Movie Breakdown: Vampires VS The Bronx (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
You know, it’s been quiet times for screeners in the old Sanders household, so when Netflix dropped a press release for something called Vampires VS The Bronx I was, if not intrigued, desperate to get my reviewing hands on a new movie. If that something is a film about three plucky kids from the Bronx fighting vampires, well, so be it.
Post-Screening Ramble:
For the first twenty minutes of Vampires VS The Bronx I thought I was watching the sequel to another film. As if, the story of three kids from the Bronx (Jaden Michael, Gregory Diaz IV and Gerald Jones III) fighting supernatural, vampiric gentrifiers was just another entry in some made-for-television shit show I hadn’t been privy to. I checked on the internet (it’s not) and as soon as I realized the jarring lack of exposition wasn’t due to the film being a sequel, but rather a narrative choice, I settled into a mildly entertaining if not totally forgettable film.
Vampires VS The Bronx follows three kids who fight centuries old vampires who are trying, because it’s what they do, to buy out the long time residents of the Bronx and install coffee shops and artisan thread stores and restaurants that serve organic butter. They’re doing this because vampires need a place to live and they’ve settled on the Bronx because, as the head vampire hisses dramatically, “no one cares if people disappear there.” The kids find out, duh, and then have to go about battling vampires while proving to their skeptical community that they exist.
The movie is predictable in the way that it was possibly written based on a formula for “horror film with heart and social message” and you know every beat that’s going to happen. It isn’t a good film, but it is one of those strange cinematic objects that somehow draws a cast of talented actors – Shea Whigham, Chris Redd, Sarah Gadon – and then squanders them entirely. Honestly, though I won’t recommend this movie unless you’re doing a puzzle and want the background noise of thick New York accents and hissing vampires to encourage your production, I will say there’s a good movie living deep in the folds of this film, a fun take on kids versus blood-suckers with a smart play on the idea of diverse neighborhoods standing up against the scouring cleanse of gentrifiers. I mean, this movie isn’t good, but in some alternate reality, maybe it could’ve been?
One Last Thought:
There’s some serious Shaun of the Dead DNA in the visuals for this. But instead of helping the film it just made me want to watch Shaun of the Dead.
