31 Days of Asian Horror: Vampire Cleanup Department (2017)

I probably should have planned things out a bit more so that I didn’t have two horror movies from Hong Kong back-to-back, but it’s vampire day and one of the movies that kept coming up when searching for options was the 2017 Vampire Cleanup Department, and I knew I was going to have to check it out.

In the early 1980’s, Hong Kong had an explosion of comedy/action/horror vampire films stemming from the popularity of the 1985 Mr. Vampire directed by Ricky Lau.. Vampire Cleanup Department is a spin-off of sorts, more an homage to the genre of films that were so popular. The movie takes elements from the original Mr Vampire that are most notable - vampires that hop and the way that vampires die - to update the story for a new era. Former Mr. Vampire franchise alumni Chin Siu Ho and Richard Ng star in the film. As for the movie, it has a fairly easy set up. After a brush with a vampire, Tim Cheung becomes an intern for a vampire hunting organization. While patroling one night he meets a female vampire and things start to spiral out of control when he falls for her. If you took Ghostbusters, replaced all of the ghosts with vampires, and added more mysticism and martial arts you’d get Vampire Cleanup Department.

The movie is wacky and campy, rarely letting go of the comedy and is entirely aware of it. Because of this, the comedy worked really well for me. I’m not usually into comedies that switch tones in and out too much and thought that all of the gags worked. From the way they introduce the unit, the jumping vampires that act more like mummies with fangs - it’s a constant ride of jokes and puns. While the movie was a fun way to spend a weekday night, it’s nothing that I would consider special or outstanding. It has sort of an interesting plot in the beginning, yet it doesn’t really make time for it to continue within the antics of everything going on and the by the second act the film heavily switches over the focus on the love story. I feel like this would have been a fun short series instead of just the movie so that we could get to know some of the other characters, which there are a good bit. All the characters are enjoyable, and there is a setup to a storyline with his parents that a series would give ground to an interesting backstory. This could have been intentially done, hoping that the movie would spawn a resurrection of the franchise, yet I can’t find any movement on that which kind of forces the movie to feel incomplete. That said, if you are in need of a low stress movie to watch for the Halloween season, especially if you have some older kids who will sit through a movie with you, I suggest giving it a try. While it doesn’t stick the landing, it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Vampire Cleanup Department is currently streaming at a number of places, inlcuding Viki, AsianCrush, and Tubi.

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