Dead Cert

Director: Steven Lawson (2010)

Starring: Craig Fairbass, Billy Murray, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Essentially Lock Stock And Two Smoking Vampires, Dead Cert enlists a cast of ex-Eastenders, rubbish British hardmen, 'that guy' faces, Jason Flemyng and adds vampires because that's totally a movie worth watching. If there's such a thing as a 'Dead Cert', it's that any movie about cockneys and fucking vampires will suck, especially if it stars ex-Eastenders or Danny Dyer.

Dead Cert is a veritable who's who of shady British actors, none of whom you'll know by name. Not quite so amusing if you don't watch a lot of English TV. A little like this review. Sorry about that, abroad people. Mickey from Shameless does a terrible Romanian accent. This is still more of an effort than Billy Murray makes - playing a character called 'Livenko', yet sticking with his cockney accent all the way through. You sla-ags.

Craig Fairbass plays Freddie 'Dead Cert' Frankham, a tough club owner in gangland London. One day, vampire Dante Livenko and his Eastern European mob enter the club with the intention of buying Freddie out. Before you can say "apples and pears", there's a Snatch style bit of bareknuckle boxing going on. One of Freddie's wet boxers VS one of Livenko's vampire musclemen. Needless to say, Freddie's man gets torn to shreds. We got us a fahkin' gang war on our hands, son.

Perry Benson and Dexter Fletcher seem to have been imported from a better movie. Danny Dyer makes a ridiculous cameo appearance. Dead Cert is a movie so bad that it seems rubbish even before Danny Dyer turns up.

Aside from a couple of silly flourishes, it's a script that consists of witless swearing ("you don't know fuck all about fuck all"), gruff threats and macho silliness. There's a lot more talking than there is action. Much of the movie's second half consists of the men sitting in a basement grumbling. Dusk Till Dawn managed to keep its vampires offscreen for much of the running time with much success. Dead Cert fails in this because the scenes without vampires aren't very interesting at all. But then, neither are the scenes with vampires.

The climax so desperately wants to be Dusk Till Dawn that you'll almost feel sorry for it, as the gangsters and vampires clash in a fairly crap way. The cockneys opt for beating the vampires over the head with their stakes instead of actually impaling them. Characters seem to just disappear or die in incoherent death scenes. Fairbass grunts his way through a number of fight scenes like a low-rent Ray Stevenson before clashing with Murray in the most anticlimactic of battles.

Deduct one Scream Queen from the below if you're incapable of enjoying crap movies ironically. Then deduct another if you don't recognize any of the names attached. You have no reason to watch Dead Cert.