‘David Tennant impersonating Russell Brand’, and for the second half it’s ‘David Tennant impersonating, well, David Tennant’.
It’s the sort of performance that would be acceptable for network television, but feels odd on the big screen, and although his involvement doesn’t take much away from the film but it doesn’t really add anything either. There’s a whole bunch of actors out there that could undoubtedly have given something more the role and in turn, the film.

Brand... Uh... Tennant as Peter Vincent

Also, Fright Night doesn’t exactly do anything new for the vampire genre. We’re talking about the usual sexy, seductive vampires, who are easily stopped with crosses, garlic and holy water. Although this stays true to the traditions of Fright Night V1, it seems a little old fashioned and unimaginitive nowadays with lots of current producers looking to re-invent the vampire in an effort to keep things interesting.

All that said, Fright Night IS fun. When the action heats up David Tennant’s weaknesses fade behind exploding chests, brains and buildings.
It doesn’t set out to terrify and disturb, but it does look to entertain, and entertain it does, in a good old fashioned, unoffensive kind of way.
If you don’t take it too seriously, you’re likely to find Fright Night quite enjoyable.

Movie Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Trailer: