When a curfew on bars and clubs sees LA’s drunks begin suspiciously disappearing, the baffled local police department call in loose cannon cop Chuck Steel (Michael Mort) to investigate. Joined by eccentric professor Abraham Van Rental (also Mort), Steel finds himself taking on the “Trampires” - half-tramp, half-vampires hell-bent on world domination.
Mike Mort's 2013 claymation short Raging Balls Of Steel Justice introduced Chuck Steel (Mort), a self-professed 'maverick, renegade, loose cannon, lone wolf cop on the edge who doesn't play by the rules'. Riffing on beloved ‘80s cop movies like Cobra and Tango & Cash, Mort's balls-to-the-wall, testosterone-filled spoof was met with enthusiasm enough to warrant a $20 million feature-length outing for the quippy, quiffed cop. The result, Chuck Steel: Night Of The Trampires, is - for better and worse - more of the same but bigger.
It’s 1986, and whilst LA is under siege from “Trampires” – half-hobo-half-vampires who brilliantly can only be killed with holy coffee or by piercing the liver - the police force have been softened to the point of redundancy by suspiciously named therapist Dr A. Cular (a delightful Jennifer Saunders). Desperate, Police Captain Jack Schitt (Mort) puts Steel on the case. Reluctantly partnering up with kook Abraham Van Rental (Mort again, channeling Peter Cushing), Steel sets out to save his city from imminent inebriated undead annihilation.
The imagination and craftsmanship driving Mort’s work - hundreds of incredibly expressive figures and dozens of striking sets populate the picture - impress throughout. At its best, the film recalls the vicious hilarity of Team America and the kineticism and visual density of Aardman’s finest. During the film’s circus-set climax, Mort’s child-like proclivity for chaos and decades mastering claymation coalesce perfectly, with Steel and the Trampires clashing in a battle that reaches Godzilla vs Kong levels of destruction and Evil Dead-like riotous gnarliness. It’s all utter bobbins, but it’s bizarrely beautiful.
Unfortunately, though, while Mort's endeavour to capture the spirit of the films he grew up with offers plenty of nostalgic entertainment, it also extends to a deluge of offensive stereotypes and phobic jokes that needlessly glorify the genre’s uglier elements. It’s a shame that these puerile, needlessly provocative and oftentimes simply callous jokes crop up so frequently as a writing crutch here, because they deeply undermine a film that otherwise has a hell of a lot to offer.