Saturday, October 06, 2012

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead

(2009) * 1/2
Meh. I got duped by the title, thinking this might be a fun parody along the lines of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (I actually have no idea if that one is fun or not, but it seems to be pretty popular, no?) In any case, this one isn't really fun at all.

On the one hand, it does have moderately decent production values for such a low budget, but the script is pretty lame, and the plot almost indecipherable.

It has something to do with some age old battle between two vampires named Horatio and Hamlet. Hamlet has cured himself with the holy grail, and he goes around turning vamps back into humans. Horatio, on the other hand, has turned thespian and spends eternity staging productions of the play Hamlet, in which he gradually turns each cast member in vamps during the course of rehearsals. There's also some sort of underground secret agency who have been following these two guys throughout the centuries, trying to recapture the grail for their own purposes.

It's all pretty dumb and dull, unfortunately, though Jeremy Sisto does show up near the end and deliver as a doofus cop. Ralph Macchio is also sorta funny as a mob guy selling squirt gun cologne. Dustin Hoffman's kid Jake is the lead, playing the human director of the Hamlet production (btw, I forgot to mention that ultimately, it seems that they stop producing Hamlet and instead put on some new play written by the Horatio vamp guy, but I had lost interest and concentration by then).

Oh well, I did my annual Shakespeare trip to Stratford last weekend, so I've been in a Shakespeare kind of mood this week, which maybe explains why I stuck this one out as long as I did. I would say "too bad they couldn't do more with the premise," but really, they didn't have a premise so much as they had a punchline.

6 comments:

Catfreeek said...

Oh this one sounds dreadful, nice review though and kudos for digging up something I for one have never heard of.

Octopunk said...

Eew. Sounds like they had a woefully obscure punchline that they didn't even try to serve properly.

A centuries-old agency trying to steal the Grail from one guy is pretty pathetic. Centuries? C'mahhn.

AC said...

this is where the "no-bailing" rule seems kinda sadistic.

DKC said...

We have a "no-bailing" rule? Damn, I didn't know that. Or maybe I did. Either way - bummer of a flick, Landshark!

AC said...

sorry, dcd, i just meant how you don't get credit unless you watch the whole thing.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Too bad. Sounds like a squandered opportunity. Does it have anything whatsoever to do with the Tom Stoppard play? I remember thinking that was pretty brilliant in high school.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...