The Radleys, 2024.
Directed by Euros Lyn.
Starring Damian Lewis, Kelly Macdonald, Bo Bragason, Harry Baxendale, Jay Lycurgo, and Shaun Parkes.
SYNOPSIS:
When the worst happens, the Radleys realise it’s time they let their kids in on the family secret, but can they deal with the fallout and cover up a murder at the same time?
You know you’ve waited too long to give your kids “the talk” when it takes your daughter killing someone for you to sit down with them. In The Radleys, however, “the talk” has nothing to do with the birds and the bees and everything to do with the fact that the whole family are vampires – a fact that might have been useful for siblings, Clara (Bo Bragason) and Rowan (Harry Baxendale), to know.
Since when can vampires have kids, you ask? That’s one of the rules the film avoids defining, along with what makes a human turn into a vampire and why can these particular vampires walk around in the sunlight. While it’s hard to imagine most viewers won’t be walking into this movie without some working knowledge of how vampires live, not enough time is spent laying out the ground rules.
That probably points to the kind of parents Peter (Damian Lewis) and Helen (Kelly Macdonald) are, though. There is no way that the film should be able to move on from Clara (who is a teenager) killing someone so quickly, yet somehow much more time is spent on Rowan trying to work up the nerve to ask out his crush (Jay Lycurgo), while Peter and Helen are too busy with their own problems – namely Peter’s twin brother, Will (also Lewis) – to keep tabs on their kids after dropping a bombshell on their lives.
Directed by Euros Lyn (who is also responsible for directing some of the most popular episodes of modern Doctor Who, including “The Girl in the Fireplace” and David Tennant’s two-part swan song), The Radleys is technically a vampire film but a self-loathing one, where vampirism is treated as a metaphor for addiction. In that light, Peter and Helen being so self-absorbed makes sense and the film never hesitates to show how low their cravings for blood take them.
The Radleys is missing the fun, genre touches of a vampire film, however, and while casting Lewis in a dual role should’ve been a stroke of genius, he barely gets to act against himself. It all plays out in a very predictable fashion. Of course Will (who drinks blood) has long hair and lives in a camper van while Peter (who, until recently, repressed his urges) is a khaki, tie-wearing doctor, and while it seems like the film might have something interesting to say about consent (through vampire compulsion and specifically Helen’s backstory), it never quite gets there. In trying to give all four family members a storyline, Talitha Stevenson’s screenplay doesn’t have time to bring any of them to a satisfying conclusion. It probably would’ve been better if the film had either focused on the younger or older generation.
Also, it’s hard to tell what the moral of this film is supposed to be. Abstinence wasn’t exactly working for the family before Clara killed someone, but with no examples of vampires who’ve managed to control their bloodlust, self-acceptance doesn’t seem in the cards either.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Rachel Bellwoar
