I should by all rights hate a movie where everyone is constantly mugging for the cameras, or where most of the jokes barely qualify as humour. It shouldn't work. Hell, I'd say it doesn't work for most of its runtime. But Hawk and Rev: Vampire Slayers is so relentlessly good-natured and likeable that it's almost impossible to be down on this goofy, weightless little indie film.
Writer/director Ryan Barton-Grimley stars as Philip 'Hawk' Hawkins, a stunted man-child whose life was derailed after killing another soldier at boot camp with a 2x4 because 'he was a vampire'. Unfortunately, the flashback doesn't really show how he managed to do it.
Hawk now camps out on a tent at his parent's yard after they threw him out of the house, splitting his time between a dead-end security job and doing tai chi at the beach with his best bud Rev (Ari Schneider), a hippie in all but name.
The plot, such as it is, kicks off when Hawk sees a bunch of goth dudes sneaking into one of the warehouses he's supposed to watch over. After surveiling them for a while with Rev's help, they decide to go on the offensive, and enlist the help of a guy Hawk met at prison (Richard Gayler) as a vampire-hunting mentor. They're later joined by the clerk at a the santeria they buy holy water from (Jana Savage), who also starts dating Hawk.
There is a twist, of sorts, but the film mostly consists of Hawk and Rev or some combination of the cast fooling around, seemingly trying to make each other laugh. It's absolutely shameless - I wasn't kidding before when I said everyone keeps mugging all the fucking time, or that the humour barely works; There are multiple slow-motion montages where our heroes strut for the cameras to the music, and someone usually stumbles - you know, basic, lowest common denominator comedy.
But Barton-Grimley and his crew add a bit of unexpected panache to every other scene; I'm not going to say it looks good, because it's amateurish as hell, but it's clear they're experimenting with different techniques, going for a certain Edgar-Wright-like energy... and sometimes, it's close enough. The soundtrack is fairly good, too - a surprising amount of folk-adjacent rock alongside the expected original 80's mid-tempo butt rock ballad about how Hawk and Rev save the day/fighting vampires and chasing them away. I mean, honestly, when that song comes on with a hilariously abrupt edit over a spot-on '80s throwback title card... I laughed, hard. That aspect of the film at least is genuinely well-made.
This is basically outsider cinema, with a budget at the level of a regional production - the film's profile was raised a little thanks to COVID wiping the cinematic slate when it came out, but it's got the DiY ethos of a bunch of friends entertaining themselves. The few special effects there are, in particular the CGI bloodshed, look absolutely terrible - but then again, they're pretty epic for this movie.
There are long stretches where the film is almost painfully to watch - Rev's antics, in particular, will break many viewers; He's got the same type of really grating energy that Michael Moriarty displays on Q: The winged serpent - but less actorly and way more 'wacky'. But soon afterwards someone will pipe up with a completely bizarre line or a joke that's so off-beat, it just works; By the end I was mostly on the film's side, and a series of pretty funny vignettes that run alongside the end credits cemented that. I can't in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone, but God help me, I actually found it enjoyable.
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