CERT: 15 / FORMAT: BLU-RAY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Horror and comedy have gone hand in hand for years, from Abbott and Costello to Ghostbusters and even Scream. Yet, some of the greatest horror comedies of all time are still criminally underrepresented. One of the deepest and most rewarding wells of the sub-genre is easily the ‘80s offerings of East Asian directors like Sammo Hung and Ricky Lau. Lau’s first horror comedy, Mr Vampire, is the latest film in Lau’s filmography to receive a restoration from Eureka!
Master Gau (Lam Ching-Ying) performs complex magic to keep the undying corpses of vampires, eternally at rest. After accepting a reburial job from a wealthy businessman, Gau stumbles across a powerful vampire, and takes him home to study. Whilst Gau works to keep the vampire at bay, his two inept apprentices Man-choi and Chau-sang, work hard to woo the daughter of the wealthy businessman.
After the success of Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind, horror comedy became a more bankable venture in Hong Kong and Chinese markets. So much so that Hung produced this film for Lau in 1985, five years after Hung’s breakthrough film. The goofy roots of Hung’s humour are easily spotted in Lau’s Mr Vampire, as is the fondness for sheer camp, folklore, and slapstick. From scene one, Mr Vampire is a farce in every possible way, its story spurred forward by sheer misfortune and stupidity. Its characters are a mixture of classic pantomime archetypes caught in a fateful duel with pure evil. The results are inconsistent but so easily enjoyable the film is a worthwhile venture.
Though made in the ‘80s the period setting and cosiness of the humour is very reminiscent of the old Hollywood Abbot and Costello films. The dark gory roots of ‘80s Chinese horror cinema lie with auteurs like Chang Cheh, but Lau’s is a world of family friendly thrills. Whatever horror might have been in the original folklore is all but stripped out in favour of slapstick and stupidity. Which isn’t a bad thing at all. Lau carefully balances his goofy comedy with fascinating folk magic and action set pieces bound to entertain even the most hard core fans of East Asian cinema. It’s also a wonderful starting point for potential new fans of the subgenre.
