Slayers will be available in cinemas, digital and on-demand from October 21, 2022.
Slayers is the latest addition to the influencer horror subgenre, which is growing rapidly due to horror’s ability to evolve with society. The more obsessed we are with digital frontiers and glowing screens, the more filmmakers will push their stories to uncover the ills of social media popularity and the zombie-like hunger for “likes” rather than brains. K. Asher Levin is co-writing a screenplay with Zack Imbrogno that reimagines vampire mythology for the livestreaming age, complete with dub-step beats and boomers that include lines like “YouTuber TikToker Cocksuckers!” It’s a snappy horror flavor geared towards younger generations that misses the bloodsucker suspense by overdoing its Wi-Fi-related commentary.
Elliot Jones (Thomas Jane) is a vampire hunter tracking one of America’s largest vampire syndicates. The Stream Team is a collective of online personalities who have just been invited to their compound by billionaires Steven (Adam Ambruso) and Beverly Rector (Malin Akerman), Z-Pro gamer Flynn (Kara Hayward) and party girl Jules (Abigail Breslin) meet with the Principals to discuss the chance of a lifetime – and then the killing begins.Slayers follows the simplest of storylines while Elliot must save the pursuit of glory from the blockheads who charge straight into Steven and Beverly’s trap, which plays like a video game as graphic overlays count every death.
Levin’s aggressive use of on-screen images like kill counts, livestreamer comment calls, and a whole bunch of super-fast image flashes make the film feel like a YouTube video — and not in a good way. Elliot’s status as a busy, bearded “vampire hunter” translates more into a quirky old-timer narrator, as he spends what feels like half of the film recounting conspiracy theories and the historical context of vampires, while odd b-roll montages gain prominence. You’ll learn how Joan of Arc was a slayer and DB Cooper a fanged villain as Jane grumbles through his vampire Illuminati timelines that suck the air out of the actual on-screen action. Whenever Slayers finally gets close to an element of violence or combat with the stream team, Elliot’s narration swoops in and elevates us to another talk that once again feels made for a YouTube sketch.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with stylistic online executions—for example, I like filmmaker Joseph Kahn’s manipulation of graphic design as an add-on to his films. Slayers falters because it’s a cover-up for lackluster storytelling when Elliot teams up with Flynn, who drops Call of Duty tournaments for actual crossbow-kill rampages. Perhaps that’s because attention-grabbing talent like Abigail Breslin and Malin Akerman aren’t here for the long haul, or because Slayers doesn’t have the budget to fulfill its aspirations for a “scientific vampire liaison.” Instead of watching a character undergo a reverse blood transfusion, Slayers plays an impromptu instructional video with random public domain clips – stuff like that. It’s a fun gimmick when used sparingly, but the b-roll nature feels cheap and recycled, especially when implemented with such frequency.
That’s not to say Slayers is commentless. The idea of vampires preying on influencers to steal their global reach is bold and clever, especially when the rectors unveil their master plan. Rather, it’s about how the sum of the sequences are drowned out by soundtracks of obnoxious DJ air horns or the cheesiest dialogue imaginable for Elliot’s older hardass. Levin attempts some sort of seedy vaccination subplot pushed by the Rectors, but it’s disorganized to the point of misinterpreting it in the wrong light. Elliot’s arc as a vampire hunter — from fast-forward to climactic standoff — feels so badly baked and rushed because the 90-minute film is chaotic clip-show footage, wasting the few moments of gore and attack excitement that otherwise exist.
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