The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

The Fearless Vampire Killers earns its 6.5 as a beautiful, uneven oddity, a horror comedy that’s more interested in atmosphere than in jokes and lands more often as a gorgeous gothic fairy tale than as a laugh-out-loud parody. Roman Polanski made it in 1967, between his early masterpieces, as an affectionate send-up of the Hammer vampire films then in vogue. It looks extraordinary, it’s real charm, and it’s only intermittently funny. That makes it a strange recommendation.

You watch it for the craft and the mood more than for the comedy it promises.

The film carries a sad shadow now. Sharon Tate, who plays the innkeeper’s daughter and who married Polanski shortly after, was murdered two years later, and her luminous presence here’s hard to watch without that knowledge. It lends the film an unintended melancholy that deepens its already wistful tone.

A Parody That Loves Its Target

The film follows a bumbling old vampire-hunting professor and his clumsy assistant as they travel through a snowbound Transylvanian landscape and stumble into the castle of a courtly vampire count. The plot is a loving inversion of the Hammer formula, with incompetent heroes, a vampire who’s more decadent aristocrat than menace, and a climax at a grand ball of the undead. Polanski clearly adores the genre he’s spoofing, and the affection shows in how lovingly he recreates its trappings.

The comedy is gentle and often visual, built on slapstick, awkwardness, and absurd situations instead of sharp wit. The professor is a doddering fool, the assistant a lovesick incompetent, and much of the humor comes from their bungling. Some of it lands beautifully, particularly a sequence where the assistant must waltz at the vampires’ ball while trying to hide that he and his companions are the only ones casting reflections in a mirror. Other gags fall flat or go on too long. The film’s comic batting average is mixed.

The Look of It

The film’s greatest strength is its visual beauty. Polanski and his cinematographer create a sumptuous gothic fairy-tale world of snow-covered forests, a magnificent decaying castle, and candlelit interiors of real splendor. The film was shot in widescreen and color at a time when horror was often cheap, and it looks like a lavish storybook come to life. The snowbound exteriors in particular are gorgeous, and the great ball sequence, with its ranks of moldering aristocratic vampires dancing in a ruined hall, is a genuine showpiece.

This visual richness is the real reason to see the film. Polanski treats the comedy almost as an excuse to build a beautiful gothic world, and that world is the lasting pleasure. The film is worth watching with the sound down as a piece of pure design, which is both a compliment to its images and a quiet criticism of how much its comedy actually delivers. The craft outpaces the humor consistently.

The Tonal Uncertainty

The film’s central problem is that it’s never quite sure how funny it wants to be. It drifts between genuine comedy, gentle whimsy, and stretches of straight gothic atmosphere that aren’t played for laughs at all. The result is a film that’s pleasant and beautiful but rarely builds real comedic momentum. The jokes are spaced out across long atmospheric passages, and the film’s rhythm is closer to a leisurely fairy tale than to a comedy, which works against the laughs.

There’s also a strain of melancholy and even cruelty running underneath, very much Polanski, that sits oddly against the slapstick. The ending in particular takes a darkly ironic turn that’s clever but tonally jarring after two hours of gentle whimsy. The film cannot quite decide whether it’s a light romp or a darker fable, and the indecision keeps it from fully succeeding as either. It’s charming and accomplished and never quite lands.

Is The Fearless Vampire Killers worth watching?

The Fearless Vampire Killers earns its 6.5 as a gorgeous, affectionate, tonally uncertain oddity, a Hammer parody that succeeds more as a gothic fairy tale than as a comedy. Polanski’s love for the genre and his extraordinary visual craft create a sumptuous storybook world, and the great vampire-ball sequence is a genuine showpiece. It loses points for a mixed comic batting average, a leisurely rhythm that works against the jokes, and a tonal uncertainty that keeps it from fully landing as either comedy or fable.

A beautiful, charming, flawed film worth seeing for its craft and its place in the genre, carrying now an unintended sadness from Sharon Tate’s luminous presence.

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