The Radleys
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Three stars
Just when you think there’s no more mileage in vampires, something comes along with enough gas to move the undead jalopy down the road a bit. In this case it’s The Radleys, an adaptation for Sky Originals of Matt Haig’s 2010 novel of the same name.
The director is Euros Lyn, whose TV credits include Doctor Who, Sherlock and (important here, given the strong LGBT sub-plot) Netflix smash Heartstopper. The screenplay is by Talitha Stevenson and comedian Jo Brand. And the twist putting petrol in the tank? These vampires, Peter and Helen Radley, are teetotal and in recovery, and are trying to throw off their bloodsucking past by cultivating a life of suburban normality in a quiet town in northern England – to the extent that their children don’t even know their parents are vampires, or that they are too.
Or they didn’t know, anyway. When daughter Clara is sexually assaulted by the local jock after one of those boozy outdoor gatherings teenagers call parties, her powers are switched on. The jock, meanwhile, is bloodily switched off. Permanently.
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Enter Will, Pete’s tattooed, skull ring-wearing, camper van-driving twin brother, who is called in to help clean up the mess and manage the fallout as Clara and her brother Rowan come to terms with their new found powers and the dangers and demands they bring. “See the thing about mirrors?” Pete tells Rowan when they have a rather unusual father to son chat. “It’s not true. The garlic bit is though.”
Damien Lewis stars as both Pete and Will – see if up you can spot the joins in the scenes in which they’re together – and Kelly Macdonald is excellent as the mumsy Helen, flustered by what’s happening to her family and flushed (and more) by the resurgence of her feelings for Will.
It doesn’t help that mind control is one of his vampiric party tricks. Fleshing out the cast (sorry) are The Jetty’s Bo Bragason as Clara, Harry Baxendale as Rowan, and Jay Lycurgo as Rowan’s friend Evan (also the object of Rowan’s unrequited love). If the runs out of steam a little in the final third, it’s always fun in a Twilight-meets-Skins sort of way, and Lyn has helmed enough of this sort of fantastical fare to keep it fizzy and fresh for the most part.
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