The Thompsons
The long awaited sequel to cult vampire movie The Hamiltons arrives this week on DVD, this time the orphaned siblings are under a new identity.
The long awaited sequel to cult vampire movie The Hamiltons arrives this week on
DVD, this time the orphaned siblings are under a new identity. After
a massacre at a petrol station puts them on the run, they soon resurface in
England as the Thompsons and seek out the help of another vampire family.
Six years ago The
Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) made the
low budget vampire movie The Hamiltons, having built up a cult following, the
sequel sees the re-named, relocated family get into a whole new world of
trouble.
There is always
the danger when making a sequel that the filmmakers are just rehashing what has
gone before. Thankfully, The Butcher Brother belated follow up offers a fresh
story for fans to sink their teeth into. When the youngest member of the family
Lenny is injured, his siblings seek out the refuge of The Stuarts and believe
they have the ability to save Lenny’s life. The old vampire family expand the
mythology and turn out to be even more dysfunctional than The Thompsons.
Cory Knauf, Samuel
Child, Joseph McKelheer, and Mackenzie Firgens all return to
reprise their roles. Knauf also worked on the script with the Butcher Brothers
and his character Francis has grown into the moral compass for the family, in a
stark contrast from the original.
The first film
looked at a Vampire family attempting to live normal lives after the death of
their parents, The Thompsons is more focused on survival and what each
family member is willing to do to ensure it. The filmmakers obviously had a
little bit more money to make the sequel, which by Hollywoods standards would
still be considered low budget, but the veterans of horror know how to squeeze
the most out of limited resources.
Occasionally some
of the performances fall flat and are too over the top for their own good and
after making quite an impression in The Aggression Scale it is a shame Ryan Hartwig wasn’t given that much to do. All the returning
cast do a good job to develop their characters and clearly loving playing these
parts again. The movie is well structured and works as a stand alone film as
much as it’s a continuation but like most sequels it’s best enjoyed if you’ve
seen the first one.
For a grown up
vampire tale, there’s limited blood and guts and given the lean 80 minute
running time there’s perhaps too much emphasis on family melodrama but it’s the
attention to characters that sets The Thompsons apart from other horror movies.
The door is certainly left open for a third installment although we can only
hope it doesn’t take another six years to be made.
