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Cast

Dan DeLuca

Ken Arnold

Kevin Jiggets

Max Gray Wilbur

Critic Reviews for The Night Watchmen

Audience Reviews for The Night Watchmen

• Oct 16, 2018

  I feel like this is gonna be a very similar review to my review of Dead Shack. What I mean by that is the fact that, for all intents and purposes, this should have been a movie that I enjoyed and, for some reason, I just didn't. And, of course, no horror fest would be complete with a vampire movie. Though, to be fair, in this movie, they somehow behave more like modern vampires, so I'm sorry Simon Pegg, but they're fast. Ken makes a joke about them being zompires. But, by and large, the movie treats its villains as vampires and the references to zombies are minimal. The night watchmen get rid of the vampires the same way you would expect. Stake through the heart, sunlight, crosses, etc, etc, etc. I don't know, somehow I feel that this review might end up being shorter than normal because I don't really think I have much to say about this. The thing about this movie, which is a quality that Dead Shack had, is that it's a very enthusiastically put together movie. Perhaps this movie more than Dead Shack. It is very clearly a labor of love and you can tell that the cast had a blast shooting this. These are all qualities that a film like this should have. That vibe, more often than not, ends up rubbing off on you and, essentially, it's easier to enjoy a movie if you can tell that the people making it had fun. It doesn't always work for every type of movie, of course, I think it benefits comedies more as opposed to something that's a little more serious. I don't think a Shakespearean tragedy would benefit from an infectious and fun vibe, just saying. Here's the thing about this movie, though, while that fun vibe is definitely part of what I liked about the movie, I don't think it's as consistently good early on as, say, Dead Shack was. Dead Shack was good for a lot of its first half, the second half was when things got rough. I think the problem with this movie, I found the humor to be wildly inconsistent. It's a movie that doesn't demand a lot of of you. You just sit down, watch it and (hopefully) enjoy the movie. It's straightforward and it doesn't really pull any punches. It knows what it is and what the people watching it want from it. And, by and large, they do deliver that. But I found the humor to be really inconsistent. It's not that it's completely unfunny, as that would be an utter lie, it's just that some scenes I felt like I had to force myself to laugh. There's this running joke that, whenever the vampires are killed, they void their bowels and fart. This is, essentially, how the night watchmen (and Karen) know that a vampire is dead. And I thought that this was gonna be used for the night watchmen (and Karen) to confirm that Blimpo wasn't actually dead when they had their final showdown. Blimpo is the big bad of the movie, as it were. But no, that's not what it was used for. It was just used because they just liked fart noises. And I'm not saying that fart jokes are inherently unfunny, even if they are the easiest joke to do (Sandler has made his career out of fart jokes and stupid faces), but it takes a special person to make a fart joke legitimately good. And, even then, it only works the one time. It's not a joke that you can go back to over and over and expect it to get the same result it did the first time. And that's what happens in this movie here. I think it works the very first time, but it's less funny the next, say, six or seven times they make the same joke. And, again, I guess it's a way for them to confirm that a vampire is really and truly dead, after driving a stake through their heart, but it just feels like an excuse to cram in as many farts in there as they can and, to me, it just doesn't work. As I mentioned, the rest of the jokes are very hit and miss. They're just openly attempting me to force me to laugh. And, to me, that's another thing that doesn't work. A movie needs to be organically funny and the movie is far more forceful with its humor, like they're literally begging you to laugh. They're not on their knees begging, but they are begging you to laugh at its jokes. I hate to say that it tries too hard, because that's so much better than the alternative, but it does try too hard. It just feels like they're overcompensating for something and that's annoying when you see a person, so it stands to reason that the same would apply to a film. With that said, the cast of the movie gets a huge thumbs up from me, they're clearly very enthusiastic about the material and they clearly gave it their all. I just wish the script would have given them a little something more to work with. I don't mean in terms of character development, because this was never meant to be that, I just mean in terms of it being legitimately funnier than it was. It's a shame, because I still felt that this was a decent movie and, at 79 minutes long (with credits), it's gonna be a breeze to get through. It never overstays its welcome and it's got the tone and atmosphere that's gonna be inviting to people just looking for something that's quick, easy and silly to watch. For my money, though, the film's humor is lacking when compared to everything else and that leads to a very inconsistent, but sometimes entertaining, horror movie. I can't really give it a recommendation, but I assume that I'm probably in the minority and that most people will enjoy this and that's fine with me. Regardless, it is not without its flaws and I can't help but say that, overall, it is just a decent movie.
  Jesse O Super Reviewer

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