By Robert Scucci
| Published
Pedro Pascal may be seeing his Marvel debut with his upcoming portrayal of Mister Fantastic, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t appreciate his contribution to 2015’s Bloodsucking Bastards, the ridiculous workplace horror comedy about a bunch of vampires taking over a telemarketing company that sells male enhancement drugs. Similar to other workplace B-movie bloodbaths like Office Uprising and The Night Watchmen, Bloodsucking Bastards is the ultimate showdown between low-level associates and their corner-office oppressors who may or may not be undead avatars of their former selves.
But what sets this slacker-driven survival saga apart from other films in its wheelhouse is the fact that its protagonist, Evan (Cabin in the Woods’ Fran Kranz), actually cares about his job. What’s more, he has an axe to grind – or rather, a stake to drive – because he just got passed up for his promotion by the very bloodsucking bastard who’s allegedly killing all of his coworkers, so it’s personal.
Evan’s Transition From Acting Sales Manager To Low-Level Associate
At its heart, Bloodsucking Bastards is a story about Evan, the only employee at his telemarketing company who actually gives a crap about showing up on time, locking in, meeting his projected sales numbers, and hammering out spreadsheets.
Having the old carrot and stick dangled in front of him for too long, Evan is devastated when he’s passed up for the Sales Manager position in favor of Max (Pedro Pascal), the kind of sales rep who talks like his entire vocabulary is sourced from self-help books like Crucial Conversations, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and The Tipping Point. Further fueling Evan’s sense of occupational malaise is recent falling out with his HR Manager, Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick), with whom he was once romantically involved.
Right off the rip, Evan has a bad feeling about Max, as his presence at the office is directly correlated with the deaths of his friends, Mike (Neil Garguilo) and Andrew (Justin Ware). Under the impression that he’ll get terminated if he messes up his presentation for the big Phallucite – the kind of product you see promoted during a Tubi ad break – account, Evan begins to unravel because it doesn’t seem like anybody else is seeing what he’s seeing. That is, until he talks to Tim (Joey Kern), one of his surviving yet clueless coworkers.
Office Politics Drive Bloodsucking Bastards’ Humor
The primary source of humor in Bloodsucking Bastards involves Evan’s relationship with Tim, who only shows up to work to play video games, watch porn on the office Wi-Fi, and commit time theft. Tim actually saw a number of incidents validating Evan’s theory first-hand, but didn’t feel the need to bring it up until he was asked because it didn’t seem important. Evan is further frustrated when it’s made apparent that Tim left out the part where the office security guard, Frank (Marshall Givens), was with Tim during these incidents, meaning he also saw everything and said nothing because it wasn’t work related.
Having reason to believe that Max is the head vampire in Bloodsucking Bastards, Evan teams up with Tim and Frank, vowing to stop Max because he’s pursuing Amanda with both romantic, and vampiric, intent.
The not-exactly-a-dream-team realizes just how depressing their jobs are when they speculate that vampires thrive in an office environment because natural sunlight rarely reaches the cubicles. They also discover that bodies are piling up in the parking garage dumpsters because their manager, Ted (Joel Murray), is too cheap to pay $60 for expedited service from the trash company to remove them.
More Comedy Than Horror
Bloodsucking Bastards is an effective horror comedy because it almost never plays it straight. As the gore (of which there is plenty) ramps up during its second and third acts, so does its wicked sense of humor that’s mostly driven by mind-numbing office politics. Sure, Vampires are taking over the building, but thankfully, Frank, who’s more than eager to see some real action, read a couple of Wikipedia articles in between heroic swigs of Red Bull, so he’s primed and ready to help Evan and Tim reclaim the sales floor if it’s the last thing he ever does.
If you find yourself trapped in a prison of corporate drudgery that’s slowly sucking the life out of you, you can easily watch Bloodsucking Bastards on the clock if you open up Tubi in a private browser.
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