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Friday, October 1, 2010

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead (2009) - Horror Comedy Vampires

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead (2009) - The pre-credit scene of the actress getting bit by the vampire establishes the theater owned by the vampire Theo Horace (John Ventimiglia). After the credits we get the main character Julian Marsh (Jake Hoffman) an unemployed director who longs for his ex girlfriend( The lovely and former D.E.B., Devon Aoki) and lives in the back of his father's doctor office. His Dad gives him ad ad for a job directing a play at Theo's theater, looking for a young controllable human. The play a variation on "Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead" except in this case Undead. He of course gets the job after an amusing interview including questions about whether he has any blood ailments. The great thing about this film is the light and witty dialog that is scattered through out. Although not laugh out loud it continues to bring smiles with wit in the writing by Jordan Galland who also directed.
Julian gets hired and quickly finds his actor best friend Vince (Kris Lemche) for the role of Hamlet. Through there scene we learn that his ex, Anna is an ex because Julian was caught cheating on her with a stripper. As they walk a street person, maybe fan warns Vince that if he ever finds himself in a Shakespearean play with vampires that he should call the given number. What a coincidence!
There is a bit more setup with the establishing of Anna's new boyfriend Bobby Bianchi (Ralph Machio) and getting Anna into the role of Ophelia in the play. Then it some really amusing scenes of rehearsal, the slave girls Theo has as part of the cast are beautiful Zadeska (AzieTesfai ) and Lyuba (Carmen Goodine) get established as well as vampire feeding and the suspicions of the humans that something is not right. The earlier crazy fan(Geneva Carr) comes back in other disguises and is shown to be part of a secret organization that really has no reason to exist but to fill in plot points for us.
Not wanting to spoil this film, here is the dirty but twist free finish. Opening night is important and the climax happens on that night. Since Julian is established as still involved with Anna will have a part with her and have to reconcile the existence of the boyfriend. Some of the characters are changed into vampires and there is a big plot point concerning the real hamlet and his relationships with vampires.
It was an amusing film that if they just avoided the few booby flashes probably could have been a PG-13. The writing was very clever even though the story was just okay, it is hard to get behind a hero who is a bit of a slacker.
Rating(5.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, On the Zombiegrrlz rating system, Rent it!

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