Dead Cert (2010)

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2021) It takes a special kind of skill to screw up a film about gangsters battling vampires in the London Underground, but there you have Dead Cert to show you that anything’s possible. Inert and dull, writer-director Steven Lawson’s film seems badly conceived in the first place, and ineptly executed at the filmmaking stage. The film starts largely in gangster mode, as two mobsters vie for control of whatever they obsess about. But when the vampiric content starts popping up, the biggest surprise isn’t one of the genres clashing, but of bewilderment at how this isn’t more exciting. Instead, East European villains strut around ineffectively with pointy teeth, as the film barely works itself up to a finale with pulse. There are obvious comparisons to be made between Dead Cert and From Dusk till Dawn, but they all end up harming Dead Cert: Cheaply made, poorly conceived and never effective, this is a film that shows an impressive gift for mishandling all the assets at its disposal. You get, at most, a few cute vampire girls… but it’s not as if you can’t get those in other movies.