It’s October and time for spooky season… or spooky-adjacent season. Vampires vs. the Bronx is a new Netflix horror/comedy… a kind of amalgamation of The Lost Boys and Attack the Block. It’s a decent flick that I think is worth a look.

Vampires vs. The Bronx is largely a flick aimed at kids… it’s like the Sam and the Frog Brothers part of The Lost Boys migrated to the east coast and ejected the romance/older teen plot. A friend group of Latino and Black kids are trying to save a local bodega when they run afoul of a group of vampires… but not just vampires, but gentrifying vampires. They have to study up on their enemy – partially by watching Wesley Snipes in Blade – so they can defend their home turf.

This is a fun, high energy, reasonably funny horror/comedy. The vampires are your classic vampires beholden to many of the classic rules (can’t enter without permission, afraid of crucifixes, etc.). The kids are charismatic, fun, and good actors so hopefully we’ll see more of them. The horror is pretty lite and the humor pretty good. The film, unfortunately, loses too much steam in its final act… it may not have had the budget or time for its ambition in the final showdown which results in some pacing and editing issues. But, up to that point, I was having a fair amount of fun with this one.

It’s a low-key decent recommendation. It’s not running full steam for its entire run-time, but I admire the ambition and even a slight scent of social messaging about the plight of communities of color. I wish the film hadn’t sagged at the end but it’s still worth a look.

Score: 80