Your Daily Dracula – Tcheky Karyo as the Duc de Journac, Les Dents de la Nuit (Vampire Party) (2008)

Your Daily Dracula – Tcheky Karyo as the Duc de Journac, Les Dents de la Nuit (Vampire Party) (2008)

Vampire walks up to a bar and asks for a Bloody Mary.  Bartender apologises ‘we’re all out of Bloody Mary, how about a Bloody Chantal?’ and hands over a bound-and-gagged girl he bites enthusiastically.  That’s about the level of this likeable French horror comedy – something like Vamp but with funny French folks and Techky Karyo as the long-haired Dracula/Master Vampire in a smoking jacket.

Sam Polisatokoniminsky (Patrick Mille) is a slacker devoted to ligging, preferably with his friends Prune (Julie Fournier), on whom he’s been crushing for years (‘I’ve always loved you, except during your baggy jeans phase at school’) and Alice (Frédérique Bel), a funny aorobics instructress.  They manage to wangle their way onto the guest list for an A-list bash thrown by the Duc de Journac (Karyo), who is of course the head of a coven of vampires who like to drain the guests’ blood.  In the mix are a celebrity dentist (Sam Karmann) the Duc hopes to recruit to immortality to look after his fangs, a doofus (Vincent Desagnat) who turns out to be the Duc’s nephew and gets nasty kicks from mingling with the doomed, and a dim gangland blonde mistress (Hélène de Fougerolles).  The good guys catch on fast and fight back.

A few imaginative touches show some thought – a book of dirty deals done by the vampires with the French political elite since they arranged the St Bartholomew Massacre for Catherine de Medici (which this party is supposed to commemorate) and the half-werewolf vamp marking his territory around a victim by peeing on the floor by the bed.  This works because of its likeable cast (Bel is especially sweet as a proto-Buffy who needs workout music on her I-pod to do vampire-killing stuff and still sweats and strains as she skewers) and quirky minor characters – it even manages a creditable twist as a comedy foul-up is revealed to be the worst monster here – and a general wealth of imagination.  It’s mostly broad spot-gags about vampires paddling in holy water or wearing sun-block or fussing over their hair, but it’s still reasonably amusing.

During the end credits, an ominous voice asks questions before someone from the Society for the Defence of Films Without Voice-Overs bursts in and executes him so we can watch the credits in peace.  Directed and co-written by Stephen Cafiero and Vincent Lobelle; co-scripted by Jean-Patrick Benes and Allan Maudit.