Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Plot: A hardworking dad out to provide for his daughter uses a boring pool-cleaning job as a front for his real gig: hunting and killing vampires.
Review: If I had to make a list of the top five most overused monsters in horror, vampires would probably fall in second place right after zombies (duh). Which doesn’t mean I’m fed up with seeing them; I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of watching vampires uh, vamp things up. Ultimately it just goes to show how much of an impact these undead bloodsuckers have made on us.
At least once a year the genre releases a vampire movie and this year we had two that leaned heavier on the action and comedy than the horror, with Morbius being the first (Morbius was a comedy, right?) and now Day Shift, the movie that answers the question, what if 1998’s Blade had Jamie Foxx instead of Wesley Snipes and swapped out the black leather jacket for a colourful Hawaiian shirt instead.
I’m not sure about you but for me Day Shift was exactly the movie I expected it to be. Jamie Foxx as Budd, Snoop Dogg as Big John and Dave Franco, who by the way steals the show as Seth, an accountant who works for “The Union” of vampire hunters and who’s forced to shadow Budd to ensure he doesn’t break any of the hundreds of union rules and regulations. With a leading cast such as these guys, you pretty much expect Day Shift to be light on the drama and heavy on the action and comedy, which it is.
Matter of fact, the action here is some of the best vampire hunting seen since Blade I and II. One particular scene where Budd and Seth are joined by martial artist extraordinaire Scott Adkins (Ip Man, Ninja) and one of my personal favourite actors, Steve Howey (Shameless), who together play the badass brothers of vamp hunting, Mike and Diran Nazarian, will have your eyes glued to the screen and possibly make you reach for the remote to rewind and rewatch it all over again. Which is exactly what I would expect from the man who was in charge of stunts for films like John Wick 2, Warrior and The Rundown, and this film’s director, J.J. Perry.
While the action and comedy is on point, the villain and her motives are delivered in almost a by-the-way manner that never makes any of it feel important.
Karla Souza (How to Get Away with Murder, Home Economics) adds personality and swagger to the big bad, but she can only do so much with the VERY little she’s given. Same goes for Meagan Good as Budd’s ex-wife Jocelyn, Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Guns Akimbo, The Society) as Heather and Oliver Masucci as Klaus (Dark, Tribes of Europa) who I think maybe had one line the entire movie. All of these actors I’ve seen before and I know they could’ve done much more with their roles but, alas, this isn’t the movie for that.
To Day Shift’s credit though the movie never feels like it’s trying to be anything other than a fun and fast action comedy built around vampires. What that means is you get a couple of gory moments that are mostly dialed down due to the heavy use of special effects, actions sequences good enough to been shown in theatres and people would’ve paid to go see it, and a plot that’s so thin, you won’t remember anything beyond Jamie Foxx has a shotgun and kills vampires for their teeth.
In other words, the perfect movie for the summer.
Score 6.5 out of 10
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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So have you checked out Day Shift? What did you think of it? And you sink your teeth into more sweet vampire action content below:
