Hangover Food: Vampire Influencer

If you haven’t seen Deadline Films 2019 short Hangover Food, the comedic brainchild of filmmakers and performers Ross McGowan, David Hepburn and Craig McDonald-Kelly, you absolutely should. In it, Lee (Hepburn) wakes up with the mother of all hangovers, which might be related to the fact that he was made a vampire the night before. Luckily, he has the support of best friend Bruce (McDonald-Kelly), fully equipped with Guatemalan cave coffee and pizza to see him through.

But now, the Hangover Food Cinematic Universe is expanding. While a feature length adaptation of the aforementioned short is currently in production (did I mention you should see it?), Deadline Films now brings us Hangover Food: Vampire Influencer, a five-part series of shorts that, frankly not soon enough, brings us back to the HFCU which is thankfully still full of the same joyous ridiculousness, quick-pans and quick-wits that made the original so great.

In episode one, we are given a succinct recap of the original short for both returning viewers and the uninitiated before then settling us back in with how Bruce and Lee have been getting on for the last few months since that fateful day. Answer, not great. Lee is lonely, unable to enjoy the sun or any of the other daytime delights he used to. In an effort to make something of his situation, Lee asks Bruce to help him embrace the world of social media and become the world’s first vampire influencer. What follows over the subsequent four episodes is a hilarious yet touching journey of two best mates traversing the infinite pitfalls of the internet, trolls and non-believers, while also trying to redefine their own relationship under these crazy new circumstances.

Four years on from the original short, everything here is now a bit bigger and a bit bolder, as can be expected when time, experience and presumably bigger budgets take hold. One might fear that this would result in a loss of the charm, the ‘lighting in a bottle’ magic that the original managed to capture. But no, they’ve still got it. Not only is everything bigger and bolder, but it’s tighter and sharper too. It looks great, it plays great, this sickeningly talented bunch of filmmakers have simply upped their game, somehow managing to find that follow-up holy grail of same but different that audiences crave and all without ever really wavering across all five episodes.

And that’s no mean feat, especially when you are swimming in the waters of vampire comedy, a genre that most would immediately look to What We Do in the Shadows for as their main reference. But these guys are adamant to make their own mark on it and doing a damn good job as well, only ever interested in telling a complete story, not just aiming for low hanging for laughs but also trying to hit all the emotional ebbs and flows that come from a unique bromance story such as this. All this before we even get to the dream duo of Hepburn and MacDonald-Kelly, two fine actors giving performances that you not only believe in, but root for.

Award-winning production house Deadline Films just can’t seem to make bad films, it’s almost annoying. If you like comedy horror mixed with absurdity, look no further. There is a lot more that could have been explored here, but all that means is that these guys have no excuse but to come back and give it to us. We’ll be waiting.

You can enjoy Hangover Food and Hangover Food: Vampire Influence now over on Klipist.