There are times that when you read a premise on paper that seems fun, you actually aren't surprised when it doesn't turn out to be particularly good. At least I'm not. I've already seen several movies that had fun premises-"Shadow: Dead Riot" for example-that didn't live up to said potential. A recent case in point: "Dead Cert", which wants to be a mix of a tough British gangster movie and "From Dusk 'Til Dawn", and wastes said potential.
In the East End of London, Freddie "Dead Cert" Frankham (Craig Fairbrass, who seems to be forever cast as a big, tough guy from the East End) ends up getting mixed up in the affairs of Romanian Gangster Dante Livenko (Billy Murray) and his gang. Well, it turns out that Dante is a vampire known as the wolf, and to make matters worse, the local strip club Freddy and his pals frequent is now overrun with the bloodsuckers.
To be fair, this movie does feature some decent to good performances, especially Murray, whose a lot of fun as the villain. The problem though, is that it takes too long to get to the good stuff, so to speak. It's not until the fifty something minute mark that the club is overrun, and until then, the movie is mostly just a bunch of talk with the occasional act of violence padding out time. Speaking of which, after the vampires come out to play, we get more talk. In fact, there's so many scenes of people arguing and conversing that you kind of wonder why the filmmakers decided to include vampires at all.
Which leads to the movies biggest problem: it doesn't go far enough. Sure, there's bloodshed and the make up FX look good, but they aren't anything you haven't seen before. In fact, for a movie that has strippers turning into vampires, the movie feels sort of tame. It takes itself too seriously, doesn't offer the bountiful female nudity and gore one would hope for, and the final battle between humans and vampires feels pretty anemic.
I went into "Dead Cert" with low expectations, and guess what? Mission accomplished. There's nothing here that sets this apart from other crappy vampire movies or British crime/gangster movies. Your better off just watching "From Dusk 'Till Dawn" again instead of this generic soup.
In the East End of London, Freddie "Dead Cert" Frankham (Craig Fairbrass, who seems to be forever cast as a big, tough guy from the East End) ends up getting mixed up in the affairs of Romanian Gangster Dante Livenko (Billy Murray) and his gang. Well, it turns out that Dante is a vampire known as the wolf, and to make matters worse, the local strip club Freddy and his pals frequent is now overrun with the bloodsuckers.
To be fair, this movie does feature some decent to good performances, especially Murray, whose a lot of fun as the villain. The problem though, is that it takes too long to get to the good stuff, so to speak. It's not until the fifty something minute mark that the club is overrun, and until then, the movie is mostly just a bunch of talk with the occasional act of violence padding out time. Speaking of which, after the vampires come out to play, we get more talk. In fact, there's so many scenes of people arguing and conversing that you kind of wonder why the filmmakers decided to include vampires at all.
Which leads to the movies biggest problem: it doesn't go far enough. Sure, there's bloodshed and the make up FX look good, but they aren't anything you haven't seen before. In fact, for a movie that has strippers turning into vampires, the movie feels sort of tame. It takes itself too seriously, doesn't offer the bountiful female nudity and gore one would hope for, and the final battle between humans and vampires feels pretty anemic.
I went into "Dead Cert" with low expectations, and guess what? Mission accomplished. There's nothing here that sets this apart from other crappy vampire movies or British crime/gangster movies. Your better off just watching "From Dusk 'Till Dawn" again instead of this generic soup.