Lesbian Vampire Killers (15)

DEAR James Corden and Mathew Horne, Your new film, Lesbian Vampire Killers, stinks.

Fond regards, Robbie Collin, News of the World.

PS: OK then, James and Mat. You probably expect more from a film review than that. But please understand, I really had to get it out there, first up. Just how bad this film is.

In fact it pongs so badly that undiscovered tribes in the Yucatan will be retching at the odour of Lesbian Vampire Killers.

Let's start with a flashback, James and Mat. You might have noticed how the old fame game has changed a bit over the last three months. Remember the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special you did in December? That was brilliant, that was.

Then you hosted The Brit Awards last month. And suddenly there was the faintest whiff of a Horne & Corden backlash hanging in the air.

Well, that whiff has now become a fully-fledged, week-old-chicken-fajitas-with-a-pickled-egg-on-top stink.

At first, you had my sympathy. Because it was always going to be tough following something as well-loved as G & S. And it would have been a real shame if your next project got an undeserved almighty kicking, just because people are a bit sick of the sight of you.

Good news then, of a sort. Lesbian Vampire Killers WILL get an almighty kicking-but good grief, does it deserve it.

There's no problem with the actual concept-the two of you playing a pair of losers who decide to head off on a camping trip only to end up in a village stricken by a lesbian vampire curse.

And we can pass over a few of the film's more minor shortcomings too, such as the fact that your female co-stars look like they were cast off the back of a half-hearted flick through Nuts magazine.

Or the fact that the lesbian vampires don't actually do much, apart from wibble around with the wind blowing through their hair, like Kate Bush on ketamine. It's a send-up. We get it, James and Mat. Oh, we get it. It's SUPPOSED to be rubbish. But you can only push a send-up so far. It can be as sleazy, and as dirty, and as shoddy as you like, but the whole not-stinking aspect is still kind of crucial.

So in theory, we can give a pass to the unsatisfying digital gore, botched kill scenes, and the total lack of consistency in the plot. (Honestly, James and Mat, one minute crosses repel the lesbian vampires, the next they have no effect. What do you take us for? Stinking idiots??)

But only if there's something else left at the end for us to enjoy. And to be frank, James and Mat, there isn't. No jokes. No scares.

Nothing but white CGI slime and unfunny swearing, in fact. And that's it. Oh yes, apart from one big old gum-rotting, methane-rich gobful of stink supreme.

Remember a few months ago, James, when you described Lesbian Vampire Killers as "Shaun of the Dead with t**s"?

As it turns out, you couldn't have been more right. There are t**s all over the place. T**s on screen, t**s behind the camera, t**s writing the lines and t**s reading them.

But Shaun of the Dead worked both as a horror film, and a comedy. Ideally, this is how horror comedies should work.

In a flawed world like ours, James and Mat, I'd even settle for one or the other.

But Lesbian Vampire Killers doesn't manage either. It's not successfully scary, or successfully funny. Although in fairness, perhaps that's because it's too busy successfully stinking, so very, very hard.

Unacceptably, James and Mat, you've put me off vampires. Even less acceptably, you've nearly put me off lesbians too.

And from these two unfortunate corollaries we can infer only one logical conclusion.

Nobody should go and see your stinking little stinkcloud of a film.

PPS: Best of luck with the new sketch show.

OUT FRIDAY

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