| USA, 1967 | Comedy/Horror | Low-key Mainstream | Trailer |
When I was younger, my parents used to remember this movie very fondly, so its name kind of always stayed in my backbone. Thanks to the new classic cinema-oriented channel of my digital TV service, I was finally able to take a bite on it. So it ended being a perfect watch for the post-Halloween season.
Comedy and horror are theoretically considered opposing genres; although there exist a bunch of daring combinations that are intendedly successful, or purely coincidential, such as bad horror movies that incidentally can be considered comical. The Fearless Vampire Killers belongs to them, or better said, as a mock-up of them. Roman Polanski inspires himself in the (back then) very popular vampire movies from the Hammer factory (which incidentally gave Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing some of their most iconic roles) to craft a work that intends to imitate the incidental comedy of bad horror movies, and clearly succeeds at it.
This movie constructs a world with clear reminiscences of classic horror movies, and sprinkles it with iconic comedy bits, slapstick and hilarious dry premises that don’t work bad with it. The big accomplishment of The Fearless Vampire Killers is subtlety: it does not abuse on comedy and leaves it arise and flow naturally when it is intended, whilst being basically a horror movie. Therefore, the movie is not as boring as Hammer horrors, but also not as comedic so it does not become frivolous. The couple of main characters -the smart, stoic master and the dumb, salacious novice- acts well as comedy and as drama duo, and the portrayal of the side characters is strong enough to forget we are watching a mocking movie.
However, some of the comedy bits based on salaciousness aged very poorly, so sometimes they may seem out of place for modern audiences. Nevertheless, there aren’t enough movies where Sharon Tate can shine. And here, she indeed can.
Overall, not a fantastic movie but very solid and it acts well as a good entertainment.
