In a quiet countryside farmhouse, Britain’s vampires gather for their once-every-fifty-years meeting. Others will be joining them too; Sebastian Crockett, an unwitting Essex boy who thinks he’s on a promise with sexy cougar Vanessa; and a detachment of Special Forces vampire killers who have bitten off more than they can chew. This is certainly going to be a night to remember… and for some of them it will be their last. – (Source)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: NA (Critics) / 25% (Audience)
Directed By: Jason Flemyng
Written By: Danny King
Starring: Charlie Cox, Freema Agyeman, Tony Curran, Eve Myles and Billy Cook
Studio: Evolution Pictures

The Good:
I loved the cast in this film. It was chock full of actors with extensive resumes in genre fare ranging from the DOCTOR WHO Universe (Freema Agyeman and Eve Myles) to Marvel’s Netflix shows (Charlie Cox) to Tony Curran who has been in tons of sci-fi and horror stuff. And Billy Cooper was a nice find as the unlucky human invited to the big vampire pow-wow. Most of the film’s funnier moments were because of him.
The story was also intriguing and really makes the viewer curious to see more of this reality’s vampire society and how it operates in the broader day to day context and just how deep into the government does the anti-vampire sentiment flow.

The Bad:
I am a huge fan of the comedy-horror subgenre so I really wanted to like EAT LOCAL more than I did but the movie never seemed to fully embrace either the horror or the comedy with as much gusto as the best of this sub-genre tends to do. While there were some chuckle worthy moments nothing was really all that hilarious and the horror was less horrific than I was hoping for. Plus the fusion of the two never came together into anything tonally cohesive enough to be really entertaining even though the sight of a machine gun toting granny vampire was a bit of a hoot to see. I guess the failings for the film can be attributed to it being actor turned director Jason Flemyng‘s first time in the director’s chair and he’ll show improvement on the sequel since the film’s ending seemed to set up future movies.

The Ugly:
The ending tried a bit too hard to be cheeky and the idea that all the events in the movie took place so a corporation could create some extra-strength skin cream out of vampire DNA was kinda weak.

Final Verdict: EAT LOCAL had all the ingredients to be a really rip-roaring new addition to the comedy-horror genre but never let go enough to be totally satisfying as either a comedy or a horror film. It does feature a killer cast though.

Grade: C-