The Fearless Vampire Killers (Roman Polanski, 1967)

Rattled off by Polanski in a frivolous moment between Cul-de-sac and Rosemary's Baby, The Fearless Vampire Killers is a comedy horror film which has the unfortunate drawbacks of being neither funny nor scary, and populating it with moments of entirely random weirdness does not adequately make up for these oversights. Polanski plays the timid assistant of a daft professor on the trail of the local Dracula type, and in keeping with Hammer spoof practice there are timorous oddball villagers, a hunchback henchman, heaving bosoms and a lot of crucifixes and garlic. It has cult status largely for its English-as-a-foreign-language chopsocky film approach to dialogue, where large parts of the acting consist of deranged chuckles, grunts and other verbal and physical tics, but is basically little better in execution or ideas than any Carry On film, and frequently a whole lot more irritating than one as well.

4/10