Director/Story – K. Asher Levin, Screenplay – K. Asher Levin & Zack Imbrogno, Producers – Jason Armstrong, Abigail Breslin, Daniel Cummings, Robert Dean, Rob Goodrich & K. Asher Levin, Photography – Owen Levelle, Music – Taylor Locke, Visual Effects – Buffalo 8 Post (Supervisor – John R. McConnell), Special Effects Supervisor – Daniel Casillas, Production Design – Lorus Allen. Production Company – Buffalo 8/Dinero Vampiro/Faseshun Films/Nico Nazar/Bondit Media Capital/Soho Johnny. LLC/Renegade Entertainment/Traffic City Productions.
Cast
Thomas Jane (Elliott Jones), Kara Hayward (Flynn Chambers), Jack Donnelly (Jack Chambers), Lydia Hearst (Liz Andrews), Malin Ackerman (Beverly Rektor), Abigail Breslin (Jules Jay), Adam Ambruso (Stephen Rektor), Ashley Reyes (Natalie), Ash Khan (David Dean), C.G. Lewis (Harry Rektor), Julia Sandstrom (Molly Jones)
Plot
A group of top social media influencers known as The Stream Team have been persuaded to travel to the home of billionaire Stephen Rektor and his wife Beverly. On the way, their vehicle is forced to stop by middle-aged Elliott Jones who has a broken down RV. He warns them about the danger they are heading into but they dismiss him as a crazy. They are welcomed by the Rektors. However, Elliott, a former reality tv star, has dedicated his life to being a vampire hunter after his sister was killed, and knows that the Rektors are vampires. The Rektors begin to prey on the Stream Team, while grooming others for a secret purpose. Flynn Chambers flees after seeing her friends killed. Joining Elliott, the two make plans to break back in and eliminate the vampire threat.
The vampire hunter film has become almost its own genre niche ever since the late 1990s with a series of films that placed emphasis on the vampire hunters rather than the vampires with the likes of Blade (1998), Ultraviolet (1998) and Vampires (1998). By the late 2010s, the vampire hunter film was being played for comedy and parody with the likes of Hawk & Rex: Vampire Slayers (2020), Super Hot (2021) and Day Shift (2022). For a more detailed listing see Vampire Hunters.
With its premise of a group of social media influencers having to call on a vampire hunter to save them from vampires, Slayers feels it well could easily be another comedy treatment. It is hard to tell. On screen, the social media influencers become such a vapid and awful bunch of self-absorbed people. Moreover, director K. Asher Levin adopts such a Ritalin-deprived style of directing that it makes it difficult to tell if the film is intended as a parody or if this is what Levin thought was being cool and hip.
Thomas Jane and Kara Hayward go vampire hunting
Words fail the inanity of K. Asher Levin’s direction. The film is a blur of pop-up video visuals, including videogame-like graphics that count Vampires 1 Human 3 etc. There are even talking owls and scenes set in Virtual Reality – why, I don’t the slightest idea. It is like a film put together and edited by coke fiends whose sole source of inspiration was flipping through multiple mtv channels at the same time.
In the inanity of Levin’s direction, it is impossible to tell if there is anything worthwhile. Certainly, the film has attracted some names like Thomas Jane, Malin Akerman, Abigail Breslin and Patty Hearst’s daughter Lydia, the latter three also having even signed on as producers. And at least Thomas Jane rises to the occasion, decked out in old man beard that makes him entirely unrecognisable and giving a grizzled, cynical performance. And at a stretch, you feel as though some of the plot could have been interesting – it is just that the mad coke fiend direction and editing gets in the way.
