A family of vampires blending in among humans tries to hide the truth after an incident risks them being discovered in Euros Lyn’s The Radleys.

There are countless vampire stories all over every form of media with an endless variety of angles looking to set them apart from the crowd. Unlimited lore exists around what kills them and how the vampirism curse works. Vampire stories endure because of the versatility and the interest audiences have in new takes on something so ubiquitous.

The Radleys takes a tongue-in-cheek approach that doesn’t shy away from the violence and gore so easily attributed to vampires. It opens by establishing the location and setting up an atmosphere of paranoia depicted through curtain-twitching neighbours trying to catch a glimpse of behaviour to confirm their suspicions. The setting is a sleepy out of the way community

A family of vampires trying to live peacefully among humans is a notion that is nicely set up for comedy and terror. The movie makes great use of this early on with the dark comedy of a teenage vampire accidentally achieving her first kill and the subsequent efforts to cover it up. There’s also plenty of humour to be mined from the inevitable realisation that your parents aren’t the bastions of perfection that you believed they were growing up. In this case, the Radley kids learning that their parents are bloodthirsty vampires is a very clear representation of that lesson all children eventually learn.

Considering the incident that gets the plot in motion involves the children discovering the truth, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the focus will be on the kids adapting to the realities of their existence. While this is certainly one element the film covers, it’s far from the focus. One of the issues The Radleys has is that its attention is divided between several different things with none of them achieving prominence. It never comes together as a cohesive narrative and things are all but forgotten for large chunks of the running time which makes the overall experience feel a little sloppy.

Despite this, there is a lot to recommend here. The family dynamic feels lived in and is consistently believable. There’s a compelling tension that infects the family once the truth is revealed and additional unease created by the risk of neighbours finding out about them works really well as a lingering threat. The idea of neighbours not being the people they present to the outside world is easily relatable and it’s used to good effect here. Both sides of the suspicion are represented and the nosy neighbour looking for scandal or gossip is portrayed as having their own issues kept behind closed doors while the kids happily get along with one another.

The cast is a major strength of the film. Kelly Macdonald is great in the wife and mother role. She portrays the stress and panic of a long-buried truth becoming known outside her family unit and plays the complexities of her past that come to light wonderfully. Damian Lewis is excellent in the dual role of Peter and his brother Will. Peter is the husband and father committed to living a very boring existence while he resists the cravings and temptations that plague him in everyday life. Will is very much his opposite; he’s an unashamed hedonist who delights in his vampiric abilities and lives a free-spirited life free of things like structure and morality. He makes for a great abrasive yet sometimes necessary presence when brought in to perform damage control. Damian Lewis inhabits both roles so effortlessly that it’s easy to forget he’s performing a dual role.

Rowan (Harry Baxendale) and Clara (Bo Bragason) do well with the material they’re given but the film shifts away from telling Clara’s story to focus on Rowan which leaves both of them feeling underserved. On the surface, Clara’s story would seem to be the more interesting considering her accidental murder of a teenage boy who was sexually harassing her puts the plot into motion. The shift to Rowan’s story is jarring and far less interesting than what had been seen of Clara before that point. In both cases, teenagers being drawn to explore their cravings and temptations works in contrast to the adults pretending that they’ve outgrown those urges which makes for an interesting distinction that the script doesn’t develop properly. The consistent issue is that the lack of focus prevents this film from rising above the sum of its parts.

When it’s good, it’s very good though. A sense of menace and threat fills every scene the kids spend with their peers knowing that they are barely committed to resisting their urges and there are many scenes where Will’s mere presence creates a palpable tension that the viewer is made to bathe in. In many ways, he propels the plot forward due to his relationship with the members of the Radley family. There’s a potential version of the film that is more centred on his perspective on the family and the world they have chosen to inhabit but it never becomes that due to the film attempting to do too much.

The Radleys is definitely worthy of praise for its actors, the character writing in the stronger scenes and the charmingly low-budget approach to telling a vampire story but it gets bogged down by pulling in too many different directions instead of recognising its strengths and making proper use of them.

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Verdict

A well-acted and compelling take on a vampire story that is dragged down by a lack of focus and failing to make proper use of its strengths.

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