Part of Dead By Dawn Festival

Some films embrace their stupidity. The Night Watchmen revels in it like a dog rolling in fox dung. It’s frequently ludicrous, endlessly crass, and wilfully gratuitous. It’s also very, very funny indeed. When a coffin containing the body of a local clown is incorrectly delivered to the offices of a Baltimore newspaper, all hell breaks loose. The clown was killed in a mysterious accident in Romania. When he wakes up with new vampiric tendencies, there’s a whole office full of journalists on which to feast. The only people who can stop the subsequent marauding horde are the completely ill-equipped night watchmen.

Mitchell Altieri’s film is relentless from the off. The laughs come thick and fast arising as much from the recognisable tropes as the gleeful slapstick humour. Particular highlights are a running gag involving Jiggetts’ (Kevin Jiggetts) inability to grasp black street slang, and ‘ex-Marine’ Ken’s (Ken Arnold) surprising cack-handedness when it comes to firearms. The bromantic old hands are joined by a new recruit (Max Gray Wilbur) having the worst induction ever, a mysterious night watch legend with an allegedly murderous past (Dan DeLuca), and a feisty lady journalist (Kara Luiz).

Be prepared for gallons of blood, completely unnecessary displays of flesh, and the now prerequisite retro 80’s score; all bombastic synths and strutting hair metal. Also be prepared for plot points that make no sense, no matter how much intellect you leave at home. The new guy was formerly a drummer in a satanic metal band. He later fashions drum sticks into stakes to use against the vampires. Why did he bring them to his first day at his new job? With any luck, the audience will be laughing hard enough to get past the screaming logic vacuums.

The film’s biggest plus point is the chemistry of the cast. For all that the characters are thinly drawn, as you would expect for a film that hurtles past in eighty minutes, everyone acquits themselves admirably. Luiz’s Karen is a suitably resourceful and fiery heroine, and Ken and Jiggetts’ close friendship is palpable. No matter how nonsensical the action, as long as we’ve connected with the characters then the film has worked.

The Night Watchmen is dumb, daft and demented, and occasionally guilty of the misogynistic, homophobic undercurrents that riddle the camp B-movies to which it is indebted. Another running joke about farting vampire corpses could also have been safely jettisoned. However, it is practically tailor made for the festival circuit. In a screening with an appreciative audience, a good time is almost guaranteed.