The Night Watchmen (2017) Reviews

• The Night Watchmen: A fantastic horror comedy

  Platypuschow2017-12-30

  Comedy and horror blend together really well and here is yet another example of this. Telling the story of a group of office workers & security guards who are the last survivors of a vampire outbreak in their building. Starring James Remar & Tiffany Shepis truth is they are little more than cameo appearances and likely added to give the movie a bit of star power. With fantastic one liners, high production values and a competent cast this really caught me by surprise and is a really good effort. The film has some really great writing, memorable vampire clowns and roaring potential for an entire franchise, I walked away from this very pleased. It's not flawless but is a damn fine effort regardless, we need more of this and less of The Conjuring/Insidious nonsense. The Good: Tiffany Shepis James Remar Looks great The Bad: Lacks closure One sfx looks pretty bad Things I Learnt From This Movie: 1980's montage scenes are still awesome A sure fire way to identify a vampire is by their inability to dance Necrophilia is when one person makes sweet love to someone else. The someone else is just dead though Giving a vampire the munchies doesn't sound like a good idea to me

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• Vampire Clowns Menace Baltimore – and John Waters Isn't Involved

  stu-003292017-04-08

  "The Night Watchmen," named Best Horror Feature at the 2017 International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, is the movie equivalent of tasty junk food – the cinematic counterpart to fried Twinkie or an Oreo churro. (The latter available at the theater concession stand.) It's a ridiculous tale of vampire clowns terrorizing a Baltimore newspaper office. And, apparently, legendary Baltimore filmmaker John Waters had nothing to do with it. The co-creators, Ken Arnold and Dan DeLuca, play two of the security guards. Arnold's Ken is the nominal leader, while DeLuca's Luca is the mysterious, scary one. The team of watchmen is rounded out by Kevin Jiggetts, playing Ken's sidekick Jiggetts, a pot-loving African-American Jew, and Max Gray Wilbur as a washed-up rock musician in his first night on the job. Following their mysterious deaths while performing in Romania, Baltimore icon Blimpo the Clown and his troupe are shipped home for medical testing. After a delivery mix-up leaves Blimpo's coffin at the newspaper building instead of the medical facility down the block, pervy newspaper owner Randall (James Remar, the only cast member that a viewer is likely to recognize) forces is it open, releasing Vampire Blimpo. The four inept night watchmen and hot-chick newspaper editor Karen (Kara Luiz) must band together like sad-sack Guardians of the Galaxy to fight off the vampire clowns and the newly undead newspaper employees they have created. During the Q&A after a screening at the Phoenix Film Festival, Arnold said he and DeLuca dreamed up the project to amuse themselves between jobs and that their overriding priority was to make people laugh. That they don't take themselves or their movie too seriously is obvious from the look of the film, the cheesy dialogue and the silly subplots. Along the way, however, The Night Watchmen lampoons the conventions of the horror, vampire and zombie genres. The movie gushes bodily fluids, but in a manner that is silly, not scary, goofy, not gory. At one point, after encountering some really disgusting vampire clowns, Karen grumbles that she watched every season of HBO's "True Blood" and it was nothing like this. It's worth noting that, for fans of horror, vampire and zombie movies, The Night Watchmen is full of Easter Eggs that pay homage to previous films in those genres. Besides amusing themselves, the writers clearly are offering middlebrow comedy for a highbrow audience. They hit their mark. ### Stu Robinson does writing, editing, media relations and social media through his business, Phoenix-based Lightbulb Communications.

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• Fun movie

  Psy-Ko2017-04-08

  Saturday afternoon and not feeling my best. Wanted a fun movie that I didn't have to use any brain cells on. This fit the bill perfectly! Campy fun, not to be taken seriously. It's low budget but production values were pretty good. Acting was decent and the story, well it's just a misfits vs vampires story so not much to elaborate on there. As a comedy it did it's job, it entertained me for an hour and a half and made me laugh a few times. Every movie doesn't need to be a thought provoking cinematic masterpiece. And all movies shouldn't be compared to those that are. Sometimes one and done and thanks for the laughs is all that's needed.

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• Cheesy but quite well executed

  alexfromhorn2017-02-23

  This movie combines zombie and vampire elements with a spooky clown. Sounds like a popcorn flick? Yeah it kinda is, it leaves the impression as if it could be a pilot for a new series. This movie doesn't take itself seriously and you can feel that all the way because with dialogues as cheesy as these, and vampires reacting in funny comic styled ways you can't expect more. It's entertaining to a certain degree and I'm glad it wasn't any longer, 80 minutes were just about right. The beginning seemed a bit more promising than the movie finally was but, who could have expected something different. The cameraman did a good job and the music was fitting, colorgrading was nicer than expected. Good movie to watch with some friends and laugh here or there.

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• It isn't easy to mix horror with comedy but here it works.

  homecoming82017-11-16

  After having seen a couple of bad low budget horror films, I wasn't expecting much here but was pleasantly surprised. Yet another zombie horror/comedy in the tradition of classics like "Return of the Living Dead" and "Shaun of the Dead". We've seen quite a few of those in the last years but most aren't even worth watching. "Night Watchmen" is certainly not in the same league as the titles mentioned below but this low budget version has a lot to offer. Besides James Remar (48 Hrs, Dexter) the cast is unknown but the leading characters are believable and funny at the same time. Well written funny dialogue. The mixture of gore and comedy is well done with a couple of hilarious scenes. If you don't like films like "Return of the living Dead" than you shouldn't even bother. Otherwise, worth checking out. Wouldn't mind a sequel..

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