The Thompsons

Plot synopsis:
In this sequal to, 'The Hamiltons', they were a dysfunctional, orphaned family struggling in sunny suburbia. On the outside, they appeared normal enough, but they hid a very dark secret... in order to survive, they needed to drink blood because they all were natural-born vampires. After moving from their house, a bloodbath at a desert gas station puts the family on the run from the law, eventually seeing them resurface in the U.K. under a new name as The Thompsons. With the youngest brother Lenny gravely injured, the family is in desperate need of help.Hearing rumors of another vampire clan who might be able to assist them, Francis agrees to make contact. His quest leads to a family-run pub in the English countryside where he meets a gorgeous waitress named Riley Stuart. As Riley flirts, Francis fails to notice her blood thirsty relatives sneaking up behind him. Francis tries fighting the family off the best he can but these new vamps are faster, stronger and more vicious than he's encountered before. After a brutal struggle he's subdued and brought back to their home. When Francis wakes up he's surprised to learn that the Stuarts simply wanted to test his powers. They set him free and offer safe haven to himself and the rest of his family.As the rest of the family makes their way across the English countryside to join him, Frances begin to suspect the Stuarts may have an agenda behind their kindness. With Riley as his only potential ally and her motives still unclear, the epic battle between the two clans is inevitable...

Tags: boring, murder, flashback

Review:
First of all I must say that it is nice to have a vampire movie that is not tailor-made for a teenage girl audience with sparkly vampires and big hair.
However, that being said, then I will flip the sword around and say that this vampire movie is far from being amongst the more interesting or appealing of vampire movies that I have seen.The story is about a family of vampires who flee from USA after having made it to the news with a video of them killing humans.
The vampires find themselves in England where they seek the help of another vampire family, but is blood thicker than water?Having sat through "The Thompsons" now, I must say that I am filled with an overwhelming sensation of that this storyline was utterly and completely unnecessary.
The story left no lasting impression on me, nor did it manage to rise above mediocrity in its concept and execution.It should be said that the people in the movie were actually doing a great enough job with their given roles, though it is not award-worthy material here, far from it.For a vampire movie, then there were surprisingly few effects in the movie.
One good thing, and an interesting thing, about the movie, was that the vampires here were not immortal nor undead.
So that was an interesting approach to the mythical vampire creature."The Thompsons" is the type of movie that you watch once, then shrug your shoulders and forget about the movie.
It failed to make a lasting mark, despite having enough fangs to bite deeply with..
If a sequel tries to tell you a new story instead of rehashing/repeating what part 1 did, that is a good thing.
That means it's not really bad, but it won't get your blood pumping either (no pun intended).Since the main characters are established in the quirkier and better Thompsons, you'd expect this to go different places.
There's not a real story behind it all, it's a simple "match", that you will either like or you might find it too simple.
Whatever the case, if you can bare with the characters (because you saw the previous film or just simply because you like the actors), than this is indeed watchable.
Sequel is a vicious and fun vampire horror/drama.
After 6 years, The Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) return to the dysfunctional vampire family last seen in their low budget chiller The Hamiltons, who, as per that film's finale, now go by the name of The Thompsons.
After slaughtering robber and patron alike, the fiendish family flees to Europe to find help from others like themselves and escape the police manhunt.
In the small town of Ludlow, England they find their British equivalent, The Stuarts and it seems they have found help for Lenny in this kindred family.
But, The Stuarts unveil their own sinister agenda and as Francis (Cory Knauf) falls in love with their beautiful daughter, Riley (Elizabeth Henstridge), a war of the vampire clans erupts and a blood soaked battle for supremacy begins.
Where the first film was a creepy and twisted family drama, the sequel shows us what a Twilight movie would be like if they had any real fangs and gallons of blood.
And The Butcher's version of that neutered vampire saga is a lot more gory fun.
Where the first movie kept their vampiric nature a secret till the end, this is a full blown vampire flick that explains a lot of about the character's condition that wasn't fully explored in The Hamiltons.
It's all red eyes, bared fangs and spurting blood.
The film moves quickly too, at barely over 80 minutes, so there is little time wasted on melodrama and what I really liked was how the Butchers turned the sick and blood thirsty Hamiltons/Thompsons into the victims this time round and thus the heroes.
We find ourselves rooting for characters that creep-ed us out in the first movie and that was part of what made this sequel entertaining.
If you are a fan of The Hamiltons you probably will enjoy this sequel especially as the original cast are all back, except for Hartwig as Lenny, and they are taken in a different direction.
The budget is slightly larger but, not by a lot as the Butcher's style seems to be a good fit for low budget indie horrors.
It's not perfect, there are some flaws, it's not as atmospheric or creepy like the first film, not that it lacks it's share of shocking moments, but, overall an enjoyably different follow-up to the disturbing original..
The battle of modern day vampires.
I quite enjoyed "The Hamiltons" of which "The Thompsons" is a kind of follow up, as they have fled away from th States to Europe, where they're up to no good.They describe the difficult life of modern day vampires.
After Running away from the US they go looking for their ancestors in Europe, from where Hamiltons origin, the Mandersons.
But the foreign visitors aren't politely received.If you didn't know; you shouldn't be ashamed of being a vampire.
In this film we get to know vampire life as the most common thing there is, being a vampire and a killer.
And it's a disgrace to not be a real vampire.It's a modern vampire story well told.
The Butcher Brothers knows how to tell their vampire stories, so that we almost start to believe them.
It's gory, funny, disgusting and bloody, as a vampire slasher has too be.
When the Butcher Brothers decide to do something really serious, they'll know how to do it.However this story is told so disjointed and without any car, then it falls short from the original one.
Too many stupid coincidences and plot holes makes this far off what it should have been.
You won't miss out if you stop watching this half ways, as the quality falls from there.The only thing you miss out, is that they sympathetically drive off in an Audi S-line.
Good vampire movie.
I haven't seen The Hamiltons so I can't comment on its relationship to this movie.
The story of The Thompsons isn't told linearly but it starts more or less in the middle and then backtracks.
I'll summarize the story linearly.An American family of vampires (one girl, 2 guys, 1 kid) try to mind their own business and are driving around the desert when the kid gets shot accidentally when a bunch of thugs hold up a diner.
Now the family is seeking help.
One of the guys, Francis, travels to the English country side to look for this person who can help them.
The twins (guy and girl) end up in Paris having fun.
While the other guy watches over the kid.Francis drives around, his car breaks down but he makes it on foot to some family pub where he draws the attention of the locals.
But it turns out the owner and their two sons are vampires.
They take him to the main vampire who offers to help if Francis calls his entire family to meet him in England.
The main vampire and his family don't have the Thompsons best intentions in mind.A lot of the movie is told in Francis' voice overs.
The filmmakers know how to put the creepy small town English country side to good use.
I really enjoyed most of the movie, but when things become physical near the end, the movie loses steam.
The main problem is that Cory Knauf who plays Francis (and co-wrote the script) is just too laid back.
He does a good job with the voice overs, but acting in dramatic situations is entirely beyond him.
The special effects despite being CGI are pretty good and the fangs for once look convincing.
There's a lot to like here, the creepiness, the English locations, the story overall, the women.
I look forward to the third one and will have to check out The Hamiltons.
This movie is a good effort and a very good entry into the vampire genre which has been so mercilessly abused..
when vampire clans collide.
People who liked The Hamiltons (2006) can easily pick this up because all the characters are back in action.
And even if you haven't seen The Hamiltons you can see this without a doubt.When things go awry at a diner and people are being killed the Hamiltons do have to hide themselves.
Being on the run for the cops they leave the states for the UK and do come across another vampire clan.
The Hamiltons now being called The Thompsons need their help but do they get it.It do delivers on a few points but it never do becomes rather gory.
In the beginning you will get confused by a few things but quickly you will here the story of Francis Hamilton told by himself.
It do takes a while before the fighting starts between the two clans and the last part of the flick will deliver for fans over vampire flicks.
If you aren't into vampires then this isn't for you because nothing looks believable of course.
It won't become a classic but it's a nice start to begin your horror evening.Gore 2/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5.
Decidedly entertaining but flawed vampire effort.
Forced on the run, a vampire clan arrives in London looking for help and recuperation only to find their hosts have far more diabolical plans in mind when they're captured and forced into a breeding program to ensure survival, putting the two families against each other.Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a decent enough vampire effort that does have some pretty enjoyable features about it.
One of them is perhaps the most controversial of the film's changes, in how it deals with the vampires in here.
Rather than being remorseless nocturnal bloodsuckers unsympathetic with humanity in the slightest, this one portrays two distinct differences that are rather unique: being a condition received at birth and thus being able to walk about in sunlight with no ill effects, and the second issue of having no real interest in humanity other than feeding time and being out and about without getting into the strange, rabid intensity around fresh meat.
That said, there's still some good parts here with some fine gore scenes from the multiple kills, a couple of outstanding action scenes coming from a multitude of brawls and gunfights, and a twisting, convoluted storyline that stays on-track throughout these twists and turns that keep this quite enjoyable though not entirely perfect.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and several sex scenes..
Francis (Cory Knauf), the central character in The Butcher Brothers' The Thompsons (the sequel to their 2006 movie The Hamiltons), is something of a tortured soul, a vampire troubled by his bloody lifestyle, searching for a meaning to his existence.
Having fled the US with his bloodsucking family, he now wanders the UK looking for others like him so that he can learn about his heritage and perhaps even find love among his own kind.The photogenic cast; the oh-so-serious emo sensibilities; the romance between vampire clans; the film-makers desperately striving for a sense of cool: The Thompsons might easily be confused for an installment of the Twilight series if it wasn't for all the graphic sex and violence on display.
I doubt very much that Bella Swan would ever get it on with an absinthe addled Parisian whore, or whether Edward would savagely tear the throat out of his victims, drenching himself in blood in the process, but the vampires in this film have no such qualms, narrowly preventing it from being another worthless piece of PG-13 horror-lite and just about earning it a recommendation from yours truly..
This movie doesn't do anything right.The main character is a whining emo sun walking vampire.
After slaughtering a bar full of people he and his too dumb to breath sister and brothers vampires manage to set themselves up in Europe somehow.
There they meet up with a family of uber-vampires who have killed gazillions of normal people and vampires like them but who fail to kill a single one of these retards, they just like to push them and play with them.
The retards then kill them using vampire-skills against vampires who are as superior to them as they are to normal people.
Well, for no reason the youngest of the uber-vampires rescues the emo vampire and kills her brothers.
Probably because he is so cool or something.It tries to hide the lack of story by jumping around in the time line every 5 minutes.
It's like watching a sad Monty Python killer bunny for 80 minutes without it trying to be funny.I have no idea what kind of audience will be entertained by this crap.
Badly acted, awful story, utterly boring.
But whatever it is, it's the biggest pile of rubbish this side of Transylvania.The story begins at the end, with the central character telling a yarn about how he managed to wind up in a box.
His story begins with two young people attempting to have sex out in the open in the English countryside.
This seems to be a theme of this movie: bouncing boobs, naked bodies and a touch of lesbianism, all mixed with vampirism.But the young couple are interrupted and murdered.
No explanation other than their killers are two crazy young guys with knives.We then move to an English village pub, where the central character, Francis Hamilton, gets involved in a fight, just after killing a British policeman.There's also a phone call to an incestuous brother and sister who are having a threesome in France.
Kinky and vampires - they end up slaying the female participant in their three-in-a-bed romp.
Oh, and they also suck the blood out of a black guy who knocks on the door.All this done in DAYLIGHT.
Hang on, I thought vampires were supposed to hate the daylight.
It's daylight here too and there are vampires.Does this sound very boring?
Well, it is, and trying to maintain an interest in this trash is like trying to swim in a river of treacle.And it continues in its merry way, until the end.
The Thompsons is a 2012 horror film directed by the Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) and is actually a sequel to the Butcher Brothers' previous film The Hamiltons.The family is on the run and have taken to the road first of all in sequences set in Texas and Paris before the bulk of the story brings Francis (Cory Knauf) to rural England in search of others of his kind, which leads to a hook-up with the more confident, callous and well- established vampire clan, the Stuarts, led by the local patriarch (Daniel O'Meara) and his wife (Selina Giles).Complications arise which involve the Stuarts' human-born daughter (Elizabeth Henstridge) and murderous twin sons (Sean Browne and Tom Holloway) which eventually bring in Francis's twin siblings, David (Samuel Child) and Darkene (Mackenzie Firgens), plus injured younger brother Lenny (Ryan Hartwig), whose role has changed radically since the first film.What I liked in the first film, but I can talk about more this time round since this is the sequel and people should know what to expect, is that whilst the family are basically vampires, they are certainly no ordinary strain of vampire as they have not been turned.
In a world where vampires procreate, they were born with a disease which left them blood thirsty killers.
I felt this was a cool way of integrating something different into the world, and it works well here.The film begins and continues in the same vein as the first, with the narration coming from Cory Knauf who was the highlight in the original film.
He is even better here, and as well as being the main character in The Thompsons, he also had a hand in writing the screenplay.
The narration works well, and I really enjoyed the 'time shifts' as we keep going back and forth via flashbacks which brings us up to date on what has happened in the 6 years since The Hamiltons was released.The Thompsons is far glossier than the original and it has to shift our attitudes towards the family to make the film work.
This is definitely a positive, as aside from one they were distinctly unlikable in the original movie.
It plays much more like a thriller here, unlike The Hamiltons which was light on blood and tension.
This time round we have vampire battles, blood and guts a-plenty and a family we find ourselves rooting for rather than railing against.
Definitely how a sequel should be, and this certainly was an improvement in every way.The Thompsons is a fast-paced, beautifully shot, fun and violent film with good performances from all the cast, including a star turn from Knauf, that relies more on the style than the substance.
It's also nice to see everyone returning from the first movie, and whilst they have changed physically in the 6 years, character wise they are still the same but ultimately all pull together as families should.
Whilst the dialogue at points is a little weak (and slightly stereotypical to how us people in Great Britain speak in a Dick Van Dyke movie) and the storyline is fairly simple, I was stunned by how good this film was considering it had been 6 years since the first film, and essentially it's a low-budget vampire film.I would love to see a part 3 to this story, and hopefully Knauf is involved with the writing again as this movie improved on the original in every way.
I definitely recommend this if you like your films fun and bloody, and if you can look past a couple of weak story aspects and dodgy accents then The Thompsons comes highly recommended.
Try and watch part 1 of this series The Hamiltons first if possible though!For more reviews please check out my site: http://headinavice.com/.
So instead of breeding with this new blood from America, they decide to kill them and rape the twin sister.
Who kills their own brother for a complete stranger that they met a day ago?